IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The project called “Leveraging ICT: Growth, Employment and Governance”, under the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), will create 30,000 direct employment and 120,000 indirect employment in the country within five years, ICT Secretary Nazrul Islam Khan said at a seminar yesterday.

"We want to turn the country's young generation into human resources as there is a huge demand of such manpower at home and abroad," she said, adding it would contribute significantly to the export of human resources.

While inaugurating the 5th e-Asia, the premiere ICT event of Asia, the Prime Minister also said 20,000 more multimedia classrooms will be set up in the country by 2012 in line with the present government's 'Digital Bangladesh' programme.

Apart from several positive steps taken by the ICT Ministry, most of the automation projects are limited to purchasing computer hardware, opening websites and training centres, ICT professionals alleged.

e-government is yet to be a reality while e-commerce and e-services have been developed by the private sector at their own initiative forced by accelerating global competition.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) yesterday approved a Tk 1,333 crore project to bring 17,500 government offices at the district and upazila levels under an ICT network.

China will provide Tk 1,087 crore in loans for the project, titled “National ICT Infra-Network for Bangladesh Government Phase-II”, according to a planning ministry statement.

The government has started the process of setting up hi-tech parks in some divisional cities to promote the country's information and communication technology (ICT) sector.

At the first stage, hi-tech parks will be set up in Mohakhali, Kaliakoir in Gazipur, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Jessore, according to the Bangladesh High Tech Park Authority (BHTPA).

The purpose of this initiative is to ensure a vibrant and effective teaching learning environment for a student to cope as a future global citizen. ICT gives students better understanding in a systematic way, makes learning more interesting and enjoyable and motivates them to more practice self-managed learning, while teachers tend to be more creative and innovative in their teaching methods.

Use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is being increased at the educational institutions for improving standard of education and teachers must be involved in the process to achieve the standard, they added, reports BSS.

Telecommunications experts have showed that fatality rate is less in those countries that use modern tools in their road management system.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) organised the seminar at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre marking the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD).

While African countries may be celebrating increase in access to and the use of basic telephone services, the more advanced countries are increasing access to new technologies such as internet and broadband at such an exponential rate. Broadband is no doubt an accelerator of social and economic development in the modern world with its applications enabling and facilitating economic and social services such as Public Safety, National Security, Telemedicine, e-government, distance learning, utility applications etc.

• IDC research finds ICT growth will be driven by cloud, social business, mobility and Big Data
• Social, analytic and communication technologies will drive government services
• Understanding and using Big Data will define social networking, marketing and mobility

Global advancements in the technology sector have transformed the 3rd platform revolution from a concept to reality, argues a top research director from IDC. The platform, which is comprised of four facets - Cloud, Social Business, Mobility, and Big Data - is expected to create a major shift within the ICT sector, and transform the way in which consumers interact with their environment. This is in-line with an IDC report which explains that 3rd platform technologies will be responsible for 98% of growth in the ICT sector in the Middle East by 20201.

This is in addition to greater support for graduates specialising in IT that will be presented for discussion at the National Dialogue.

"Our society is a professional one and therefore does not have a political agenda," said society chairman Ahmed Al Balooshi.

“It’s a very critical project with a critical role in shaping society,” said the prime minister. “It’s one of the projects that I’ve been extensively and intensively involved in since its conception.”

Renamed as the ‘Chiphen Rigpel’, the five-year Nu 2.5B project, which is funded by the government of India, will be formally launched by the prime ministers of Bhutan and India on April 30.

Things may be moving fast in mobile technology, with the subscriber base reaching almost 170,000 since its launch in 2003, but the pace is slow in Internet and computer usage, according to the director of the information department, Tenzin Choeda.

The total number of computers in the country is between 10,000 to 12,000 and most of it was with the government and corporations and in the urban areas.

“The internet is a needed public utility as much as water and electricity,” declared President Paul Kagame at the Transform Africa summit held in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, last October to discuss the future of broadband in Africa.

The choice of Kigali as host did not surprise information and communication technology (ICT) experts; Mr Kagame’s government takes ICT so seriously that it aims to create an ICT infrastructure comparable to any in the developed world. The choice was also not surprising since Rwanda hosted the Connect Africa summit in 2007 that championed broadband connectivity for the continent.

The Sultanate’s steady im­provement is reflected in the findings of the latest Global In­formation Technology Report, prepared on behalf of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Re­leased in early April, the study ranked Brunei Darussalam 54th out of 142 countries on its Networked Readiness Index, which grades economies on their usage, acceptance and efficiency of ICT.

The decision to replace mobile frequency bands comes as the Sultanate prepares to hand out 4G long-term evolution (LTE) licences. However, despite the wave of activity taking place across the telecoms sector, there are concerns that the joint roaming agreement could fail to produce results for the country, unless tariffs are revised downwards to levels nearer those of its regional peers.

If the proposals of the Expert Committee on Information Technology for Panchayati Raj submitted to Union Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar today are anything to go by, the project could be the biggest connected government project in the world with nearly quarter million gram panchayats in the country to be connected over the next three years.

Officially opening the first ITEX ICT Conference in Gaborone last week, Mrs Venson-Moitoi said the digital gap was an obstacle to development.

Mrs Venson-Moitoi added that government recognised that the public private cooperation to overcome the digital divide was crucial to the building of an information society.

Work on the study started in September 2009 and is expected to be completed by end of February 2010. The development is expected to open new business opportunities within ICT in the country.