BYLC Ventures holds virtual entrepreneurship bootcamp

Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC), under its BYLC Ventures programme, hosted a virtual bootcamp from July 9 to July 11.

A total of 50 teams participated in the first-ever virtual bootcamp by BYLC. They were selected from over 400 applications for Cohort Two of BYLC's six-month long accelerator programme, said a press release.

The purpose of the bootcamp was two-fold: first, to build the capacity of the participants through workshops on design thinking, product market fit, building a minimum viable product, and other business tools; and second, to assess the suitability of the participants to receive seed funding from BYLC.

A jury board will select the top 25 teams from the bootcamp for the final selection round, where an investment committee will select the top 10 who will each receive $10,000 each and join BYLC's accelerator programme.

At the bootcamp, BYLC chairperson Akhter Matin Chaudhury said, "To be a successful entrepreneur you need a bit of luck. But luck is not always an accident. Hard work brings with it its own luck. If you work hard, things will come to you."

In a fireside chat with the participants, Ken Wilcox, emeritus chairman, Silicon Valley Bank, said, "As a leader, you must be the person that you want others to be. Actively model the qualities you want to see in your team."

While sharing his insights in a session on perseverance and grit, Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash, said, "Startup founders need to have perseverance to follow through on their idea. Success in a startup is 1% idea and 99% execution. I would encourage you all to have a bold vision but also to focus on operationalizing that vision."

The bootcamp was supported by IKEA Foundation and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Other partners included BetterStories Limited, LightCastle Partners, and Hatch Global.