The Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business Administration of the American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB) has embarked on developing two new major courses: Agro-based Product Management and Product Innovation Management under the BBA program. The rationale of this undertaking is to respond to the evolving business market which fit AIUB‘s vision to innovative as a world class higher education institution. These courses are well-timed, market-driven and Bangladesh focused. It augurs very well with the thrust of KATALYST in promoting the agro sector of the country. The mutual partnership of AIUB and KATALYST has again been strengthened as the latter provides both financial and technical support to the Department of Marketing. After a series of relevant academic and technical preparation, the two courses were launched in order to create momentum and interest to the students, faculty and the industry. The launching was opened by the Pro Vice Chancellor of AIUB, Prof. Dr. Charles C. Villanueva. Aside from the introduction of the foreign and local consultants, KATALYST partners and faculty, he briefly described the preliminary process of the course development. This was followed by an inspiring message by Mr. Gupta Bahadur Banjara - Head of Capitalisation, Communication & External Relations.. The Department Head of Marketing, Dr. Anisur Rahman Faroque presented the results of the survey conducted to the students, faculty and industry experts. The vote of thanks was delivered by the Director of the Graduate Program, Dr. Nisar Ahmed.

After the Launching in the auditorium, the faculty of the Department of Marketing and the consultants proceeded to another venue where the 4 day workshops were held, 13-17 November 2016.  The foreign consultants were as follows: Mr. Pankaj Mishra from India. He has been a research and consultant in various Food and Agribusiness Team and a guest faculty for Management Development Programs on Agribusiness. He has written books and articles on Rural Marketing. Mr. Benjamin Mathew, Partner of MART, India. The Local Consultants were: Mr. Shamsuzzaman, Director, ACI Formulation Ltd.; Prof. Sheikh Abndus Sabur from the Department of Agribusiness and Marketing at the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh; Mr. Tajdin Hassan, Head of Marketing at the Daily Star; Mr. Solaiman Shukon, Head Marketing, Aamra Networks Limited; and Mr. Mohammad Abdur Rouf, Chief Executive Officer, Aarong.

The Workshops were divided into two groups by course with the 2 group of consultants while all the Marketing faculty participated. Each course has a core of team members: Mr. Stanley Rodrick,  Mr. Hamidul Islam and Dr. Sahin Sarker while the other core team members  were composed of : Dr. Anisur Rahman Faroque, Ms. Tahsina Khan Nimmi and Mr. Saihad S. Rahman. A Certificate of Participation was distributed to the participants after the workshop.The output of the workshops are the course outlines, areas of case studies, strategies and other relevant course materials and contents. The new courses will be offered in Summer 2016-2017.