Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar said, today’s young generation must lead the fifth industrial revolution. For this, they must acquire digital skills. Our young generation is very talented. Bangladesh will lead the fifth industrial revolution in their hands, he hopes.
The minister expressed his optimism while speaking as the Chief Guest at the closing ceremony of NASA Space Apps Challenge Competition in Bangladesh organized by BASIS Students Forum of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) in Dhaka on Saturday (October 1) at night.
BASIS Vice President Abu Dawood Khan, Director AKM Ahmedul Islam and Convener of NASA Space Apps Challenge 2022 and BASIS Director Tanveer Hossain Khan spoke at the event while the BASIS President Russell T Ahmed presided over the program.
Posts and Telecommunications Minister said in his speech, “We have entered the 5G era, the highway of the fifth industrial revolution. Our youth needs to innovate and use 5G technology. In the coming days, Bangladesh will not only use, but also produce and export digital technologies including machine learning, robots or AI and so on.”
He referred to the new generation of Bangladesh as very talented and said that despite not being students of space science, the operation of Bangabandhu Satellite-1 in space was efficiently managed by our children, so there was no problem even for a minute after the launch. This pioneer of digital technology development said, Bangladesh is a populous country, we have missed three industrial revolutions in the past. Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Digital Bangladesh program has set an example in the world by achieving remarkable success in every indicator of progress.
Mustafa Jabbar, former president of BCS and BASIS, described the organization of the NASA Space Apps Challenge competition as a milestone. He said, the journey which BASIS started seven years ago has today transformed into a big platform for developing the talent of our children. He said that the world’s largest hackathon competition organized by the American space research agency NASA is being held at the same time in 313 cities around the world.
The minister congratulated all concerned including BASIS for organizing such an event.
In addition to engaging 10 million students through social media, the NASA Space Apps Challenge is planning to engage 2 lakh students directly and through the competition.
This time, more than 2 thousand contestants from 9 cities of the country participated. From there, a two-day hackathon was held in a hybrid model out of the top 110 projects with the top 50 projects at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) and the remaining 60 projects online.