Ivy Huq Russell

Founder of www.maya.com.bd

While she was pregnant with now three-year old daughter Amena, Ivy Huq Russell took time out from her busy job as a hedge fund manager to come and visit her home in Bangladesh. With a Masters degree in Economics and Finance from the Warwick Business School, Ivy had moved on to investment management working for firms like HSBC, UBSGAM and Barclays Wealth.

Her usual hectic schedule generally left her with little time, but during her visit to Bangladesh in 2008, Ivy quickly realised that there were some fundamental differences in the way pregnancy is perceived here and in the UK.

“It was shocking to see how naive some girls/women could be and instantly I felt that there was a gap in the market to provide women with trusted health information and a space to talk about various issues in their lives in a constructive manner,” says Ivy. And just like that the idea for Maya was born.

“After maternity leave, I went back to work, but the idea for Maya was so strong that I resigned from my position within six months,” continues Ivy. “During my pregnancy I was made aware of multiple online sources of factual information as well as connections with other women going through similar situations,” says Ivy. “I felt everyone in Bangladesh should have access to the same, but tailored to the nuances of their own situation.”

Named after her mother, Maya is Bangladesh's first website dedicated to women's interests and needs and was launched in September 2011. But most of the background work took place in the two years preceding it. “Soon after I quit my job in 2010, I had exhaustive discussions with the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK and managed to secure syndication partnership to use their world class content. It was then I decided to dedicate myself full-time to this project.”

The response to the project has been overwhelmingly positive with Maya already reaching upto 20,000 users. Her plans, however, are much bigger. ” We estimate that there are about 1.4 million female internet users in Bangladesh and Maya aims to reach as many of them as possible. The content on the site will continue to develop beyond maternity and we aim to cover all topics that are important to women - ranging from serious matters such as domestic violence to more light hearted content on fashion,” says Ivy. “I feel that Maya is the catalyst that will encourage women to share knowledge and experiences and form an engaged community, thus helping raise awareness of women's issues.”

by Quazi Zulquarnain Islam

Rummaella Siddiqui

Director of Cats Eye

Among friends she is one of the liveliest people, gracious and always laughing. Among peers, she is a real force to be reckoned with; a rising star in the world of fashion and retail clothing industry. At home she is a hands-on mother, loving wife, caring sister and dutiful daughter. To me, she is my childhood best friend, my 'sister', Rummaella Siddiqui (it is a real coincidence that we have the same last name as well!)

Rummaella is the second of the four daughters of Sayeed and Ashrafun Siddiqui, the founders of the famous Bangladeshi clothing brand, Cats Eye. After completing her graduation from North South University in 2005 in Business Administration, Rummaella joined the family business. It came as no surprise. Ever since I knew her from grade 4, we knew that the two older sisters (Raffaella Siddiqui is also in Cats Eye's management team) were destined to take over the business that they saw their parents build up with hard work, honesty, and dedication.

Everything about Cats Eye made Rummaella proud; her parents' stories of struggles, the gradual brand building of the company, the clothes her father designed, the administration her mother and uncle ran, their fun yet efficient familial work space, and most of all, the customers who keep coming back for more! It is from that pride that Rummaella has a vision to make Cats Eye even bigger, even better than what it already is.

The first thing she did was to take a chance with women's clothing. Cats Eye is traditionally men's clothing wear, specialising in formal/semi-formal wear, so moving on to women's clothing was a big risk, which Rummaella took as a challenge. As her father always said, there is logic of sequence first men's clothing, then women's and then accessories, because fashion is not only the clothes one wears, but all that is needed to complete a person's outlook.

Having spent most of her time in Bangladesh, she understands the cultural conservatism of the country but at the same time, her travels to neighbouring Asian countries keep her in tune with urban youth trends. She has successfully brought out Western designs with Asian sensitivity. Rummaella also designs her own line of silver jewellery at Cats Eye, providing one stop fashion solution for women in Dhaka.

Rummaella's line of designs is modern yet culturally aware, fresh yet classy, youthful yet for everyone. She has given a fresh outlook to urban wear and what is culturally acceptable as women's wear in Bangladesh. All of us friends proudly wear Cats Eye, and especially Rummaella's creations. We all hope to see the new management and design team of Cats Eye with Rummaella, Raffaella and Sadiq Quddus (Rummaella's husband) go on to make the name the first Bangladeshi internationally acclaimed brand.

by Shahana Siddiqui

Md. Sazid Hossain Quasem

Managing Director of Golden Village Engineering Pvt Ltd.

An innovative person by nature, Sazid Quasem believes small industry is the best way to employ people. However, many people do not know how they would do it or where to start. Adding to this, machinery and equipment to produce any item is usually expensive and often imported from richer countries.

So Quasem set out to design and develop, locally and at low cost, different types of machinery and equipment, in amounts that suited small investors. He has so far produced at least 200 different items, such as ball pens, wax candles, organic fertiliser, mosquito coil, chanachur (a snack) and muri. Quasem, who is 39 years old, has also developed auto-packaging plants, washing powder mixer plants, and water treatment plants.

Quasem not only sells the machinery, but also trains his customers in entrepreneurship, and gives them information on how to source raw materials and market products. He has so far trained several thousand people. After their training, entrepreneurs have sometimes purchased the necessary equipment from him to start manufacturing their own products.

From the experience of training, Quasem has prepared detailed project profiles including the formulation of about 300 items and published this information as a booklet. In the future, he intends to publish another booklet on 500 items. With these booklets profiling hundreds of products, he hopes to inspire people across Bangladesh to start enterprises of their own. He also organises regular free seminars for aspiring entrepreneurs.

On his own initiative, Quasem has single-handedly done something people otherwise believe should have been done by the Government. In recognition of his work, Quasem is the recipient of around 40 awards from different local bodies, but has escaped the notice of national award giving bodies.

Dr. K. Siddique-e Rabbani