Young entrepreneurs seek tax holiday in IT business to develop startups
Amid inspiring pin-drop silence, with the participations of entrepreneurs and young speakers, the first Youth Tech Summit was held at KIB Auditorium in Dhaka on Wednesday. At the end of the conference conducted by bdjobs chief executive Fahim Mashroor, the organizers held placards urging them not to impose taxes at this time of investment.
At this time, AI powered Agritech, Health Tech and Ed Tech drew the attention of the government with placards in the first AI Tech Summit of the country held at the KIB Auditorium in the capital.
In the concluding speech, the VCPAB President Shamim Ahsan urged the government telling, "We don't want grants or free money." We want an environment conducive to global competition. For this, he suggested to exempt three taxes next year and then gradually impose tax at a tolerable rate.
This former president of BASIS expressed hope that Bangladesh will soon become the capital of global AI use cases, noting that the AI revolution has started in Bangladesh from today. He said, it is possible to establish Bangladesh as the capital of global AI use case by solving the problems of 180 million people with AI based open-source model. The whole world can benefit from the AI use case models of countries with such huge populations.
For this reason, he urged to focus on the problem-solving solution of using open-source modules and to find the market potential. He said, success will come if you can create co-founding team. So, the focus should be on how to provide the best solution using AI.
BDOSN general secretary Munir Hasan said, "In the eighties, we travelled from BUET to Gulistan by sharing a rickshaw. But we could not match the dots. So, we couldn't start Uber. Don't make the same mistakes others have made. We mistakenly called you the future. But you are actually present.
Advising to stick with ones instead of lakhs, he added, every 15 years there is a revolution. Now the AI revolution has begun. To catch this revolution, you need to study, network and work with focus. Four hours of reading should be followed after four hours of lectures.
KM Hasan Ripon, executive director of Bangladesh Skill Development Institute and Daffodil International College said, we have to decide whether we want full automation or headless automation. At the same time, we need to get out of ‘One Sight Kids All’ and anchor in the ‘Face Every Thing and Rise’ philosophy.
JCI president Imran Qadir recently highlighted the vision of venture capitalists in San Francisco and said that the market of 180 million people in such a small place has great potential for them. So many things can be done only if positive. That is why he called for the removal of VAT-tax on learning tools like ChatGPT.
BIJF President Nazneen Nahar said, “We like to tell the good stories of the industry. Every story today means our country. our success, as a result, this story of 12 successful entrepreneurs on one stage has become a milestone for us”.
Bangladesh Innovation Forum convener Ariful Hasan Apu said, given the opportunity, today's youth will uphold the country's status in the world.
Career writer Muhammad Altamish Nabeel advised the young people in attendance to develop networking to be a little better than yesterday instead of being a frog in the well.
20 budding successful entrepreneurs and 12 speakers from the AI and ICT sector addressed the three sessions in the Tech Summit. While delivering his welcome speech, Fahim Mashroor, chief executive of BdJobs said, "Only young people can lead this new technology like AI. All kinds of support should be provided to young entrepreneurs. He urged the government to ensure that no new tax is imposed on these entrepreneurs in the next budget. Because in this changing time of technology, a lot of new investment is needed to develop new AI based products. Imposing new income tax or VAT at this stage will hamper investment.”
