Key takeaways
- Before I was a finance professional, I was, briefly, a trainee web developer — an IDB-BISEW IT scholarship in 2008–2009 taught me HTML, PHP/MySQL, JavaScript and .NET.
- That technical foundation is why I can build my own Power BI dashboards and maintain this website myself, rather than briefing someone else to do it.
- The habit that transferred best was not any specific language — it was learning how to read documentation and figure out an unfamiliar system on my own.
- The certifications from that period (MCTS, MCP, WPSI) still sit on my homepage because they explain a real part of how I work, not as decoration.
My homepage lists a slightly unusual mix of credentials for a finance professional: CMA, MBA, BBA — and then MCTS, MCP and WPSI, all earned in 2008–2009 through an IDB-BISEW IT scholarship, before I had settled into finance as a career. People occasionally ask if that is a typo. It is not. This is the story of that scholarship, what it actually taught me, and why it still matters to how I work today.
A scholarship that shaped more than a CV line
In 2008 I was awarded an IDB-BISEW IT Scholarship, Round 8, specialising in Web Presence Solutions and Implementation — WPSI. Over that programme I earned a Postgraduate Diploma in ICT, plus Microsoft's MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) and MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional, covering the .NET Framework for application development and ASP.NET for web client development). The curriculum was hands-on: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL, XML, Ajax, the .NET Framework, and — very much a product of its era — Flash, Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
Why this mattered more than a line on a CV
I did not go on to become a professional developer. I went into finance and stayed there. But the scholarship left me with something more durable than any specific framework: the ability to read technical documentation, understand a system's structure well enough to be dangerous, and not be intimidated by a tool just because it was not built for accountants. That turned out to matter constantly — every ERP implementation, every Power BI build and every piece of automation I have touched since has gone faster because I was not starting from zero on the technical side.
Where it shows up in my finance work today
The clearest example is the Power BI management dashboard I contributed to designing — a business management system that turns raw operational and financial data into something a factory GM or a board member can actually read at a glance. Building that kind of dashboard well requires more than knowing Power BI's interface; it requires understanding data structure, relationships between tables and how a query should be shaped before it ever reaches a visual — exactly the kind of structural thinking the ICT diploma trained. The same is true of this website itself: I maintain it directly rather than outsourcing it, because the WPSI training left me comfortable enough with HTML, CSS and site structure to do that myself.
Why this shaped my mission statement, not just my skill set
My mission statement on this site talks about combining finance and accounting expertise with information technology “as each situation demands” — using SAP/ERP, Power BI, automation and data analytics to make useful information easier to find and apply. That sentence traces directly back to 2008–2009. An earlier, less disciplined version of that same instinct is also, honestly, part of why this site once carried a large outbound link directory — an attempt to build something useful with the web skills from that scholarship that ended up working against the site's actual purpose. The Editorial Policy for this site, and the Blog and Insights sections you are reading now, are the corrected version of that same underlying instinct: use the technical skill to build something genuinely useful, not just something that exists.
What I would tell someone in a similar scholarship today
Take the technical training seriously even if you do not expect to end up in a technical career — the assumption that “this is not my field, so it will not matter” turned out to be wrong for me. The specific tools you learn will very likely go out of date, the way Flash and Dreamweaver have. The underlying discipline of learning how to learn a new system does not.
Written by Liakat Hossain
Finance and accounts professional with experience in FP&A, SAP FICO, Power BI, internal control, reporting, audit, tax, VAT and export-oriented business operations.
This is an original blog post written by Liakat Hossain, drawing on his own professional and personal experience. It is a personal reflection, not regulatory, tax, legal or investment advice; verify any technical or professional point against current standards before relying on it.