The recent political upheaval in the country that saw off the previous government arguably damaged the ICT sector and freelancers the most because of the internet blackout and sluggish net speed that followed a few days.
According to the Freelancers Development Society, the economic losses for the internet blackout in Bangladesh for the first five days were worth TK 1.20 billion.
More than the financial loss was the image crisis and shaken trust worldwide for the local freelancers.
Saber Shah is the Founder of AW Communication, which provides digital marketing facilities to various businesses in the United States and abroad.
He said about the internet blackout, “The internet facilities closed completely without prior notice. So, we could not make any preparations for that situation. We could not even inform our clients of a single piece of information as none of the communication tools on the internet worked. So, we faced a lot of financial losses that time.”
“Many of the clients were informed about the student protests as the world media did coverage of the news of Bangladesh then, but some of the clients canceled their agreements as they also had to face financial losses if their work could not be performed timely, which caused losses in the perspective of Bangladeshi freelancers,” he added.
Aminul Islam is the Co-founder and CEO of Todvob. Internet blackouts hampered his business as well.
Aminul said, “As a software company, we provide E-commerce services to clients, focusing on foreign businessmen and firms. For our good track records, we were getting new deals from them. However, with the sudden internet blackout, everything stopped, and we did not submit our assigned tasks on time, which created a bad image among the foreign clients.”
“They could not communicate with us anymore, which created negative feedback for the Bangladeshi freelancers. As a result, we are still struggling to get our position on the previous rank, which is a big challenge for the people in this field.”
Regarding financial losses, Aminul said, “During the internet blackout, we lost around 2,500 dollars. We have clients from Qatar and Canada, and we could not provide any service to them during that time. We also faced subscription-based losses and technical complexities with our organization’s application.”
Mahmud Abu Saleh Musa is the chairman of Quadricbit and a freelancer. Sharing his experience, Musa said, “Our organization provides graphic design and web development services to clients. Before the internet blackout, our activities ran smoothly, and we received good client reviews. But we faced extreme hurdles from the 18th of July to the next one-week period as the internet connection was totally off.”
“Some clients switched their work to other South Asian countries, including India, Pakistan, and other neighboring countries, which is a big loss for the Bangladeshi freelancers. We are facing troubles for now as many buyers have not returned from those countries.”
Musa added that many Bangladeshi freelancers struggled to sustain themselves in the field due to the negative feedback during that period.
Dr. Tanjiba Rahman, Chairman of the Bangladesh Freelancer Development Society (BFDS), said the global market for freelancing is worth 1.5 trillion USD.
In Bangladesh, almost 10 lakh people are now freelancers and contributing 1 million USD in remittance inflow to the country.
