Companies like TSMC emerged, not just making chips but designing them, owning the intellectual property, and leading the global market. Taiwan didn’t settle for chasing orders—it built an ecosystem of innovation. The leap from low-margin manufacturing to tech powerhouse didn’t happen overnight, but it happened because the country chose design, skills, and IP over dependence.

So how can Bangladesh begin to break the trap? The answer rests largely on a pragmatic, scaled-up model of academia–industry partnerships—but not as one-off trainings or charity projects. It needs to be a systemic pipeline that turns classrooms and research labs into launchpads for commercial design and brand-building. Here’s how that plays out in practice-

[a] Build skill pipelines, not just seminars. Universities need to move beyond theory and co-create curriculums with manufacturers—producing designers, technologists, and product managers who understand today’s supply chains. Quick workshops like chip design or fabric innovation bootcamps help, but they’re no substitute for semester-long project courses and mandatory internships that put students inside real factories and brand teams.

[b] Turn labs into launchpads. Select university labs should become shared prototyping hubs—think fashion-tech labs, textile material centers, sustainable-dyeing facilities—where manufacturers co-fund pilot projects. These hubs must run on clear IP-sharing rules so the designs born there can actually hit the market, not gather dust in journals.