Why can't we do that?

Bill Gates started Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg registered the domain name for Facebook when they were 19. Is that only because they come from the land of opportunities? Then how come our neighbouring country has so many successful entrepreneurs? Truth is, we have a lot of successful young people.
Now, take a while to think about how we came to know the name of Zuckerberg. The Facebook homepage doesn't show his name. Not many of us know the founder of Bdjobs.com or Onnorokom Software Ltd. because they are not publicised. Our young generation knows every singer or TV actor. The successful entrepreneurs of our times should have been given this stardom. We tend to talk about politicians, musicians and players. It's high time we talked about our entrepreneurs and followed them instead.
Another reason we are not being able to build great business ventures is the fear of social gossip. If a college student starts selling shoes in the streets of Dhaka, everyone will talk ill about him. But, if he grows up to start a shoe factory, everybody will praise him. People in our country start a business out of need not to create or experiment. Need doesn't motivate innovation.
The idea sharing space is limited. Our young generation has great ideas which can be turned into successful businesses. But those ideas remain to themselves due to the limited space to express and work on it further. There are workshops and competitions being arranged nowadays to encourage young entrepreneurs and business leaders. But there should be a permanent platform. There is only one venture-capital firm in Bangladesh and no company to provide initial seed funding to start-ups. The large corporations don't have an open policy towards people who want to share new ideas. There should be an idea sharing and discussion unit in every large company where anyone can pitch his idea and discuss about its business potential. Lastly, the copyright laws should be strengthened. Great creations are going in vain due to piracy as it's difficult to create something, but very easy to reproduce it.
We may not have a Ron Conway among us, but we have people who understand the value of a dream. Our country will see great things when the dreamers and the believers unite to take the path less traveled. As Eleanor Roosevelt said: "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

The writer is an undergrad student at Dhaka University