A TEAM OF PIONEERS: BLACK BRAINS

We find two types of people around us; one is who rants and complains over the systems and one who finds the way to change them. The people in the latter category always think out of the box; they work smarter not harder to get a job done. Out of a few examples we have, let us introduce you to S.M. Abdullah Al Mustainn. Our DYDF-India Team had a great opportunity to talk to him.

The corporate sector of our country is invariably a great ambition for many undergraduates for doing their dream job from across functional departments of universities. But unfortunately our education system doesn’t teach us the corporate culture and etiquette and differences between academic life and corporate life before getting into a job. Many corporate houses offer internships to the undergraduates but still it is not enough for our over populated country. So, they suffer a lot to cope with the environment after getting into their dream job and they lag behind the students of other countries in the workplace in comparison.

S. M. Abdullah Al Mustain, who initially took the step to do something exceptional for these well-deserved and passionate undergraduates for the very first time in Bangladesh. S. M. Abdullah Al Mustain was born in Bagerhat and currently a final year student of dept. of Management Studies under the faculty of business studies of University of Rajshahi. S.M. Abdullah Al Mustain founded Black Brains in 2017 with his other co-founder: Syed Muntasir Ul Hamid and Md. Niaz Omar Torabee. All of them were from the Department of Management Studies of University of Rajshahi. They launched their first ever project “Medisheba” successfully for the quality healthcare of rural people.

After that, at the time of Covid19 period in July of 2020, Mr S. M. Abdullah Al Mustain and his creative team thought to do something for the students who are in undergraduate level and have real enthusiasm towards the corporate world and want to make them successful in that sector. So, team Black Brains launched the Virtual Internship of Corporate Simulation Program first ever in Bangladesh. A board of directors from Black Brains was made to set up and design the Corporate Simulation Program module. When the module is designed, the HR team posted the circular of this Corporate Simulation Program for the 1st edition in their social media pages including website also. The circular was alive for only 72 hours. In this period, the HR team got 300+ resumes from different academic departments from different universities and only 16 candidates got recruited for the 1 st edition of virtual internship of Corporate Simulation Program. Till now, they are running the 7th edition of Corporate Simulation Program with the massive love and satisfaction of virtual interns. In the last 6th edition, they have got 1865 undergraduate resumes of 136 institutes from different 17 countries. IS. M. Abdullah Al Mustain always tries to do some work as a social entrepreneur. Being an Idea generator, he has represented his social development idea in many Innovative Idea Challenge Competitions like Hult Prize, Hackathon, Ideathon etc. and got success too.

Ongoing with the interview, Mustain told us, “Managing and controlling the whole virtual internship program was never a piece of cake for team Black Brains. The most barriers were, using paid virtual meeting apps, maintaining KPI of every intern according to daily tasks, scheduling grooming sessions of corporate leaders and many others; but my team never considers it to be an obstacle. I also got immense support from my peers and family. We have reached the pinnacle of success by our team work and strong coordination.” . Currently, Black Brains has set up a well-structured human resource team by recruiting some of their interns as officers on full time duty. Black Brains also recommends their capable & skilled interns to their associated companies to fill up an opening. The recruitment process of Corporate Simulation Program is just like any top corporate house where at first all the submitted resumes goes for validity scanning. Later, the Human Resource dept. check the potentiality and basic soft and technical skills of valid resumes and select only 200 students for next virtual interview session. In this virtual interview session, the Human Resource team inspect the emotional intelligence and critical thinking ability of a particular candidate. Finally, maximum 50 to 60 students got selected who have really enthusiasm and passion and want to learn something about the corporate world. At the first day of this program, a virtual intern learns the rules and regulations of this 14 days of journey. Then, a team is made for each intern to execute the task as a team and individually too. A mentor is assigned to assist and examine every team. The tasks include: solving real problems that have happened in many local and foreign companies, giving a professional presentation, setting up a mail professionally, executive meeting for business development etc. In these 14 days, each and every student gets an opportunity to groom themselves by interacting in a direct face to face virtual session unlike any typical public speaking session with many successful corporate business leaders from different sectors like FMCG, Telecom, Banking, Textiles, Service Industry etc. After completing this virtual internship, some competent interns get rewarded as best team leader, best team player, emerging intern, most innovative intern for their leading & finest performance. Black Brains has recently introduced a Facebook Live Video Series named “Light-house” not for the interns but for the all to provide an understandable guideline by experienced corporate leaders for entering future corporate with appropriate perception.

According to S. M. Abdullah Al Mustain, “An internship of undergraduate life is one of the greatest investments for any student even if it doesn’t matter whether he or she is from BBA, Engineering, Social Science or Arts discipline. Because, most of the companies give mostly the same tasks to execute to their newly recruited intern or employee.” The meaning of success for team Black Brains is to see Smile on the face of any unknown person because of Black Brains. Even when we asked about the value, mission and vision about Corporate Simulation Program, Ms. Tahmida Sultana Tuli – the HR director of Black Brains told us, “We always try to provide guidance to those students who are deprived from any kind of advantage what they actually deserve.” The thing that S. M. Abdullah Al Mustain has within himself is somewhat found as absent in our society which is to make anyone inspired to have a dream. Because without having a dream, no one can reach to the position what he orshe is expecting right now. We need more youth like S. M. Abdullah Al Mustain in our society.