Why Bangladesh is losing the innovation race

If you walk into a random classroom in Bangladesh and ask the students what they want to be when they grow up, there are some fairly common answers that might reach your ears. Some might want to be a doctor or maybe an engineer or a BCS officer, while others might just want to go abroad. The latter answer is more of a survival strategy than a professional goal. It also leads us to one of the most urgent questions facing our nation: how can we build a country where our brightest people would want to stay and work towards improving the nation?

World Creativity and Innovation Day (WCID)—observed on April 21—aims to raise awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in all aspects of human development. The day often invites policy announcements, innovation summits, or budget discussions across the globe. However, in Bangladesh, the day doesn’t seem to inspire such discussions. This needs to change. Especially as we are close to graduating out of LDC status, a milestone that could strip away trade preferences covering roughly 70 percent of our global exports. Upgrading our status shouldn’t feel like falling off a cliff but without a plan to replace current trade benefits, that’s where we might be heading regardless of whether we granted with the grace period we’ve asked for.

The WCID started its journey when a Canadian creativity advocate, Marci Segal, launched the first observance in 2002 to address a growing innovation gap in her country. Fifteen years later, it became a global mandate through UN Resolution 71/284. April 21 was strategically chosen just before Earth Day on April 22 for a reason: we can’t build a sustainable world without a creative one. Creativity and innovation are also crucial to global economy as cultural and creative industries generate annual revenues of almost $2.3 trillion globally, contributing 3.1 percent of the global GDP, according to a UN estimate.

Shashi Tharoor recently argued that India could become the world’s innovation capital. He was not referring to a vision but a policy decision already in place. India has 1,800-plus Global Capability Centers (GCCs). GCCs are dedicated offshore hubs where multinational companies set up their own teams to handle everything from software engineering and data analytics to product development and AI research. This was possible because India built, deliberately and over decades, the conditions necessary: regulatory certainty, deep talent pipelines, and relevant infrastructure.

Our engineers are also world-class. According to experts, there are some 10 lakh freelancers in the country and around 650,000 of them are in the IT field who bring in about a billion dollars annually. Many of those living abroad remain emotionally invested in Bangladesh too and with the right policy framework, their knowledge, networks, and capital can add to our country’s economy. A diaspora engagement strategy—offering equity pathways, co-founding incentives, tax benefits, or the opportunity to remotely contribute—may convert brain drain into “brain gain.”

Furthermore, in the Global Innovation Index 2025, Bangladesh ranked 106th among 139 economies. Our score of 21 points, up from 19.1 in 2024 reflects a persistent paradox: we consistently outperform on outputs relative to inputs. bKash didn’t have a world-class research and development lab but became hugely successful with seven crore users. The credit could be owed to the smart people identifying and filling a structural gap. Pathao, iFarmer, 10-Minute School, among others are proof that Bangladeshi ingenuity consistently outpaces institutional support. But instinct isn’t always enough. Bangladesh’s total research and development investment stood at just 0.03 percent of GDP in 2022-23 against Vietnam’s 0.54 percent, India’s 0.70 percent, and China’s 2.55 percent. Our budget allocation for science and technology is also miniscule and we must have the courage to follow the roadmap to fix it.

First, we must prioritise research and development spending. Both public allocation and tax frameworks should be channelled for research funding. The regulatory sandbox piloted by Bangladesh Bank or a2i for fintech could be a template for agri-tech, health-tech, and energy-tech.

Second, the government must reconstruct the education sector from the ground up. When a considerable number of tertiary degree holders remain unemployed, it shows a gross mismatch between classroom output and market demand. Syllabuses must include more technical programmes such as AI, data science, systems thinking, and applied problem-solving. Universities must learn to build genuine bridges to industry, not merely produce graduates and call it a pipeline.

Third, we must make sure innovation transcends geographic restrictions. Bangladesh’s startup ecosystem remains overwhelmingly concentrated in Dhaka. Regional hubs in Chattogram, Sylhet, Rajshahi, and Khulna with infrastructure guarantees and targeted incentives would distribute both risk and opportunity. The next “bKash” should be as likely to emerge from somewhere in Sylhet as from Dhaka’s Gulshan area.

Fourth, we must attract GCC investments. India built its GCC advantage over two decades. Bangladesh has a window of cost base, young workforce, expanding digital infrastructure to position ourselves as South Asia’s next GCC hub.

Fifth, we should make staying home competitive. Freelancers working for foreign clients and diaspora professionals in global tech hubs are responding to better opportunities. To close the gap, we need equity culture in startups, stock option frameworks, competitive compensation, and IP protection strong enough that building something here feels worth the risk.

As a country on the path to LDC graduation, we can’t afford to be without an innovation strategy. The trade preferences that cushioned our growth for decades are expiring, automation is arriving in factories millions depend on, and our most capable minds are making the calculation as to where their best future lies. So, we must ensure innovation is something we are taking seriously. The most innovative economies did not get there because their people were born more creative. It is because their governments, educators, and businesses worked together to build ecosystems where creativity compounds. Bangladesh has talent, but it lacks effective institutions to treat imagination as investment and failure as data. So, on this World Creativity and Innovation Day, the question is not how we observe this day but whether we are willing to honour what it demands before running out of time.

Dr Sabbir Ahmad is engineering and corporate leader with experience in digital connectivity, energy infrastructure, and sustainable development. He can be reached at sabbir@ieee.org.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.