It was Sunday noon at Hotel Radisson Blu. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the ICT Advisor to the Prime Minister, touched the tab placed on the stage. Through which, the Smart Bangladesh touched the smart digital transaction era. The ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak, ICT Division Senior Secretary NM Zeaul Alam and Bangladesh Bank Governor Abdur Rauf Talukdar were present at the program.
While speaking at the inaugural session, Sajeeb Wazed Joy said “Digital Bangladesh has been transformed by using her own talent and thinking, IMF and World Bank came after announcing the vision of Digital Bangladesh. They could not provide implementation solutions. We did it. The institutions of our country have made services digital. I have asked to set up Union Digital Centers to take services to the grass roots. It is a unique model in the world”.
Calling everyone to use the innovative platform of inter-transaction platform ‘Binimoy‘, Joy expected that in the next four years, cent percent of people will have bank accounts and that will be cashless.
It was heart aching at first:
After introducing technologies from ICT ministry, it used to be heart aching to handover to other ministries; but now it is over, said the state minister for ICT. After handing over the 999 service to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Palak expressed regret but realized the department was working on a whole-of-governance approach.
He politely requested the concerned to join the inter-transaction digital platform ‘Binimoy’ and said, it is the most independent and simple platform. This will prevent fraud and cheating.
The foundation of Digital Bangladesh is built on 4 foundations. I decided 306 things to do under the guidance of Joy Bhai. ICT policy has been made. Now, the ICT Division has been working on the digital transformation of all the ministries.
While speaking as the chief guest, Sajeeb Wajed Joy, the grandson of Bangabandhu said that, at present, about 5.6 crore villagers do not have bank accounts. If Awami League can win again in the next election, then hundred percent of people of Bangladesh will have bank accounts and will live in a cashless society during the next term of the government.
Sajeeb said, network system has been established, government services have been digitized, technology has been improved, large IT companies have been established in Bangladesh. Now laptops, mobile phone sets and computer memory chips are being produced in the country and they are going to be exported.
He said, ‘In the election manifesto of 2008, there was a plan to make the country digital. At that time there was nothing digital in this country. The World Bank and other donors wanted to help build Digital Bangladesh, but Bangladesh did not go that route due to complications. We have done Digital Bangladesh completely by ourselves. Every step of today’s digital Bangladesh is Bangladesh’s own. Not from any foreign donor agency.
The Prime Minister’s Information and Communication Technology Adviser said that when Awami League came to power, there was internet only in Dhaka and Chittagong. Network infrastructure was our first task. Took fiber optic up to union. It got appreciation all over the world. Village people do not have smartphones, how will they use digital technology? According to the plan, digital centers have been built in four and a half thousand unions of the country within a year. After that government services have started to be digitized. Our goal is to digitize all government services in the next few years. There are no foreign companies here either.
He further said, foreigners thought that they will tell us what are the problems to make things digital and we will work accordingly. But we have talents. We know IT, we have digitized Bangladesh. We were able to identify the problem and solve it ourselves.
He also said, ’40/50 thousand citizens have been trained annually to build the IT industry. Now a good IT sector has been created in the country. We can do everything ourselves. Most of the Bangladeshi companies are able to provide services where the IT works are going on in the public and private sectors within the country. No need to bring companies from abroad, no dollars are spent. No country has advanced so rapidly in technology.’
Sajeeb Wazed Joy said, one of the steps of digital services is going cashless. Most people in villages in our country still do cash transactions. Here lies the risk. Cash cannot be kept in hand all the time. Corruption, Terrorism comes as long as cash transactions exists. That’s why cashless society is our next goal.
He said, interoperable transaction platform ‘Binimoy’ is the service of Bangladesh Bank. The more transactions here, the more we can move towards a cashless society.