City in net euphoria

From left (Bottom Row): visitors exploring the fair, a stall surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd, an Intel game cube and a browsing zone. PHOTO: STAR

A wide range of organisations--from companies offering corporate networking solutions to universities offering relevant ICT courses--are taking part in the fair. There were others, including but not limited to, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offering dial-up and broadband services, cyber cafes, local developers, vendors of important networking hardware and relevant publications.

The aim of the fair is to bring all these companies under one roof, make them accessible to the local users, promote their services and potentials, and raise awareness among the people and the users about the local ICT scene.

However, local companies offering corporate solutions dominated the fair. Several companies were touting their corporate solutions offering services like intranets and Wide Area Networks (WANs) connection corporate businesses throughout the country.

One such company, Metronet promoted their Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) which is the first ever optical fibre network throughout Dhaka. It offers data transfer, voice communication and high-quality video-conferencing from anywhere in the city. It can be used, for example, to set up a network connecting all the branches of an office throughout the city and allow it to share any data, transactions quickly and securely using the network.

Other companies such as Insoft's SKYbd and Advanced Data Networks Systems Ltd were offering similar high-speed data communication services - throughout the country - with their wireless networks for the corporate clients.

ISPs were also very popular in the fair, especially the ones offering broadband services to single users. In the recent years, the costs of setting up broadband networks have decreased, although not as much as the common users would have preferred. In the fair, several ISPs are offering services at a special discounted rate, making a lot of the visitors very happy.

Several local universities, including Daffodil International University, were present at the fair promoting their different ICT courses. Some of them were also offering the courses at a reduced price.

Several popular Bangladeshi websites like WebBangladesh.com and bdjobs.com were promoting their sites in the fair. Bracnet promoted their new portal bracnet.net and it gained a lot of interest from the visitors because of their quiz offering attractive prizes.

Local developers like Daffodil Multimedia Ltd and Alimsoft showcased their software in the fair. Many of the developers were selling their software at a special discounted rate for the fair. Bangaliana showcased their impressive technology that allows Bangla computing within Windows.

The fair had a gaming zone sponsored by Intel which offered the visitors to try out a few games on some brand new PCs equipped with Intel's new Pentium D processors. Gaming competitions were held everyday throughout the fair and winners were awarded prizes.

Oddly, the visitors were playing the ancient Need for Speed 2 on these brand new computers. There were other games too; unfortunately, most of them were very old. When asked why these games were run on these new powerful PCs, the organisers said they had newer games but the visitors were choosing to run the old games. Nevertheless, the gaming area was always crowded showing that the visitors enjoyed it even though the games weren't as good as they could have been.

The fair also offered visitors free browsing sessions, organised and managed by more than a dozen cyber cafes from around the city. This was hugely popular with the visitors as well and all the computer terminals remained busy throughout the day. Although due to some technical difficulties it wasn't available on the day 1, but from the day 2 it was back, and the visitors were very enthusiastic about it.

The fair has been a decent success so far, according to the visitors, who liked what the fair had to offer. "For the first fair of its kind, it's pretty good actually." said Abdul Halim Masud, a visitor impressed with the small but organised arrangements of the fair. While there are a few visitors who'd say otherwise, most of them, however would agree with Masud. Although the fair is rather small in scale compared to other IT and technology fairs in the country, the visitors liked how it's well-organised and had most of the local ICT companies under one roof. "I liked it. As a common user, I wish there were fewer companies that only offered corporate services in the fair, but I guess they're important for the local ICT scene. And I got a fast broadband connection from the fair," said another visitor. "This wasn't so bad. I'll be looking forward to the Cyber Fair 07!" Indeed. Events like these can only help the local ICT scene prosper and empower the users.

The fair was inaugurated by President Iajuddin Ahmed as the chief guest while the Science and ICT Minister Abdul Moyeen Khan and Secretary Mian Mushtaque Ahmed also attended the inaugural function.

Bangladesh Computer Samity, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, ISP Assosiation of Banlgadesh and Bangladesh Computer Society are the co-organisers. The Daily Star, the Jugantor and Channel i are the media partners.

The exhibition will remain open for visitors from 10am to 8pm everyday till April 30.