Cold spell fails to fend off crowd

A saleswoman (R) gestures towards a computer screen as she talks with children at the 'Cityl T 2003' computer fair on January 6. The twelve day long fair has seen the inauguration of locally made software Information Communications Technology (ICT) which has been jointly developed by the Bangladesh government and non governmental organisations.. PHOTO: AFP

More than 5,000 people from all walks of life attended the fair on the first day. They visited almost all of the 162 stalls at the fair. As always, almost all the stalls have offered attractive discounts on hardware items such as printers, pen-drives, modems and so on. Amongst the many multimedia items there are webcams, microphones, a large variety of sound systems, sound cards, specialised keyboards, scroll and optical mousse.

Visitors have a wide variety of choice among electronic items such as digital cameras, pagers and network appliances such as VoIP communication hardware, ethernet cards, switches, routers and bridges.

Among a lot of other items, the Deluxe web-cam from Mercury priced at Tk 8,000 is currently the centre of attention for most buyers. The gadget can be used as a web-cam, digital camera, voice-recorder and also as a video camera.

The number of visitors increased to 8,000 on the second day of the fair. A huge number of computers were sold at the stalls. The customers could not let go the discounts and free items.

An open discussion on 'Women and Computer' took the centre stage of the exhibition arena at 4:00p.m. The main discussant at the session was Abida Nasrin Koli, feature editor, daily Bhorer Kagoj.

"Working women should strengthen their computer literacy since, with this essential skill almost anything can be done in the modern age," said Koli at the session.

Later, a short quiz was also held through which five lucky winners obtained some covetous gifts.

On the third day, 9,000 people shrugged off the shivering cold to attend the fair. Latest Intel Processors, equipped with multithreading technology for running more than three software at a time created rave amongst the crowd. Some of the most popular processors at the fair includes Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz, Intel Pentium IV 1.8 GHz, Pentium IV 2.0 GHz, Pentium Four 2.5 GHz etc.

'Computer & Commerce' was the topic of the day for discussion with Chapal Chowdhury, consultant, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) being the key speaker.

"Computers are an embedded aspect of commerce in the country," said Chowdhury. "Even though there are more than 60,000 computers used in commerce, they are not being utilised efficiently," he said. He urged the educational institutions and other organisations to come forward to grow awareness among users about the various uses of a computer especially for commercial ends.

A massive crowd of over 12,000 people swarmed the premises on the following day. The stalls were bustling with the weekend crowd but most seemed inclined towards the seminar on 'Writing and Computers'.

"Computers are aiding writers in more ways than one," said Anisul Haque, feature editor, daily Prothom Alo. "Writing on a computer gives a writer better accuracy and more flexibility," he said. He also narrated some of his memorable experiences with MS-Word.

A debate on 'Computers can be the best friends of the physically challenged' was held on December 4. The participants were students of Tejgaon Government Higher Secondary School and Islambagh Ashrab Ali High School.

"Creativity and computer are now walking hand in hand with each other," said artist Rafiqun Nabi while speaking at a discussion titled 'Creativity and Computer' on the same day.