As Payoneer’s Brand Ambassador in Bangladesh, I had the pleasure of organizing the first official Payoneer Forum in Dhaka, Bangladesh on November 28, 2014. With more than 800 people in attendance, I got to meet and speak with industry insiders, professionals, and business owners. It was amazing to get to know so many people, and to see in person how active and impressive Bangladesh’s freelance and professional community is today.
For anyone that wasn’t able to attend, below is a full recap of the event. This is a first of many, and I hope to see you at the next Payoneer Forum in Bangladesh!
People started coming in as early as 3:00pm! Everyone was so excited and waited until 4:00pm to get in. We started the check in process at 4:00pm and, as announced, kept the gate open until 5:30pm. We offered everyone a free Payoneer branded Polo T-shirt, Pen, and a folder with note paper & the event’s agenda. People were really happy to get these gifts!
I warmly welcomed everyone to the first official Payoneer event, with an announcement that this is just the start of many official events! The crowd was cheering when they heard this.
For the welcome session we invited on our head table – Mr. Abul Kashem (CEO Xponent), Mr. Kaeesh (BASIS treasurer), Saidur Mamun Khan (Elance-oDesk), Patrick de Courcy (Head of Asia Pacific at Payoneer), Mr. Arfan Ali and Mr. Zia Arfin from Bank Asia to welcome the crowd on behalf of Payoneer and share their excitement to attend the first official event.
Saidur Mamum Khan, Country Manager for Elance-oDesk, represented the trend of Elance & oDesk in Bangladesh. He mentioned that the number of freelancers registering is growing faster; as of Q4 2014 the total number of freelancers registered was 429,796! He also said the total worth of work completed in 2013 was a whopping $750M. In addition, he discussed the earnings trend – $1.6B were earned online until today and the forecast is to hit $5B by 2018!
Shoeb Mohammod, Country Manager for People Per Hour, started the session with a small question: “How many of you know about the People Per Hour marketplace?”. Surprisingly, most of the attendees raised their hand. Mr. Shoeb said how fun is getting mixed into freelancing; he also mentioned how people, including stay-at-home moms, are getting involved in freelancing every single day. He ended his session with an invitation to join the PPH Dhaka Live Event, which will take place on December 12th.
I started my story from the beginning of my online career, when I started on oDesk and completed my first job for only $16 to gain trust, and how now I make my full time living doing online marketing. I revealed my biggest secret and reason for success is to “reinvest”: I invested most of my earnings to learn new things and upgrade skills which are now responsible for my success.
Mr. Arfan Ali, Deputy Managing Director at Bank Asia, presented a big overview of how banks are contributing to the development of the ICT sector in Bangladesh. People are working hard to earn remittance and the bank is working hard to make sure they get this remittance transferred quickly and safely to local banks. He also announced about the new partnership between Bank Asia and Payoneer.
Patrick de Courcy, Head of Asia Pacific at Payoneer, introduced Payoneer’s current position on the global market as well as the Bangladeshi market. He announced the “Local Bank Transfer” service, along with a step by step walkthrough on how to request a withdrawal. The whole crowd got very excited about the bank withdrawal as they waited to be able to receive their funds to their local bank account, and showed their appreciation with a small shout along with ongoing claps!
Shafiul Alam Biplob, Chief Executive Officer for Aapbd.com, a very successful and high earner in Bangladesh was invited to share his success story. He shared how he started his first job, which was worth only $100 back in 2010; he faced a lot pf problems like damaging his laptop, internet problem and more – but nothing was able to stop him. He received help from friends, made his clients understand about his problem and finally he delivered all the work that he was assigned for. He said the main thing was getting stuff done, no matter what you face; find a solution and get it done. Now he’s a real star in the app development community and also runs a few social media group about app development.
Mr. Abul Kashem, Founder of the newest yet most active Community BIPC (Bangladesh Internet Professionals Community) and CEO & Founder of BDhire, spoke about the importance of networking & engaging your community as a freelancer. He said typical freelancers work from home alone most of the time. He explained that if people work alone they get bored, de-motivated, backdated and might end up missing opportunities which can be open for them by getting help from likeminded people; the best way to get in touch with likeminded people is by engaging in different communities and networking with them.
A tight community always helps get new information, opportunities and keeps a freelancer motivated for even more hard work! He said the best way to network is to be open, honest and let everyone know who you are, what you do and what your skills are.
We invited 4 completely different individuals but all are related to Internet Professionals or a field that allows them to to give insider tips & reveal tricks for the audience. Kawshar Ahmed, CEO of JoomShaper, runs his company with optimal success and to get there he had to create and maintain a big team of professionals. He spoke about how to manage & maintain a team for maximum productivity. Saidur Mamun Khan, Country Manager Elance-oDesk, gave tips for the new professionals about how to overcome frustrations of failure and how you can “kick-start” your online career. Mr. Zia Arfin, Sr. VP & Head of International Banking at Bank Asia, revealed how professionals effectively manage their earnings and funds and how internet professionals can also manage their funds to be able to reinvest on them. Mr. Abul Kashem gave important tips – how freelancers should manage their time and what are the best times to work for better productivity.
Mr. Kaeesh pointed out the success of the freelancer community in Bangladesh; everyone was clapping and cheering for minutes! He mentioned how Bangladesh’s freelancer community is doing really great and that is why companies like Payoneer come and host events. Not only Payoneer, but companies like oDesk & Elance are also holding events in Bangladesh. It’s easy to see the online professional sector is growing, and this success has created a market with an international standard.
He also mentioned the Basis Freelancers Award ceremony, and how that award motivates many freelancers every year. Apparently we had several award winners right there at the venue! He ended his speech with a big thank you to the community for their hard work and success.
We invited Patrick & Mr. Kaeesh to help with the Raffle draw for a brand new sealed iPad Mini 3 Retina 16GB. Mr. Kaeesh picked the winner and Patrick, Mr. Kaeesh & I handed the iPad to winner Mohitul Islam.
I closed the event officially with the promise to come back again with new events!
