BANGLADESH with a population of 160 million started its journey towards Digital Bangladesh in January 2009 under the able and dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The first commercial Satellite of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Satellite-1 (BS-1) is likely to be sent into the orbit in next April 2018, which would be certainly a milestone for Bangladesh towards achieving its goal of Digital Bangladesh.
The driving philosophy of Digital Bangladesh is to strike the right balance between equity and growth in the country. The ultimate goal is to foster development process ensuing ICT sector’s contribution in the growth, which would be the beacon on its journey towards achieving the status of a middle-income country.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who mooted the idea of launching Digital Bangladesh at the advice of her ICT Affairs Adviser and internationally acclaimed ICT expert Sajeeb Wazed Joy at the advent of national election in December 2008 outlined the Digital Bangladesh having four key priorities. These are: (a) developing human resources ready for the 21 century; (b) connecting citizens in ways most meaningful to them; (c) taking services to the citizens’ doorsteps and (d) making the private sector and market more productive and competitive through the use of digital technology.
Bangladesh witnessed some magnificent developments in utilizing technology to bring tangible transformation in all the four areas during the last seven and a half years. The government has ensured people’s easy access to public services by setting up national web portal of 25,000 websites and 5,275 Digital centers. Even the people of remote villages are getting various services online through the 4,550 Union Digital Centers.
The implementation of citizen centric e-initiatives including e-service delivery, health services from upazila complex, agriculture and other livelihood information and services through grass root outlets have brought international recognition. Bangladesh has acquired some prestigious international awards and recognitions due to its outstanding contribution to the ICT sector. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was nominated for the `South-South Cooperation Visionary Award 2014’ for noteworthy role in advancing Bangladesh towards a Digital system and expansion of education. She received ‘ICT Sustainable Development Award’ for her contribution to promote the use of ICTs towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For bringing fundamental changes in providing services to the Citizen’s Doorstep’ in the pursuit of eGovernance, on June 2014, the Prime Minister’s Office of Bangladesh was awarded the prestigious `World Summit on Information Society 2014’ prize at the WSIS+10 High-Level Event of ITU at Geneva.
In addition, Bangladesh was awarded the ‘Global ICT Excellence Award 2014’ for its contribution to social development of the nation by pursuing ICT. Recently ICT Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister Sajeeb Wazed Joy received ICT for Development Award 2016 for his outstanding role to set the country on the path of digital revolution. All these are glaring example of Bangladesh’s progress towards digitization.
Due to some massive technology-driven actions the mobile penetration is above 84% among the whole population with a growth of 10% per annum. Only 12 countries in the world have more than 100 million active subscribers when Bangladesh has now over 130 million active subscribers. The number of Internet users in Bangladesh is nearly 70 million.
Over last nine years, Bangladesh showed its capability to materialize the Digital Bangladesh. With over 3,000 local enterprises operating in hardware, software and BPO sectors, the size of Bangladesh ICT industry at present stands around $700 million from $26 million in 2008. With the advantage of earlier initiation, once hardware segment dominates the market share while the relatively new entrants, software and BPO sectors are now securing the lion share in the total market and we are ready to serve the global community by our huge talent pool with cost attractiveness in the whole world. So, Bangladesh is in the focus of global community and gradually becoming the obvious ICT destination.
For a sustainable industrial growth Hi-Tech Park is a very crucial element and Bangladesh has made good progress in construction of Bangabandhu Hi-Tech Park on 332 acres of land at Kaliakoir. The park will be a specialized economic zone and the lifeline of country’s ICT sector. A world-class business environment is being created for the local and foreign investors in the park. Bangladesh has offered international standard business facilities and financial incentives including tax exemption for 10 years to investment in the Bangabandhu Hi-Tech Park.
Software Technology Park at Janata Tower is located in the heart of the Dhaka city. Some software companies are running business here and some international companies have shown interest to operate their software business from this software park. Sheikh Hasina Software Technology Park at Jessore is ready for doing business. Already 12 companies including two Japanese firms have shown keen interest to operate software business from the park.
Developing ICT backbone is the key to implement Digital Bangladesh. ICT plays a pivotal role for establishing connectivity, which creates an opportunity for all to access, utilize and share information and knowledge. The government has undertaken initiatives to build ICT infrastructure and establish connectivity up to rural area of the country. All 18,500 government offices have been brought under the same network by establishing connectivity.
The government has taken an initiative to provide quality training to youngsters for reaching the number of IT professionals up to 2 million by 2021. It has established specialized labs and launched projects and programs to achieve the target. The government has also introduced compulsory education at secondary education level.
Bangladesh has become one of the top destinations for freelance online work outshining many countries of the world. oDesk Corp, a US based leading marketplace for companies and online workers ranked Dhaka third among global cities where online jobs are outsourced from the west. There are about .5 million freelancers involved in freelancing outsourcing jobs.
The world is changing at a tremendous pace and the tool for changing the world is Information Technology. To keep Bangladesh on this track, the government under the visionary and time-befitting leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has achieved noticeable progress towards the implementation of Digital Bangladesh in the last seven years. Bangladesh is confident enough that it will transform the country into Digital Bangladesh by 2021, the year that coincides with the 50 years of independence of Bangladesh. — SG
