LightCastle & a2i Look to Bring Greater Inclusivity in the Agro Sector Using Digital Financial Services

LightCastle Partners and a2i – Aspire to Innovate joined hands to organize the 2nd episode of the webinar series Bangladesh Financial Inclusion 1.0 on “Digital Financial Services in Agriculture Sector: Impact and Opportunities for Smallholder Farmers“.

The goal of this webinar was to bring together industry leaders so that they could share their valuable insights to increase the financial inclusion of the entrepreneurs functioning in the agricultural sector and their adoption of digital financial services. Besides this event also discussed the main obstacles against the successful implementation of technology-backed interventions in this sector and what policies can be formulated to expedite the process.

Bijon Islam, CEO at LightCastle Partners gave the keynote presentation on this topic. His presentation covered largely the role of digital financial services in the agriculture of Bangladesh and the way it can bring transformation in this sector. He also emphasized that we can build an ecosystem centering on the agricultural sector through incorporating digital financial services(DFS).

The session was moderated by Asif Iqbal, Joint Director at Bangladesh Bank with the iconic panelists:-

• Sarder Akhter Hamid, Deputy Managing Director at Bank Asia Limited
• Sharawwat Islam, Managing Director at Truvalu.Enterprise Limited
• Fahad Ifaz, Co-Founder and CEO at iFarmer
• Md. Farhad Zamil, Country Director at Syngenta Foundation
• Yasir Arafat, Manager, M4C at Swisscontact Bangladesh
• Subrata Kumar, Founder & CEO at Bhalo Social Enterprise.

Check out the recording of the episode here.