Ferdous Biotech: Agriculture Powered by Innovation
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.
Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?
Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Founding Story
Team
From a friend
Founder, Chairman
No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Responsible Consumption and Production.
My first entrepreneurial initiative was to drop out of school at Grade 10 to open my NGO - OGGRO. I continued my education through the British Council as a private student and went on to university.
OGGRO began as a donor driven organization but in my pursuit of true sustainability I transformed it into a social enterprise in 2011. In line with stick to my guns, I did not give up on the donor driven projects when the funds dried up, instead, I transformed them into social enterprise.
For example, OGGRO's first project was Abling the Disabled (still continuing) through which we fund the education of visually impaired girls across the country. So far we have supported 67 visually impaired girls in 17 districts with full financial support such as tuition fees, school dress, tutors, and even employed visually impaired individuals and imported a Braille machine so that they can convert the textbooks into Braille for the girls to study. Why girls? Because being a girl in a village is difficult enough, being a visually impaired girl is even worse. With limited resource I had to focus on a target group so that there could be tangible change. The project was initially funded by a donor organization called NAASR, but eventually the funds dried up. I could not stop the project because I visited the girls at their homes and convinced them to go to school and I could not leave them in the middle of the way, so I started tutoring in Economics for well off students, and it soon turned into a viable business and the income I received from it was channeled into the project. Sacrifice is key for an entrepreneur, and I gave up on my wish to go to the US for my college education as the project was entirely depended on my income as a teacher. The risk paid off as soon the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAoC) gave OGGRO the prestigious Youth Solidarity Fund in 2009 for a project on Human Rights while the MTV Staying Alive Foundation (UK) gave as an award and funding for "Outstanding Achievement in HIV/AIDs Awareness" in the same year. These two funds kept the organization alive. Soon after I had a major car crash and for 2 months I could not teach and I decided that it would be too risky for the organization to sustain only on my income. So with a small amount that I was able to save I started OGGRO Stationery Enterprise, through which we trained our visually impaired girls to make school stationery which we then marketed to leading schools across the country. The business became a success and the profit from the business continues to go into the education of the girls while also generating employment for them. Many of the girls supported have passed through universities (first in their families) and are now employed or doing business and I continue to be in touch with them which is validation of my own life's purpose if nothing else. Realizing the need to diversify, we recently opened OGGRO Crafts, through a start up fund from the Prince Claus Fund of the Netherlands. OGGRO Crafts makes innovative handicraft products which are produced by underprivileged girls (including visually impaired girls) and while still growing, the enterprise is able to provide jobs and we hope to break even in April 2016.
My love for agriculture has also taken me towards the Dairy business. As an economist, I am keenly focused on market failures, because if we can minimize this, then the market, viz a viz social enterprises can provide sustainable solutions. The dairy industry here is inefficient, the milk is not pure and it is controlled by 3 major players. I like to break markets, and that's what I plan to do in my future, challenge the institution. So in August 2014 I opened OGGRO Dairy with my team with just 10 cows, and today we have a full pastuerization plant and a partnership with an american owned grocery company in Dhaka through which we are now providing high premium bottled milk delivery (first of its kind in entire Bangladesh) to households. The business is growing quickly and not satisfied and seeing potential at every turn of my head, my team and I are working on a new investment proposition for OGGRO DAIRY PARK, which will be based on 200 Acres of land and 1800 cows, the first organic dairy in Bangladesh with cows that can graze for the first time! The proposal will be ready in March 2016 and we plan to produce 36000 liters of milk a day and also begin Bangladesh's first processed cheese production. At the heart of it is a social enterprise because by producing high premium milk, my vision is to cross subsidize and provide low cost milk to female garments works who recently become mothers through partnership with selected garments companies. It may be mentioned that winning the Unilever Awards will help in getting investment for OGGRO DAIRY PARK as well.
Perhaps my greatest entrepreneurial initiative was the moment when I met Sir Fazle Hassan Abed, the Founder of BRAC, the largest NGO in the world and told him that one day, I plan to make OGGRO as big as BRAC so that it can compliment the over 120 million people that BRAC has already reached. His smile was acknowledgment enough that maybe I am on the right track.
Katarsis Ventures is a UK registered social enterprise and provides mentorship and advisory services on a payment by results basis.
OGGRO Dairy is a partner with us, enabling us to sweat assets, and share revenues to make our business model more robust.
Members of staff from the Commonwealth Development Corporation offer us mentoring to help build our networks for our research work and business model development.
Agri-Insight and Pro-Rustica are our chosen partners for the development of a tech-enabled supply chain and community of small hold farmers.
Yinmore (China) and Sunrise Potato are emerging key partners for import and export strategy.