TechSpotlight
Tech highs and lows, today and tomorrow
Experts share views
Cartoon: Mahhfuz Rone
The base of knowledge about the information and communication technology strengthened in 2009, thanks to relentless activities in public-private sector for reforming the lifestyle with ICT enabled services. Long anticipated, the sector started a flamboyant rolling on with laws, policies, public-private partnerships, positive growth in different areas and many more. The mentors of this sector shared their views with StarTech. Musa Ibrahim arranged the interviews. Dr Jamilur Reza ChoudhuryVice Chancellor, BRAC University
Jamilur Reza Choudhury said, "The government has taken the Digital Bangladesh phenomenon as an objective -- whatever the people in remote areas are doing with it -- became a buzzword. Besides, I headed the committee that formulated the ICT Policy 2009 containing 306 action plans about which the ministers are fully aware. This is significant." Different ministries and organisations developed websites through information (A2I) project. Among them, election commission's site is most resourceful as all the information of the lawmakers are there, Choudhury said adding online banking, automated clearing house at Chittagong port and Dhaka airport and MICR character supported automated cheque initiation are significant developments. He also said, "The telecom sector is providing cell phone based Internet service -- though it is still quite expensive and with low bandwidth -- the people at the remote area are browsing Internet. Besides, BTCL reduced the bandwidth cost and many organisations like universities are now enjoying double bandwidth at the same price." He mentioned one of our IT companies has ranked number one worldwide in AFIS software. He hoped that electronic financial transaction would be possible next year as the government initiated digital signature. Dr Muhammad Zafar Iqbal
Professor of CSE Department at SUST
Zafar Iqbal said, "The expected advancement was not seen yet in the ICT sector. We need huge workforce for ICT knowledge based society. Our top graduates may be help in this regard. The public-private partnership could be a good help in ICT sector development." The popular sci-fi writer voiced worries over the quality of our tertiary level education as many graduates could not perform well at work after completing university education. "This means we need to reform our education sector as per the demand of the society and to enable the students to perform just after ending their education," he added. He said, "From now on, the education sector should be viewed as a whole. If we fail to do well at primary and secondary levels, we cannot expect any better in future." Dr M Kaykobad
Professor of CSE Department at BUET and Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences
Kaykobad said, "ICT is not given as much importance in the education sector as in business sector. Bangladesh earns only a thousandth of what India earns from the ICT sector. The situation prevailed in the year 2009." Nevertheless, some public and private universities such as BUET, University of Dhaka, NSU, AIUB and EWU have done well in the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) over the last few years. Even in 2009, BUET and DU achieved 34th and 49th position respectively in the ACM ICPC world final, he added. He also said, "If we invest more in ICT education, population will no longer be a burden on us. They will find job abroad boosting the wage earners' existing channel. India did it much earlier." Dr Atiur Rahman
Governor, Bangladesh Bank
According to the central banker, 2009 was the year for e-commerce preparation. "We've started the process to automate clearinghouse that will be completed in March 2010. A technical committee consisting of bankers and IT experts formulated the e-commerce policy. They are focusing on the priorities and tasks accordingly. Now we may run it on trial basis. Besides, we need a gateway for the e-commerce that includes user-friendly web development. Here the youths are doing very well with the technical security." Munir Hasan
Senior consultant to Access to Information (A2I) project at Prime Minister's Office
Bangladesh moved forward positively in 2009 in the ICT sector with huge activities. The country enacted ICT law and ICT policy 2009 with 306 action plans. Shahjalal Science and Technology University started admission test registration through mobile phone. All the district commissioners and upazila nirbahi officers were facilitated with laptop and Internet connection to ensure 24/7 connectivity. He sees 2010 as the implementation year of the plans as infrastructures and info-structures were laid out in the 2009 for the e-society. Mostafa Jabbar
President, Bangladesh Computer Samity
The achievements of 2009 are ICT policy, digital Bangladesh summit, initiation of digital university, the Bangladesh Bank's declaration to start e-commerce and many more. Mostafa Jabbar focused on the positive change in government for serving the people in ICT sector that was absent earlier. Habibullah N. Karim
President, Bangladesh Association for Software and Information Services (BASIS)
Habibullah pointed at three major advancements in 2009. "The 2008-09 fiscal year was ended with 32 percent growth in the software export sector. The country earned Tk 3.3 crore in 2009 which was 2.7, 2.6 and 2.5 crore in the year 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively. This shows the software export sector marched with 2-3 percent negative growth in the last three years. But, 2009 was better," he said. He also said the government also endorsed public-private-partnership tempo. This will also boost the ICT sector with tremendous development, self-sustaining and highly cost effective initiatives. These will propagate the e-governance portfolios and the huge ICT driven society. The year 2010 is going to be an eventful year for ICT sector. Aktaruzzaman Manju
President, Internet Service Providers' Association of Bangladesh
He stressed launching WiMAX, functionalising IP telephony, high speed Internet with low tariffs, Internet radio as local content in the year of 2009. All he sees as the positive advancement in the Internet sector of Bangladesh. But he also focused on the discrimination on allocation of frequency license, very high rate of inter-district connectivity in comparison to global Internet, no peering amongst two IIGs BTCL and Mango Teleservices though they use same submarine cables resulting into delay and waste of foreign currencies for Internet traffic, 15 percent VAT in Internet service that is considered high are hindering the growth of this sector in 2009. He mentioned that helps from the BTCL could be a tool to eliminate the backlog in this sector.
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