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COLUMN IFTY ISLAM

Wikinomics and importance of national self-confidence
In today's column I wanted to touch on two themes: firsdy, encouraging signs of growing student engagement in the Brand Bangladesh initiative. Secondly, the concept of Wikinomics in our efforts to change both our country image as well as build our national self-confidence. While these may seem disparate themes 1 have picked at random, mass collaboration and our branding initiative are more closely connected than we realise.
Several months ago 1 wrote a Daily Star column on the Importance of Defining Brand Bangladesh' and a number of parallel initiatives that are emerging suggest many in academia, business, non-resident Bangladeshis (NRB) and even some policymakers, share my enthusiasm and optimism that Bangladesh can overcome its 'perception deficit' with the rest of theworld.
In discussing nation branding with my colleagues at AT Capital, one of the recurrent themes was the importance of Bangladeshis having a more positive image of their own country. They underlined that national selfconfidence about what we have achieved since 1971, as the future untapped potential of the nation, was often missing in both the domestic population as well as NRBs.
In that context, I was very encouraged by a student competition organised by Sarah Siddiqi, co-founder of Bangladesh Changemakers'. The objective was to have teams of students from our leading business and economics faculties to come up with themes, concepts and strategies to market Brand Bangladesh. I attended the final on August 10 held at University of Dhaka Faculty of Business and was impressed by the enthusiasm and passion evident in the presentations.
Why is the participation of Bangladesh's youth so important in
Branding and Self-Confidence initiatives? Well another way to look at this question is to ask which segment of our population ought to be the most optimistic about the future? - certainly our students and the younger generation. Indeed, an intrinsic sense of optimism and what is possible might be a defining characteristic of the youth across all nations. Would they not be ideally suited to form an important part of our 'brand ambassadors' strategy.
It is the youth of the country that arguably has the largest vested interest in the future direction of Bangladesh, and surely our national branding strategists should incorporate their feedback. Finally, our younger generation, especially in
our leading universities, will be the influential decision makers in both the private and public sector as well as NRBs in the future. Having their buy-in to the national re-branding effort will likely yield tlie most substantive and sustained future payback. They are our most important 'changemakers' as far as country' image is concerned. They have the power to move us from 'static observationists', that is a nation accepting stoically all its problems, to a country of 'dynamic forward thinkers' that is proactively seeking solutions.
Coming on to my second theme, last week I also read a fascinating book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams entitled 'Wikinomics: How
Mass Collaboration Changes Everything'. Many of you will have used Wikipedia, the online dictionary and knowledge centre that is maintained and put together by a large group of volunteers rather than a centralised corporation.
In “Wikinomics" the authors note that conventional wisdom says companies innovate, differentiate, and compete by doing certain things right. They hire and retain the best people' to generate new ideas, make new discoveries, compete, and expand their business lines. They 'listen to their customers and protect their intellectual property fiercely. They think globally but act locally, and they execute well (they have good management and controls).
Today, thanks largely to the internet, the kind of creativity and innovation that used to take place primarily within corporate walls, increasingly takes place over large amorphous networks of peers. Millions of people already join forces in self-organised collaborations such as Linux and Wikipedia that produce dynamic new goods and services that rival those of the world's largest and best-financed enterprises.
In addition to Wikipedia, another good example of mass collaboration is YouTUbe. the world's most popular video sharing site. Rather than buy up a video library to stream over the Web, the founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley made it easy for visitors to share, rate, and comment on short clips that users upload themselves. In effect, Youlhbe created a powerful engine for community-building and let its customers self-organisc. With some 65,000 new clips uploaded daily and over 100 million videos served per day, You Tube is now a formidalih force in the next generation of online video.
Don Tapscott noted in a recent Businessweek article that. A new
breed of 21st-century enterprise is emergingone that opens its doors to the world; co-innovates with everyone, especially customers; shares resources that were previously closely guarded; harnesses the power of mass collaboration; and behaves not as a multi-national, but as something new: a truly global business. These new modus operand! revolve around four powerful new ideas: openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally.'
So how is Wikinomics, Brand Bangladesh and youth participation inter-related? Well Bangladesh has one of the youngest populations in Asia with a median age of under 25. The size of this youth has been estimated to be as large as 70 million people. Imagine if we can capture the imagination of a sizeable portion of them through effectively leveraging our student populations into spreading a message of optimism and positivity about Brand Bangladesh and our country's future This would require a targeted . and systematic campaign of workshops and discussions in educational institutions throughout the country.
This is an initiative Professor Ferhat Anwar of IBA and others at the Bangladesh Brand Forum have shown some enthusiasm to support. But this is the kind of mass collaboration' that could have a substantial positive effect on both our country image and the prospects for Bangladesh's future.
The passion and optimism of our youth should not be a national asset we fail to appreciate. I look forward to hearing positive messages from my fellow Bangladeshi "Wikinomists” in the future.
The writer is the managing partner of Asian Tiger Capital Partners and welcomes feedback at ifty islam@at-capital com.