Helping farmers share machinery in Bangladesh

In a trial partnership with VSO and Growing Together, Equal Experts is putting together a team of six people to go to Bangladesh in February 2019 for a month to solve a tech challenge.

Why? The plant and machinery needed to improve yield and income is expensive – especially for farmers in Bangladesh. With that in mind, Growing Together’s Bangladesh team has set a challenge to come up with a solution that would make sharing machinery easier.

This initiative is being designed to give all of us at Equal Experts the opportunity to give something back by volunteering our skills and knowledge. To do something completely and utterly out of our comfort zone that will make a tangible difference to the day-to-day existence of people whose lives are more of a struggle than our own.

As well as our team of six on the ground – to be made up of employees, associates or alumni – this challenge is also open to anyone else across the whole Equal Experts network who wants to help but can’t travel or take time out of their current work or social commitments. Anyone can contribute their expertise in a direct hands-on way, or by providing guidance in the run up to February and by offering remote support to the team on the ground.

What happens after February?

If this initiative is a success, then it’s something we’ll be looking to do again. There are many opportunities to make a difference in many parts of the world. Have a look at another example from VSO with technology being applied to education.

What is Growing Together?

Growing Together is an initiative that has enabled 10,000 farmers to better provide for their families and lift them out of poverty. It began in 2014 as a partnership between bio-tech company Syngenta and the volunteering organisation, VSO.

Why is Equal Experts sponsoring this?

As a company, we are driven by our values and pride ourselves on doing the right thing by clients, each other and society. We feel this standalone engagement will deliver exponential, lasting benefit to local people in Bangladesh which is its own reward. We also believe this offers our people an opportunity to develop themselves and their personal, professional and team-building abilities.