Bangladeshi Razib gets Facebook fellowship

Desk Report: Razib Ahmed, former president of the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), will receive a grant of $50,000 for further development of the project
Facebook has selected Bangladeshi entrepreneur Razib Ahmed as a fellow of its “Community Leadership Program” for his group ”Search English” where members help each other to become more fluent in English.
Razib Ahmed, former president of the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), will receive a grant of $50,000 for further development of the project.
The tech giant on Monday said it has selected five people into its ‘Community Leadership Program’ as leaders in residence, and more than 100 people as fellows and youth participants from 6,000 applicants from around the world.
The social media giant is granting upto $1 million to each leader in residence to fund their community projects, and up to $50,000 to all fellows and youth participants.
The Search English group was founded in June 2016 with the slogan “Learn English to Change Life” by Razib Ahmed along with Abul Khayer, Neyamot Ullah and SM Mehdi Hasan. At present the group has more than 1.6 million users.
“This recognition does not only motivate us but will also help us to reach more people to help learning English,” said Abul Khayer.
“We want to spread our program to every village of the country to reach 10 million users,” he added.
Using this platform, hundreds of people not only secure jobs but also improve their English skills in educational, professional and personal grounds, he further said.
The program has three main components: educational curriculum designed around leadership development; strategic community engagement and technical skills; and financial support for offline community building activities and guidance from community building experts, Facebook leaders and other participants.
Last year, Facebook Business had released a video featuring the achievements of a Bangladeshi public group “Search English.”
In August 2017, a four-member team from Facebook’s Singapore headquarters had come to Dhaka to meet the founders of the group and its members. The interviews of Razib and several other members were shown in the video. The page published the nearly two-minute video on October 25, with a caption that said the founder of the “Search English” group is helping over 360,000 people in Bangladesh improve their English skills and confidence on Facebook.