Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Peter Burgess
microtechsummit preparations: the naila connection- the abed and japan embassy and quadir connections
christopher macrae
Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 9:44 AM
Reply-To: christopher macrae
To: London Mostofa Zaman
Cc: estelle , Chris Temple , Alex Simon , Peter Ryan

tomorrow I go to baltimore to see naila chowdury former ceo of grameen solutions for first time in ages

the 3 things that I find most valuable about naila are

1 i assume she knows how telecentres scale in asia as well as a lot of the zig-zag history of grameen phone and more recently grameen solutions so any of youth and yunus tech dreams - and telecentres are potentially one key apsect of technology; and she continues to say vidar listens to her because her telecentres helped him fill cinemas across usa with his to catch a dollar promotional film of graneen bank in america- as vidra certainly never listens to me, this naila connection is important

2 she seemed to enjoy the same sorts of searches round MIT that I did when we spent 2 days touring there in august -extremely important as MIT is the practical epicentre of all yunus mobile tech dreams but he hasnt got one in there with any of his top people; youth back in usa have little chance of job creation unless they are well linked through every mit resource http://normanmacrae.ning.com/forum/topics/mit-and-norman nor can student competitions anwhere fully cross-fertlise without breadt and depth of boston contacts

LINKEDIN GROUP

Chris Macrae commented in the group on dc will be student entrepreneur competition 13: september 28, 2012 -Can DC students present yunus 20 most exicting youth projects he and university leaders has ever seen youth mediate

3 its important to know which of dhaka's wealthier people want the future culture to be open free and youth productive- she is the only person I know who seems to move in those richer family circles -back in london the way yunus handled energy/dipal destroyed months of work among uk investors, economics journalists and royal family members as well as my credbility to advise them - so i am very touchy on how these high end social business networks are mediated

3a she continues to remind me that now she's a tenant to aded's old residence, she has quite a close if informal relationship with him

I am not sure what all of her disadantages are- obviously she never realised how urgenly unique the opportunity she had in spring 2011 to give yunus an alternative pathway to lamiya/hans etc was especially in technology where hans had burnt major partner connections, and her row with kazi islam is not helpful

I suggest you consider whether to be in direct skype contact with her ; there are things you can investigate with her that I cant and vice versa

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Hi Chris:

I have a good meeting at the Embassy of Japan. We are working together for a working dinner to be held in the last week of this month (any day of 24-26 June) - we would invite peoples including

1. 1. Tamara Abed of Aarong
2. 2. Kamal Qadir of www.Bkash.com
3. 3. Habibullah N Karim, Founding President of Software Association
4. 4. Jamil Ahmed, Head of BRAC Uni's media research wing
5. 5. Colin Patra inheritance of bangladesh foursquare business empire, co-national having served in british SAS ...
6. 6. Kazi Islam
7. 7. Shafqat Ullah
8. 8. Ashik Hossain
9. 9. Abu Mustakim, Editor of a satellite tv channel
10. 10. Nazmul Hossain, lecturer of Dhaka university
11. et al

I know that you do want to see a reader circle of innovations journal. So I was thinking this dinner to make the first reader circle of innovations.

In another event, the embassy would introduce me with the Japanese youths who are currently in Bangladesh either for jobs or for research. This dinner will create room for another event with the youth of Bangladesh and that of Japan in Bangladesh which Japan will help to host and they propose the date in September 2012.

I will update you more on skype.

Mostofa Zaman

• 3 (H N Karim is the guy I was introduced with by Tania Zaman - I will also ask Tania if she has any nomination),
• 4 (Jamil Ahmed is the guy who heads the Brac Uni's media research and is one of the best media institutions in the country)
• 8 (Asik is a young businessman and interested in youth and so I was thinking to involve him)
• 9 (Abu Mustakim is a senior tv journalist and currently an editor of a satellite tv, I met him and he seems to be interested in youth in media)
• 10 (Nazmul is lecturer at dhaka university and works closely with Yunus centre but he is a vocal critic of H&L team, he had also an email conversation with you in the last year)