Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mostafa Jabbar has called upon the Bangladesh Agricultural University BAU authority to take strong initiatives in using digital agricultural technology along with research. He urged the specialized university, to apply robotics, IoT, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology in agricultural work in the country and to use its facilities at the research and field level.
The minister made the call in a keynote address at a virtual discussion meeting organized by BAU on Thursday (September 2) to mark the placement of Bangladesh Agricultural University, in the list of one thousand to one thousand two hundred best universities in the world made by Times Higher Education.
BAU Vice-Chancellor Prof. Lutful Hasan, a member of the University Grants Commission, Professor Md. Abu Taher and media personality Subhash Singh Roy spoke while Dr. Md. Tajuddin BAU IQAC presided over the program. Additional Director of BAU IQAC Prof. Dr. Md. Harun Aur Rashid conducted the program.
Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mostafa Jabbar said the fact that about 17 crore people have reached the point of food surplus in this country is a result of the continuity of steps taken by Bangabandhu for the development of farmers and agriculture. Human resources are playing the biggest role in this transformation of Bangladesh.
Mentioning that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is taking Bangladesh forward along the path of Bangabandhu, the Minister said, Bangabandhu used to think of farmers, workers and hardworking people, gave them dignity; Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina is also following that path. She added the idea of ‘villages will be towns’ in the election manifesto. As a result of its groundbreaking Digital Bangladesh program, Bangladesh’s GDP achievement in South Asia has surpassed all the countries despite the corona pandemic. After missing three industrial revolutions in the past, Sheikh Hasina has brought a backward country to the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Society Five Point Zero, the minister said. He hoped that the technology mentioned in the Fourth Industrial Revolution would be applied in agriculture as well. How much food to give. When to feed the fish in the pond, how much to give- IoT technology will ensure. This will be the beginning of a revolutionary change in agriculture. He called upon Bangladesh Agricultural University to focus on creating suitable human resources for this purpose.
By the way, three public universities of Bangladesh have got a place in the global ranking list this time. The universities are- Dhaka University, Bangladesh Agricultural University, and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). The list is based on research, outreach and teaching criteria based on achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
