Unmanned aerial vehicles like drones serve so many purposes in modern life. Be that spraying pesticides or conducting surveys; shooting films to conducting research work; or sending emergency aid at hard to reach areas or ensuring state security. In continuation of this, the world cup of drone football is going to be held in 2025. Before this, the world’s newest e-sports ‘Drone Soccer’ was seen at the Sheraton Hotel in Banani of the capital. The invited guests enjoyed soccer practice of 5 soccer drones overhead at the ‘Bangladesh-Korea Drone Road Show’ on Wednesday morning. Prof. William Pragin, director of the Korean Drone Soccer Association, presented the exhibit while detailing the Drone World Cup.
In this half-hour conference organized by the South Korean Embassy in Dhaka, 6 companies from Korea showcased their products and services related to drones and GIS. Besides highlighting the role of drones in the fourth industrial revolution, Prof. Zahurul Haque, a teacher of Mechanical Engineering Department of BUET, shed light on how to solve existing problems in drone technology. In the keynote presentation, he presented a documentary of BUET Lab’s research and development progress from traffic drones, room service drones to agro-bots, craftsmanship and even fish-like artificial intelligence drones. He said, Professor Shahrin Chowdhury, Priyam Das and Shahriar Alam of the same department are with him in this work. Third year students also cooperated the team. This teacher of BUET urged to advance this research commercially.
Then, Andrew Cho of Hojang Solutions in Korea highlighted the environmentally friendly use of artificial intelligence drones through GIS software. Miang Chang of Hancom InSpace highlighted the space image data analysis service, Meisa Planet Group presented the digital twin solution. Smart Farming Solution was presented by Sukgu Kim of Jio Special Information. 9 years ago, the organization mapped the agricultural land of Dhaka and Narayanganj.
Earlier, in the opening speech of the drone show-case, the State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak opined that such a road show can create a new possibility and opportunity for the entire ICT sector including startups, innovators and business organizations in Bangladesh.
On Wednesday (November 16, 2022), South Korean Embassy organized the ‘Bangladesh-Korea Drone Road Show 2022’ on UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and related software solutions in Dhaka. The Road Show was held at the Hotel Sheraton in Banani area of the capital.
The State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak was the chief guest in the half-day conference. Lee Jang-kyun, Ambassador of South Korea to Bangladesh, was the special guest.
While speaking as the chief guest, the State Minister said, “We have had a good relationship with Korea since the war of independence. Bangladesh has made a lot of progress in the last 13 years. He said, we started working with Korea 40 years ago in the garments sector. Currently, Bangladesh is recognized as the second largest exporting country in the RMG sector”.
Palak said that Bangladesh is working tirelessly to create a smart Bangladesh by 2041. He thanked South Korea as a friendly country for Bangladesh to achieve this goal.
The state minister also said that Korea has an important role in creating the internet network backbone in Bangladesh. Korean private sector is working very well in our country and at the same time ready to serve Bangladesh global industry.
He mentioned that by organizing such a Road Show, a new possibility and opportunity can be created for the entire ICT sector including startups, innovators, and business organizations in Bangladesh. He also expressed the opinion that there is an opportunity for Bangladesh-Korea to work together in the development of technology by taking various initiatives including the use of drones to prevent pony pollution through G2G, G2B and B2B matchmaking.
He also said that Bangladesh is working towards welcoming startups, innovators and new potential enterprises. This road show will encourage and be of great help to startups and innovators in our tech sector. He also said that Bangladesh is advancing at a very fast pace in the technology sector. We are keen to participate in such collaboration and exchange programs in the future.
Finally, State Minister Palak expressed hope that Bangladesh-Korea friendly relations will continue to grow stronger in the future.
South Korean ambassador to Bangladesh Lee Jang-kyun said that the drone technology market in the world is growing very fast. We are very happy to organize such an exceptional road show on drone technology. Expressing the potential of drone technology, he said that Bangladesh-Korea can jointly work on drone technology. Bangladesh has ample opportunity to invest in drone technology. He also commented that Korea-Bangladesh can work together to develop this technology through partnership.
The organizers hope that the event will create a new opportunity for cooperation between Korea and Bangladesh in the field of innovative technology. Its main goal is to draw the attention of the Bangladesh government and business sector to the importance and diverse uses of drone technology and highlight the need for the technology to everyone. Highlights of the roadshow included a series of product-specific presentations by Korean companies, along with presentations from government authorities in Bangladesh.
Dhaka WASA Managing Director (MD) Engineer Taksim A Khan, Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) Managing Director Malik Fida A Khan, K-BD Association Chairman Yong Oh Ryu and many others were present on the occasion.
Besides, representatives of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Korea Institute of Aviation Safety Technology, Korean UAV Technology Company and local public-private organizations participated in the event.