Still in incubator

Developers engrossed in work. Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain

Having declared ICT as a thrust sector, one of the latest efforts of the government, implemented by the Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology in collaboration with Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), is the ICT incubator at the BSRS Bhaban in Kawran Bazaar.

For those of you wondering what this incubator exactly is, well, in extremely simple terms, it basically means a place where an extremely high concentration of firms catering to software needs, providing computer solutions to problems or pertaining to ICT in someway, can be found.

Being more inclined towards providing software and computing solutions, hardware dealers are not encouraged, at least not in our ICT incubator. For your hardware problems you still have to take that trip to the IDB Bhaban.

The BCC has appointed Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), to be at the managerial helm of this latest installation. Taking up the whole of 3rd to 9th floors and half of 11th floor, the entire incubator spans 68, 642 square feet (sft) area. Of this 8,858 sft has gone towards common facilities.

These common facilities, the BASIS informs us, include building conference rooms with capabilities allowing video conferencing, modern auditorium and a library. Tender for such works have already been floated and approved. These are now in the process of being implemented.

Around 37 companies have so far taken office space at the incubator and about 22 have actually moved in. The management hopes that by June everyone will be in. But then 11,000 sft of space is yet to be rented.

Some early birds to have already set up their offices are bdjobs, Expert systems, Future technology, Business automation Ltd., Ananda, Tech Domain, Maestro, International Computer Connection and others.

The offices spaces vary widely in size, one being as large as about 4,600 sft while another about 400 sft.

According to several firms one of the best perks of being part of this incubator is that they get to have an office in one of the prime locations in the city and that too at a subsidised rate. The commercial rate for space rent in the BSRS Bhaban is Tk 25 per sft. But the BCC is providing the firms with a subsidised rate of Tk 15 per sft. Besides that an additional 3.5 taka per sft is to be paid, which goes to BASIS for management purposes. "One of these purposes includes paying for the security. We spend about Tk 60,000 a month for it," said a BASIS employee.

However, all is not roses. There are several problems some of which are as serious as having an extremely slow internet connection. Promised with a dedicated 1Mbps bandwidth, the current speed is worse than even that of a moderate dial-up connection.

"The speed varies between 16-20 kbps," said an office staffer.

The current internet connection infrastructure consists of a shared connection from BCC's radio link, which in turn serves the companies via switches. It is to be hoped that the scarcity of such a resource vital to software developers and other net related businesses will resolve soon.

Another discrepancy mentioned by the businesses is about general utilities.

"At the onset we had been promised that utilities like telephones would be provided to us by the management. But we find that we have to get them ourselves," said the CEO of bdjobs.

Refuting this, BASIS tells us that no such promises were made but that it was simply said if any company faced problems in procuring telephone connections, a helping hand would be lent.

Some other valid complaints include having other communal facilities like a photocopying machine.

Nevertheless, as an indication that voicing all their woes is not synonymous to banging head against a brick wall, the crippling electricity problem had been solved very recently.

Not having a connection to a feeder line, power failure was rampant at the incubator causing unlimited problems to software developers struggling to meet client deadlines. But from June 4 the Power and Water Development (PWD) has provided a feeder line. Since then, only twice had any power failure occurred.

Even though, a high powered generator was to be established to ensure zero electricity failure, BASIS has put the idea on a hold since the connection to the PWD feeder line.

According to BASIS, funds for the generator can now be utilised for some other venture beneficial to all. The businesses, however, choose to take such assurances with a grain of salt.

But in general the companies are optimistic and none too sad. They believe that once most of the firms begin operation and a common advertising fund can be raised and utilised, things will get busy at the ICT incubator.

The Incubator has a major role to play. Its focus will be on new ICT companies with aggressive plans, providing them with a unique range of facilities and business support facilitating the quickest possible start-up time, while offering protection and guidance during the vulnerable stages of development.