Bangladesh Angels, Dittofi assist to launch five apps through no-code accelerator

Bangladesh Angels and Dittofi, a VC-backed full-stack no-code platform, jointly launched the first-ever no-code accelerator for startups and entrepreneurs in Bangladesh in August.

Five startup founders and teams are participating in the series of workshops to develop and launch apps, without any coding required, in the next five weeks, said a press release. 

Given the paucity of tech talent who would join startups in the early days, entrepreneurs lacking technical know-how have to spend an exorbitant amount in making their apps through third parties, leaving them with significantly less capital for research and development and also exposing them to potential intellectual capital risks. 

No-code, also known as no-programming solutions, enables entrepreneurs to build apps by using visual elements, without the need to spend months and years learning how to code using programming languages.

Bangladesh Angels, with support from Dittofi, wants to lead the no-code scene in Bangladesh and make it cost-effective for entrepreneurs over here to implement their ideas into apps right away, without having to recruit technical talent or outsource to expensive third parties.

Participants are all working on a wide range of problems.

Drinkwell, is a US-based startup working on innovative solutions for water purification and is serving around 308,000 people in Dhaka alone.

A stealth fintech startup is working on making investing, managing and tracking money easier and accessible for the masses.

Dhaka Cast is a healthcare startup focused on solutions for supporting diabetes patients. Skyflora is working to make urban gardening widespread by providing solutions for gardening in roof-tops, balconies, and various urban areas.

Finally, Sqirl is working on bridging the gap between talented people and early entrepreneurs in Bangladesh by building a platform that allows ventures to hire from a pool of skilled individuals.

"I am delighted to participate in the Dittofi Bootcamp with a team of non-developers for our startup Sqirl, which is in the idea stage." Nazat Chowdhury, founder of Sqirl

"We are confident this will reduce our initial investment and help us go to market swiftly and iterate frequently to refine our product in a very lean manner," Nazat Chowdhury said.

Speaking on organising the workshop with Bangladesh Angels, James Virgo, Chief Executive Officer at Dittofi, said "At Dittofi we see that all too often great ideas are blocked by the substantial cost and high risk of failure that comes with developing a software application."

"Existing no-code platforms all fall short in delivering scalable full-stack code that can be owned and deployed by the creator. In contrast, Dittofi's next-generation no-code tool seeks to substantially reduce the development cost & cut the dramatic risk of failure without compromising ownership of source code.", he said.

"With this partnership, Dittofi is excited to accelerate the no-code education & app development of both technical & non-technical cohorts from within the BAN ecosystem. BAN has an exceptional network of businesses & Dittofi aims to further upskill each company so that they can build & own valuable technological solutions to real-world problems in a more predictable & cost-effective way.", he stated.

The workshop, designed based on accelerators for startups, will guide the participating startups from aspects of business development to the ideation of product to eventually launching their app that will be market-ready in a matter of weeks, not months.

By the end of the workshop, each of the five startups will have highly functional apps, allowing them to take their idea to the market.  BAN and Dittofi plan to expand the training to more startups, as well as software development firms, in the next iteration of the accelerator.