hey I’m gonna talk about how a story can
change your life but let me warn you I’m
not a storyteller in traditional sense
in fact my family has been in business
for the last three generations my father
on the other hand had a knack of
producing Bengali films back in the
early 70s
his first film is called Tito Aquino de
nom it’s a milestone in Bengali film
history in the last four decades he has
produced films like Padano dear machi
more a Manoj
Xiang coach hill and over 30 films and
and then he did he produces films doing
a business full time so here Lee
enduring love for making films and
perhaps you know that influenced me as I
was growing up and I grew up watching
and loving films but I never pictured
myself making a film but I did that in
2013 so this part of the story comes it
happens between a middle of 2012 I was
working for a bank and I was
contemplating a career change I did
round of interviews in fact I
interviewed with Google did four round
of interviews but I couldn’t land a job
just like minus-10 but I gave myself
about six months I decided that if
nothing comes good out of it I will go
back to Bangladesh going back to
Bangladesh was not the hardest decision
but figuring out what I want to do next
with my life in terms of my career was
January 2014 year
I packed my bags I headed home with my
family and I move in with my parents and
if you have done that you know it’s a
big challenge it’s a huge change for me
and my family
and I was conflicted and I had
self-doubt about whether I made the
right decision
living the banking industry anyway on
the third day of my returning to Dhaka I
attended a startup event called start a
weekend and on that day I knew what I
was going to do because when I was when
I came back I was I was I was in a life
you know I was aging my life that I just
turned 40 and I wasn’t sure where my
life was heading in terms of my career
but I wasn’t sure I was sure about one
thing is that I didn’t enjoy banking but
on that day in January I knew what I was
going to do and it was I want to be part
of this tech revolution in Bangladesh
that was happening so you have to
imagine for a second this is 2013 and 3G
just launched we had bitty jobs but we
haven’t heard about Patel or child
allcom in fact when we spoke about
startups nobody understood what syrup is
but in that January morning in that cold
cold morning I saw these young kids
going up on stage
probably pitching for the first time in
their life sharing ideas and they were
talking about solving problems or if
everyday Bonaduce faces in the daily
life and they were saying that they’re
going to solve that through technology
and it was amazing to see and it was
inspiring to see that when when I looked
at them and and I saw the energy and and
there was excitement and
contagious the the excitement was
contagious and it was slightly chaotic
but the room was full of energy and this
energy was about change and and they
were talking about changing Bangladesh
and it was amazing so I so I left the
event inspired and I attended several
more startup events and I realized that
nobody was talking about this startup
movement that was happening bon adesh I
thought that III believe that just
writing about it is not gonna change
anything because what we are dealing
with was so new it was so different you
actually had to show it to people and
and I thought to myself that maybe I
should make a documentary and I was
planning this this idea and when my wife
found out that I was thinking about
making a film the first question she
asked are you gonna get the money to
make this film so so I shared this idea
about making a documentary out of
startups which few people and they got
super excited and and and and and we’re
saying that since we’re going to talk
about startups why don’t we use in a
crowdfunding and again crowdfunding was
another familiar concept basically you
basically you ask you put up a project
people actually give you money for it
and that’s what it’s crowdfunding is so
we thought that if we really if if we
really believed in the idea if people
really believed in an idea what we’re
doing
people will back us so with that thought
so we made a project we’d made a target
of raising eighty five hundred dollars
u.s. dollars and we put up this project
in a crowdfunding platform called
IndieGoGo so after we put up this
project online I started filmmaking and
by the way I have no clue how to make
even though we are fundraising it was
not a lot of money in fact I couldn’t
hire a director or a scriptwriter or a
camera man in fact I hired that student
called Imtiyaz who’s happened to be here
today taking photographs and his friend
and who were actually studying at that
time in their university and I actually
found them at YouTube because I found
their work in YouTube I contacted them
and they were you know happy to come on
board so with my cracked ik on in place
I became the writer the director and the
producer so my job was to get up do the
daily schedule of the interviews go out
do the actual shoot with the help of my
guys and then on my spare time as to do
the Facebook marketing to promote the
film and raise money and it was a
full-time job and it was a painful
painful experience because I have never
done this so after 45 days we’re able to
raise about $9,000 slightly over our
target so as I was making the film it
was quite apparent that you know this is
something it was way beyond our capacity
I made plenty of mistakes there were
time when we went to the shoot the
camera didn’t work when we did the shoot
came back and look at the footage the
sound wasn’t there that means we had to
do reshoots of this interviews that
means very expensive in in filmmaking
and after all the shoot was done I was
left with four terabyte of footage I
don’t know if you have any idea but
that’s a huge huge file so I have to go
through all the video clips and actually
Stitch a story out of it and it was a
very very daunting task
so anyway there was a time when the
editing phase that especially on the
last stage of the editing I I only got
about five hours of sleep in two days
and I fell at one stage that I’m never
going to finish this project maybe a lot
of filmmakers feel the same way so after
almost four months of shoot and editing
I finished the project and I put it up
in YouTube and the response was amazing
and I was inspiring so so this is what
happened so people like people like
keshwar he said start of taka
documentary was a catalyst and
inspiration for me to return to
Bangladesh and get involved in the
startup ecosystem so people like Kishore
actually there are hundreds of people
who you know came up to me emailing me
saying because we watched the Saratoga
documentary I decided to leave my job or
start a business and that’s I thought
was fantastic and inspirational and I
think that’s what a good story does it
inspires you it makes you believe to do
something that you thought it was
impossible in fact even though when I
was making the film and I thought at
some point that I will never gonna get
this done it was painful but the same
time was a very humbling experience
because people are so generous with the
time and money without the support I
will not been able to finish it but I
was able to do it so for me the film was
about reimagining Bangladesh because I
thought I could tell the story of
Bangladesh and the opportunity that it
had to offer I refuse to see this
country with the prism of despair I
refuse to see it what I did
I wanted to tell a story that a strong
Bangladesh the opportunity that they
offer and I thought through technology
we could leave free a frog and actually
create economic progress and be our own
captain and you know redefine our future
so when I look back even though I was
not trained as a filmmaker I was able to
jump into this project and and and did
this anyway
and I did this because of technology
technology became accessible and
affordable compared to last ten years I
was able to use email and Facebook to
reach out to people for the interviews
kind of cold calling I use a
crowdfunding platform to raise money I
use cheap DSLR camera to make this film
and then I use YouTube to distribute my
film so in the age of Instagram Facebook
and Twitter any person has a decent
chance to tell the story and so you so
you never know how a story’s gonna
change someone’s life because it surely as change mine thank you
change your life but let me warn you I’m
not a storyteller in traditional sense
in fact my family has been in business
for the last three generations my father
on the other hand had a knack of
producing Bengali films back in the
early 70s
his first film is called Tito Aquino de
nom it’s a milestone in Bengali film
history in the last four decades he has
produced films like Padano dear machi
more a Manoj
Xiang coach hill and over 30 films and
and then he did he produces films doing
a business full time so here Lee
enduring love for making films and
perhaps you know that influenced me as I
was growing up and I grew up watching
and loving films but I never pictured
myself making a film but I did that in
2013 so this part of the story comes it
happens between a middle of 2012 I was
working for a bank and I was
contemplating a career change I did
round of interviews in fact I
interviewed with Google did four round
of interviews but I couldn’t land a job
just like minus-10 but I gave myself
about six months I decided that if
nothing comes good out of it I will go
back to Bangladesh going back to
Bangladesh was not the hardest decision
but figuring out what I want to do next
with my life in terms of my career was
January 2014 year
I packed my bags I headed home with my
family and I move in with my parents and
if you have done that you know it’s a
big challenge it’s a huge change for me
and my family
and I was conflicted and I had
self-doubt about whether I made the
right decision
living the banking industry anyway on
the third day of my returning to Dhaka I
attended a startup event called start a
weekend and on that day I knew what I
was going to do because when I was when
I came back I was I was I was in a life
you know I was aging my life that I just
turned 40 and I wasn’t sure where my
life was heading in terms of my career
but I wasn’t sure I was sure about one
thing is that I didn’t enjoy banking but
on that day in January I knew what I was
going to do and it was I want to be part
of this tech revolution in Bangladesh
that was happening so you have to
imagine for a second this is 2013 and 3G
just launched we had bitty jobs but we
haven’t heard about Patel or child
allcom in fact when we spoke about
startups nobody understood what syrup is
but in that January morning in that cold
cold morning I saw these young kids
going up on stage
probably pitching for the first time in
their life sharing ideas and they were
talking about solving problems or if
everyday Bonaduce faces in the daily
life and they were saying that they’re
going to solve that through technology
and it was amazing to see and it was
inspiring to see that when when I looked
at them and and I saw the energy and and
there was excitement and
contagious the the excitement was
contagious and it was slightly chaotic
but the room was full of energy and this
energy was about change and and they
were talking about changing Bangladesh
and it was amazing so I so I left the
event inspired and I attended several
more startup events and I realized that
nobody was talking about this startup
movement that was happening bon adesh I
thought that III believe that just
writing about it is not gonna change
anything because what we are dealing
with was so new it was so different you
actually had to show it to people and
and I thought to myself that maybe I
should make a documentary and I was
planning this this idea and when my wife
found out that I was thinking about
making a film the first question she
asked are you gonna get the money to
make this film so so I shared this idea
about making a documentary out of
startups which few people and they got
super excited and and and and and we’re
saying that since we’re going to talk
about startups why don’t we use in a
crowdfunding and again crowdfunding was
another familiar concept basically you
basically you ask you put up a project
people actually give you money for it
and that’s what it’s crowdfunding is so
we thought that if we really if if we
really believed in the idea if people
really believed in an idea what we’re
doing
people will back us so with that thought
so we made a project we’d made a target
of raising eighty five hundred dollars
u.s. dollars and we put up this project
in a crowdfunding platform called
IndieGoGo so after we put up this
project online I started filmmaking and
by the way I have no clue how to make
even though we are fundraising it was
not a lot of money in fact I couldn’t
hire a director or a scriptwriter or a
camera man in fact I hired that student
called Imtiyaz who’s happened to be here
today taking photographs and his friend
and who were actually studying at that
time in their university and I actually
found them at YouTube because I found
their work in YouTube I contacted them
and they were you know happy to come on
board so with my cracked ik on in place
I became the writer the director and the
producer so my job was to get up do the
daily schedule of the interviews go out
do the actual shoot with the help of my
guys and then on my spare time as to do
the Facebook marketing to promote the
film and raise money and it was a
full-time job and it was a painful
painful experience because I have never
done this so after 45 days we’re able to
raise about $9,000 slightly over our
target so as I was making the film it
was quite apparent that you know this is
something it was way beyond our capacity
I made plenty of mistakes there were
time when we went to the shoot the
camera didn’t work when we did the shoot
came back and look at the footage the
sound wasn’t there that means we had to
do reshoots of this interviews that
means very expensive in in filmmaking
and after all the shoot was done I was
left with four terabyte of footage I
don’t know if you have any idea but
that’s a huge huge file so I have to go
through all the video clips and actually
Stitch a story out of it and it was a
very very daunting task
so anyway there was a time when the
editing phase that especially on the
last stage of the editing I I only got
about five hours of sleep in two days
and I fell at one stage that I’m never
going to finish this project maybe a lot
of filmmakers feel the same way so after
almost four months of shoot and editing
I finished the project and I put it up
in YouTube and the response was amazing
and I was inspiring so so this is what
happened so people like people like
keshwar he said start of taka
documentary was a catalyst and
inspiration for me to return to
Bangladesh and get involved in the
startup ecosystem so people like Kishore
actually there are hundreds of people
who you know came up to me emailing me
saying because we watched the Saratoga
documentary I decided to leave my job or
start a business and that’s I thought
was fantastic and inspirational and I
think that’s what a good story does it
inspires you it makes you believe to do
something that you thought it was
impossible in fact even though when I
was making the film and I thought at
some point that I will never gonna get
this done it was painful but the same
time was a very humbling experience
because people are so generous with the
time and money without the support I
will not been able to finish it but I
was able to do it so for me the film was
about reimagining Bangladesh because I
thought I could tell the story of
Bangladesh and the opportunity that it
had to offer I refuse to see this
country with the prism of despair I
refuse to see it what I did
I wanted to tell a story that a strong
Bangladesh the opportunity that they
offer and I thought through technology
we could leave free a frog and actually
create economic progress and be our own
captain and you know redefine our future
so when I look back even though I was
not trained as a filmmaker I was able to
jump into this project and and and did
this anyway
and I did this because of technology
technology became accessible and
affordable compared to last ten years I
was able to use email and Facebook to
reach out to people for the interviews
kind of cold calling I use a
crowdfunding platform to raise money I
use cheap DSLR camera to make this film
and then I use YouTube to distribute my
film so in the age of Instagram Facebook
and Twitter any person has a decent
chance to tell the story and so you so
you never know how a story’s gonna
change someone’s life because it surely as change mine thank you
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