Bangladesh’s digital transformation is a surprising event for many developed countries, including our neighboring countries, said Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mostafa Jabbar. He said that the basis for this was to get zero duty facility on computer import approved by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to break the monopoly business of mobile phones and to implement one country one rate internet in the country.
This comment by Mustafa Jabbar was made at a discussion meeting titled ‘Digital Revolution and Bangladesh’ at ICT Pioneer Club at a restaurant in Gulshan on Monday night. At the meeting, Abdullah H. Kafi’s book Aborto Analog theke Digital Bangladesh O Amra (Aborto- from Analog to Digital Bangladesh and We) was unwrapped. keeping this book at the center of the discussion, the words of the people behind becoming digital Bangladesh in the power of information technology came again and again in the talks of the speakers.
SM Kamal, Founder President of Bangladesh Computer Society; A Touhid, Founder President of BASIS; Mozammel Babu, President of Editors Guild; Shyam Sundar Sikder, Chairman of BTRC; Dr. Shahjahan Mahmud, Chairman of Bangladesh Satellite Company Limited; Aftab Ul Islam, one of the Founder EC Members of BCS; Safkat Haider, Chairman, Syproco Computers Limited; Education and Development (BIRD) CEO Aki-Rabbani and BASIS former Senior Vice President Farhana A Rahman were present in the event.
Speaking as the chief guest on the occasion, the Telecom Minister said, “We, the people of this industry, have been able to prove that the IT industry as a computer industry can play a role in the transformation of a country. Today, starting with 15 members, there are two thousand members of BASIS, two and a half thousand members of BCS, two thousand members of ISPAB and two thousand 20 members of BACCO are working actively. Despite starting as a technologically backward nation, it is the non-computer people, who made it happen. And behind it, the whole nation, including our industry, should be grateful to the Prime Minister.”
Mostafa Jabbar said that the country will be connected to 100% high speed internet by next year. “I hope to be able to extend connectivity to the remaining 90 unions by 2023. BTRC’s SOF-funded 617 unions will also come under broadband internet coverage this year. In other words, by 2023, the country will be 100% connected to high speed internet”, he assured.
Praising BTRC Director General Nasim Parvez for implementing One Country One Rate on Broadband Internet, the Minister said, “In 2008, the price per Mbps Internet was Tk. 27,000. And if the rate that Nasim Parvez has given in one country goes to 20 Mbps package, then the price falls to only 60 Taka. It was beyond my imagination. I never imagined that this would happen.”
In his speech, he expressed his desire to write a book on bureaucratic misdeeds after becoming a minister. However, in the last four years, the Bijoy Bangla creator has said that he has done the work to overcome that situation so far.
However, praising BTRC chairman Shyam Sundar Sikder, Mostafa Jabbar said, “The gentleman whose 50 books have been published cannot be a conventional bureaucrat. He, who writes poetry cannot be such a conventional man. Bureaucracy cannot find a place for him. Because bureaucracy has no place in the qualities needed to write poetry. ”
Regarding the author of the book, the minister said that it was not really expected that Abdullah H. Kafi, whom we sent to represent Bangladesh in the international arena, would again write the story of the digital age in Bengali from analog. So we are all grateful and thankful that Kafi has made a good start, on the basis of which someone will try to write a better history of information technology in Bangladesh. I also am being motivated, he added.
BDO SN General Secretary Munir Hasan, ISPAB President Imdadul Haque, Digital Device Manufacturers and Exporters Association (DDMEA) President Mahbub Zaman, BASIS former President Shamim Ahsan, Prothom Alo’s Feature Editor Pallab Mohaimen, BIGF Chairman Mojahedul Islam Dheu, General Secretary Hasan Zakir and others were also present in the program.
Abdullah H. Kafi, the author of the book, who started his career as a computer instructor in 1980, commented that a handful of people laid the foundation for the development of the country’s information technology industry by overcoming numerous obstacles. Noting that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken the country’s digital technology sector to an extraordinary height, she said, “When we were young, we could not have imagined that today’s Bangladesh would reach this place in the digital technology sector.” He said that he has brought the heroes of digital technology development in the book.
Speakers said that computers came to Dhaka in 1964 but it is safe to say that computers were not in use till 80s. The author elaborated this situation, which will serve as a source of inspiration for the new generation.