A network of British-Bangladeshi doctors plans to send its first health-tech projects to Startup Bangladesh in December, under a new collaboration to turn doctors’ ideas into working products with help from Bangladesh’s technology sector.
The initiative was announced on October 24 at the seventh Bangladeshi Doctors’ UK National Conference in Watford, outside London, by the conference’s co-chairs, consultant surgeon Tanvir Hossain and Numayer Choudhury, chief medical officer of Mediware Limited.
Startup Bangladesh, the government-owned venture capital fund, has set out six areas of support in writing, according to the organisers: introductions to angel investors; a curated list of healthcare startup opportunities; help finding software developers, AI specialists and technical co-founders; support for UK startups entering Bangladesh; links to local partners and co-founders; and help arranging healthcare pilots.
The two sides have also discussed a healthcare innovation sandbox in Bangladesh, where suitable technologies could be tested with the necessary approvals and patient safeguards. According to the organisers, several doctors have already shown interest, saying they had lacked a trusted route for taking promising ideas forward.
The arrangement is meant to work both ways, with Bangladeshi innovators put in touch, where relevant, with UK-based clinicians who have NHS experience and can advise on clinical needs and product design.
Hossain, who was born and raised in Britain, said he wants to show Western colleagues that Bangladesh can be a serious partner in building health technology, and more than a low-cost outsourcing destination.
He said healthcare entrepreneurship appeals to doctors who want to diversify their careers and work more flexibly, but engineering, compliance and product-development costs hold many of them back. In his view, Bangladeshi teams can help doctors turn an idea into a proof of concept and then a minimum viable product, with mature products going on to properly governed testing, in Bangladesh if feasible.
“If we build successful products with Bangladeshi innovators, other clinicians will see Bangladesh as a destination for healthcare technology development,” he said.
The conference is an academic meeting where doctors of Bangladeshi heritage present research, clinical audits and quality-improvement projects. This year it drew more than 300 registrations and about 200 oral presentations, with delegates from countries including Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Professor Shafi Ahmed, the surgeon and health-technology expert, gave keynote talks on leadership and entrepreneurship and introduced his educational platform, Surgeon.ai.
This year’s entrepreneurship session featured four founders and innovators: Dr Risa Abedeen of Risa London; Dr Bishow Karki, inventor of the LAPSI surgical simulator used by the Royal College of Surgeons; Mediware’s Numayer Choudhury; and Dr Faz Chowdhury, founder of the glucose-monitoring company Nemaura Medical.
Another session heard from three British-Bangladeshi women in national leadership roles: Ashrafun Nessa, vice-chair of The Mammary Fold, a UK breast surgeons’ organisation; Sifat Zarin, an education lead in the Roux Group for upper gastrointestinal surgical trainees; and Ayisha Ashmore, who has held fellowships linked to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Care Quality Commission.
The co-chairs launched the BDUK Leadership Passport, a free online tool for doctors to set leadership goals, identify barriers and plan actions for the next three, six and 12 months. Hossain said it drew on the NHS Leadership and Management Framework launched in July, but the organisers describe it as an independent planning tool, not an official NHS assessment or an endorsed version of the framework.
The conference is part of a longer-running programme of exam preparation, interview practice and mentoring. Hossain has led a mentoring scheme for aspiring surgeons for 10 to 12 years, and the organisers say all but two of its surgical ST3 mentees have won training posts. Each year’s successful applicants mentor the next group.
The organisation grew out of a collaboration between Dr Ohidul Alam and Bangladeshi Doctors in Nottingham, which Hossain led. Since 2020 the conference has worked with GramGP, a primary healthcare charity in Bangladesh that co-hosts the event.
The organisers have invited clinicians with health-tech ideas or startups, and specialists willing to advise on projects that Startup Bangladesh considers, to contact either co-chair at
[email protected].
