Tech gala@DU next month

Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, minister for Science and ICT and Dr Osman Faruq, minister for Education, are expected to chair the opening and closing ceremonies respectively.

The event will include inter-university programming contest and debate along with hardware, multimedia and animation fairs. More than 60 teams of programmers, each holding three university students along with a teacher from all over the country are expected to participate in the programming contest, whereas the debate will likely contain at least twenty-five teams.

The hardware and multimedia fair will include project-wise participation from both corporate and educational levels. Twenty-five stalls will be allotted at the fair, allowing the majority of the stalls to be used by the corporate participators who may use the fair ground for product demonstration and advertisement. A fee of Tk 5000 will be compulsory for corporate participation while students will be charged a minimal fee of Tk 1000 for each stall.

DU expects to meet the finance through arrangements of sponsorships from different private sectors. "The university has already held talks with Siemens (Bangladesh), Smart Technology, and Partex group of

industries on this matter with hopeful gestures from the company administrators," states Shahed Anwar, lecturer, CSE department. Anwar also holds high hopes on his students, and believes that they have the capability to pull corporate projects from the private sectors of the country's growing IT industry. "Such attempts will not just allow a healthy and interactive growth of IT related interest among students, but also will allow a better finance towards university developments," he states.

A seminar will be held on the closing day of the festival having Chairman of the department, Dr Hafiz Md Hasan Babu as the key speaker. The seminar will focus on real life prospects for students including job-related obstacles, interview tips, higher education opportunities and other current issues. DU will also seek the presence of the President of Bangladesh, Dr Yazuddin Ahmed, to be present at the festival.