The Dhaka Times Desk The technology sector of Bangladesh is also moving forward in keeping with the world. One of those who have contributed to the country's technology development is A. And. M Asif Rahman, CEO of Communications and Founder of WP Developers.
An exclusive interview with this talented person. This interview was published in 'Tech Ventures Talk', a regular event of Techshahr.com. The interview has been published in Q&A form for The Dhaka Times readers:
Even before he joined the university life, he started his journey as an entrepreneur and entrepreneur. Working with several sectors of information technology. Apart from own company, there are also investments in various IT companies. Once the world's most popular social media also invested in WP Developers founder M. Asif Rahman. He talks about his ventures and various IT related ventures at techshahr.com's regular event 'Tech Ventures Talk'.
Q: The start of your entrepreneurial career before starting university. Tell me about it.
M. Asif Rahman: I was a programmer. I learned and started programming in 8th standard. After getting admission in college, I got completely involved with programming. Then I started working with web programming. My first contribution to open source started in 2003. Since 2004 I started actively contributing to WordPress. In January of that year, my first company, AR Com, started from where we used to provide various web solutions. After that I joined the university in September. That's why my entrepreneurial life started before I entered university. For this, I had to suffer a lot in my university life. But I persisted.
Q: How did your WP Developers company start?
M. Asif Rahman: WP Developers started in 2011-12. Since I have been involved in various core activities of WordPress since its inception. I started working with WordPress right after my university life in 2009. A regular WordPress event is called 'WordCamp'. I have participated in about 100 wordcamps till the corona period of 2019. We have organized this 'WordCamp' once in Bangladesh as well. 2011 WordCamp held in San-Francisco was not part of an idea of mine. I talked to the founder of WordPress about that. After that talk, I came to the country and started working on that idea. Since then I started creating various plugins and slowly started selling them. Since 2017, we have been doing these things seriously.
Q: You've been involved with WordPress since its inception. How do you see the change between then and now?
M. Asif Rahman: In 2004-2005 WordPress users were not that many. But after 2006 many good developers of Bangladesh were working. However, at that time WordPress was not well regarded by the programming community. At that time it was said that it is a very small CMS that does not deserve that much importance. But now the popularity of WordPress has increased to such an extent that these words are no longer true. Now many people in Bangladesh are working with various themes and plugins.
Question: Now not only websites are being created using WordPress, but various things of WordPress are also being created from Bangladesh. How do you see the matter?
M. Asif Rahman: It has been great in Bangladesh. Those who are already working as developers are slowly working on several solutions. Now there are companies that are making plugins, themes in Bangladesh which are not only doing well in Bangladesh, but it is seen that these companies are working from the top outside the country as well. With time this demand is increasing and many people are joining it. WordPress has a lot of work in the freelancing space. It's not that everyone has to be a good programmer here. As such there are now millions of people who are working with WordPress.
Q: What role do you think Basis has in startups?
M. Asif Rahman: I myself have been working on the Standing Committee on Startups of BASIS for a long time. When we say startup, we may always think that startup means IT venture. That is not the point. But since I am interested in information technology, I am interested in working with information technology based startups. In particular, how to support such startups, how the organization will move forward, how to recruit manpower, etc. are very important for them. Basis can play a very strong and active role in these places. It also appears that many new startups are doing quite well on their own. They can also help newbies and themselves. BASIS can do matchmaking in these places too. Also, since BASIS is the top organization in the software and ITES sector, BASIS can help for work outside our country if desired. Even though I have been on the startup committee for a long time, it still seems that BASIS has not done all the work. But maybe very soon BASIS will work more actively in such activities. The benefits of which will also be available.
Q: Apart from entrepreneurship, you are also associated with investments. Tell me about that.
M. Asif Rahman: In fact, I did not join the investment thinking that I would invest. Since I am not actively participating in IT related events held in different countries after completing my university life, I started to get to know many people. At that time, many small acquaintances used to invest in some venture. I got one such opportunity and from there I got into investing.
[Interviewed by Techshahr.com Special Correspondent Nurunnabi Chowdhury]
Watch the interview video
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