Homegrown online innovations on Road2Tunis
The showcase was set up as a side kick of a preliminary workshop attended by two dozen experts and a crowd of 50 participants before the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) staged in November this year in Tunis. UNDP and the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) invited international experts to the city to discuss online access, online content and the opportunities of developing countries like Bangladesh.
The three-day-talks highlighted three fundamental questions. Firstly: What is more important, online access or the ability to produce and read e-content? Secondly: Which technology should be stressed, mobile phones or PCs? Thirdly: How can new technologies be used to reach the UN millennium goal of reducing poverty by half by 2015.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Indian e-content activist Osama Manzar on Sunday, the opening day, emphasised teaching the people to upload their own online content, texts and images that really means something to them in languages they understand. "People with online access should be obliged to contribute their own e-content and spread and enhance their knowledge. If they don't, they are missing out", Manzar said.
On Tuesday, the final day, Managing Director of Grameen Phone, Eric Aas emphasised accessibility achieved by mobile networks. "Today, seven million Bangladeshis are using mobile phones", he said. This is more that double the estimated 3.4 million Internet users in the country. Aas predicted that "in five years we should be reaching 25 million people." Nokia, also present at the road show, saw as many as 100 million phone users by 2015.
Aas located the reason for substantial growth in mobile telecommunications in low entry levels. "The larger the network gets and the more people using our lines, the cheaper phoning is", he said and added, "what's more, good quality mobile phones are now priced at $29.95 by the GSM Association, substantially cheaper than three or four years ago."
Wrapping up a preliminary talk on Tuesday, the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Anwar Choudhury, pointed out that one should consider how mobile and PC technologies are growing together. "One day they will be considered identical", Choudhury stressed breaching the gap between speakers stressing PC connectivity as opposed to those that believe in mobile phone connectivity.
The talks of the IT experts, however, were not the highlight of the three day event. The real action was happening in the stalls outside the plenary session. While two dozen experts and a crowd of around 50 participants from key Bangladesh IT companies theorised online access and capability of developing countries, four Bangladeshi online innovators showed how they had juggled these abstract ideas and come up with inspired online solutions for real and pressing problems.
The showcased online e-content projects were participants of the national awards 2003 and 2005, preliminary national competitions of the World Summit Awards in Tunis.
The Daily Star has compiled four e-content projects on the Road2Tunis in detail:
"SA Easylife" - eBusiness
A mobile phone micro-payment solution developed by Sadeka Islam and Mahmudul Haque Azad, two undergraduates of Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (Buet). The idea was inspired by Islam's mother, who scolded her daughter one day, because she had forgotten to pay the bills. "Paying your electricity or water bill takes ages in Bangladesh. Our product saves time", says Islam.
"SA Easylife" informs a customer of open bills and helps him pay them within a few seconds with a cell phones or PDA. It's compatible with Nokia's 6600 and Motorola's A760 phones and programmed using Java technology (J2ME, J2EE and DBMS).
Azad and Islam used the road show to persuade mobile companies to implement their product and sell micro-payment cards, as online credit cards are still not in use in Bangladesh. On the final day of the workshop, however, they were both slightly disillusioned, as no mobile company showed concrete interest in implementing their software.
Considering the willingness of Grameen Phones' Country Manager Eric Aas to invest in e-content producers in the country their product should be a success. "SA Easylife" came sixth in the global WSA in the eBusiness category.
www.mobilecommerce.tk
Road and Highways Department - e-government
The Road and Highways Department (RHD) is responsible for the management of the national, regional and zilla road network of about 21,000 Km and some 15,000 bridges with annual development and revenue funds of Taka 2,985. The RHD was on of the first ministries of Bangladesh to introduce e-governance.
The department's site was set up in 2003 and is continuously updated by 50 site administers using updates on roads and bridges from all over the country supplied by 20'000 people. "Site construction was a very weary process, but today it has become a vital tool for all our road contractors and the entire ministry", said Mohammed Rokanuzzaman, computer system engineer at RHD.
www.rhd.gov.bd
Akkhor Bangla e-learning
In 2000 Anawarus Salam Khan developed the Bangla word processor Akkhor Bangla. Umma Kulsum Khan, presenting the word processor, said: "It's the easiest Bangla word processor on the market." Khan was proud to stress that the BBC Bangla service uses the software. The tool is available at www.akkhorbangla.com for free or can be purchased on CD for a mere Tk50.
www.akkhorbangla.com
bdtender.info e-business
A website that provides a one-stop-shop of up-to-date information covering nearly all invitations to tender and sectional trade published across Bangladesh. The site works on a monthly fee basis, starting at Tk 280 per month. The site has been up and running since June 2003 with 500 registered users to date. Abdus Sattar Syed, the mastermind of the site, says, the English language service is valuable for both Bangladeshi and foreign businesses trading in Bangladesh.
www.bdtender.info
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