Digital Bangladesh (Country Branding)
1. ICT industries in Bangladesh
2. Digital Bangladesh
2. Digital Bangladesh
3. ICT as a development tool
4. Achievement of ICT ministry of Bangladesh Government
1: ICT industries in Bangladesh:
The ICT industry can be divided into two broad categories; IT and ITES. IT services can be broken down into Application Services (that include systems integration, IT infrastructure and consulting) and Engineering Services (including hardware and software development and testing).
The ITES category on the other hand can be categorized into Horizontal Process Outsourcing (including call centers and business process management such as HR and Supply Chain functions), Vertical Process Outsourcing (including banking, manufacturing, telecom, pharmaceutical), Knowledge Process Outsourcing (including business research, animation, data analytics, other specialized processes) and lastly, the latest entry into the segment, Automation Services (including task automation and Business Process as a Service; BPaaS).
The 1,500 IT/ITES companies currently registered in Bangladesh, are involved in most of the mentioned verticals of the ICT value chain, ranging from customized application development and maintenance, to BPO services throughout the value chain. Local demand has largely been driven by banking, telecom, pharmaceutics, RMG and Textile sectors, which has also built up capacity in the sector to export services.
The ITES segment in Bangladesh covers the entire gamut of operations which exploit IT for improving efficiency of an organization, driving revenue growth and increasing profitability. This in turn can be broken down into horizontal, vertical and knowledge process outsourcing (categorized broadly as BPO).
The ITES category consists of specialized services that rely on technology for delivery. Including voice services, data processing and animation among others. This represents a major portion of Bangladesh′s ICT market exports, standing at 17%. The IT segment on the other hand includes services that require extensive technical expertise to accomplish. These include services that offer Platform as a Service (PAAS), Software as a Service (SAAS) models to help businesses reach their goals. Furthermore, technology consulting, product design, infrastructure development, systems integrations and ERPs are all examples of IT Services.
The ICT industry in Bangladesh has grown to 250,000 people, with 1500+ companies and revenues near USD 500 million. On top of this are the legions of freelancers registered in platforms like Upwork and Elance who have gained a reputation for providing quality service at affordable costs; albeit at the lower tier job categories.
2. Digital Bangladesh
ACHIEVING
DIGITAL
BANGLADESH BY
2021 AND
BEYOND
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are recognized as a powerful tool for socio-economic development. With appropriate policies, supplemented by realistic strategies, ICTs are known to have brought tremendous welfare to people in terms of better access to information, job creation, and enhanced public services through efficient governance and diversification of economic opportunities.
Aligned with the nation‟s Digital Bangladesh Vision 2021, the Government of the People‟s Republic of Bangladesh today announced it will accelerate its transition from cash to digital payments, marked by a new partnership with the Better Than Cash Alliance. With mounting evidence that digital financial services are a sustainable strategy to deliver effective access to financial services for all citizens, the move also supports the Government‟s efforts to advance financial inclusion.
3. ICT as a development tool
ICT as a Development Enabler:
World over, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in development programming is a relatively new concept. In 2000 ICTs assumed a new prominence, when the United Nations and G8 group of industrialized countries flagged ICT for Development (ICT4D) as a global development priority by declaring that, "everyone, everywhere sho the global information society". The subsequent publication of UNDP Human Development Report titled Making New Technologies Work for Human Development in 2001 was a landmark effort to explore the use of new technologies for the benefit of common citizens of the world.
The renewed interest influenced the UN General Assembly to adopt resolution 56/183 (21 December 2001) which endorsed the holding of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in two phases. The first phase took place in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003 and the second phase took place in Tunis from 16 to 18 November 2005.
The Bangladesh delegation in WSIS was led by the incumbent Prime Minister who endorsed the 11-point WSIS agenda and declared Bangladesh's intention to become an information society by 2006. The second summit in 2005 was attended by the
then Minister for Science and ICT who reaffirmed Bangladesh's intention to follow up on the agenda as well.
4. Achievement of ICT ministry of Bangladesh Government
Achievement of ICT ministry: The slogan of “Digital Bangladesh” of the Government of Bangladesh has special significance for national development. Digital Bangladesh with Vision 2021 is a big impetus for the use of digital technology in the country. In spite of several bottlenecks and limitations, works are in progress for the realization of Digital Bangladesh. Several projects for digitalization have been completed and a big number of projects are under progress. The nation now, with over 12 crore mobile subscribers and 4.3 crore Internet subscribers, enjoys the fruits of digitization in numerous areas of activities. The ultimate objective is to make more and more services available at the doorsteps of the people with increased digitalization where possible. ICT and Economic Growth
1. Review of 6FYP’s targets
Due to continued expansion of the digital economy across the globe, growing expectations are riding particularly in G20 and emerging countries. In G20 countries, the digital economy is growing at more than 10 per cent a year (Dean et al., 2012). The growth of the internet economy in emerging countries is even faster: 12-25 per cent per year (WEF, 2014). Internet-based economic or iGDP activity is expected to reach USD 4.2 trillion in the G-20 nations by 2016, or more than 5 per cent of GDP. According to the McKinsey Global Study, the iGDP of Africa – iGDP is the measure of internet‟s contribution to a country‟s economic gain – stands at USD 18 billion, which is expected to reach USD 300 billion by 2025 (Manyika et al., 2013). Recently, a McKinsey study found internet economy is
contributing to faster GDP growth in China as a result of increased productivity, innovation and consumption (Woetzel, et al., 2014). Despite the absence of quantitative assessment (iGDP for Bangladesh) of contribution of digital economy to Bangladesh‟s GDP, there is a growing perception that progress is being made to meet the e-business objective of 6FYP to enable businesses, irrespective of their size, to avail ICT for production and to gain market access domestically and internationally. Following two sub-sections summarize the progress.
2. Agendas for 7FYP
IT/ITES industry in Bangladesh has gained prominence in recent times. Nevertheless, measures need to be adopted to capitalize its growing share in global outsourcing business, which is becoming the largest employer of educated youth. Although a significant number of educated and qualified entrepreneurs have started ICT ventures during the last couple of decades, most are trapped in the „small sizelow growth‟ situation because of fund constraints. Besides, there is severe gap in both quantity and quality as far as the human resource for software industry is concerned. This is due to institutional deficiency of the tertiary ICT-related educational institutions (lack of industry orientation of teaching resources, slowness of curriculum modernization etc.) as well as inadequate quality input from the higher secondary education system to the tertiary level. Hence, the IT companies‟ cash flow are often erratic and cyclical, not favoring long term strategic planning. High cost of bandwidth deters growth of domestic market for ITES and absence of IT park/software technology park, high internet cost, no redundant submarine cable, power shortage are some of the common infrastructural problems for most of the IT enterprises. Growth of export of ICT industry is below the expected level due to inadequacy in entrepreneurial dynamism, limited overseas marketing budget and absence of government level initiatives in promoting country brand. Policies and facilities are not friendly for value added service providers in the mobile phone industry. The underlying vision is to unleash potential of youth‟s talent and create good quality employment for them in the IT sector through cluster of innovation driven entrepreneurial initiatives.
2. ICT and Education
The 6FYP envisaged restructuring the education system to make it more attuned with the technologically evolving global landscape (GED, 2010: 271). “The role of ICT in boosting the quality of education will be emphasized and steps will be taken for narrowing the ICT skills between urban and rural people,” (ibid opcit). The human resource development category has four parts: (a) building e-learning infrastructure, i.e., one school, one computer lab, smart class room with e-learning facilities; (b) ICT education; (c) ICT-based education; and, (d) vocational ICT training facilities for the youth. On the other hand, the Perspective Plan calls for making ICT education mandatory at the secondary level by 2013 and also establishment of computer labs at the primary level by 2021 (GED, 2012: 57). Whilst the first target has been met, significant progress has been registered with regard to the latter.
1. Building e-learning infrastructure A model is being implemented meeting two interrelated objectives: (a) creation of smart/multimedia classrooms; and, (b) training teachers to create digital contents for their use in classrooms. The Ministry of Education (MoE) and Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MoPME) undertook two initiatives multimedia classroom (MMC) and Teacher-led Digital Content Development after successful prototypes. Two separate projects under MoE and MoPME are currently underway aimed at establishing 20,500 MMCs and 7,000 MMCs at the secondary and primary level respectively. The Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) has set up computer labs in 3,544 educational institutions in order to expand ICT education at the grassroots level. For increasing the usage of internet by educational institutions, it is provided free of cost. Bangladesh Research and Education Network (BdREN) has been established in 6 universities and gradually, all universities will be brought under this network. BdREN is connected to the Trans Euroasia Information Network (TEIN-3).
2. ICT education With regard to the second area, there has not been much progress (50 per cent of the targets). ICT courses for grade VI-XII have been introduced besides e-book conversion of 325 textbooks. An electronic teaching program for students (elearning) has been introduced. The Bangladesh National Library Modernization Project is working in the following areas: digital library infrastructure, collect materials for full-text digitization, permanent store, create digital data storage, online data transfer, automatic binding and conservation measures to scientific and research. ICT literacy evaluation as part of Public Service entrance exams has been introduced, but it needs to be extended in terms of depth of questions regarding the usage of ICTs for good governance in the delivery of public provisions.
3. ICT-based education Bangladesh has made some progress in this third area. Secondary and Higher Secondary ICT based Education project has established 20,000 MMCs (13,700 school, 5,200 madrassas and 1,600 colleges) – internet connectivity, one laptop and one multimedia. The Basic ICT Skills Transfer up-to-Upazila-level has set up computer labs at 192 educational institutions. It has provided training to 7,890 teachers as master trainers and to 112,189 students. In addition, 12,500 teachers have been trained to create multimedia content. These teachers are creating and sharing multimedia contents through a Teacher‟s Portal (https://www.teachers.gov.bd/), which is a central repository for e-learning content for teacher training and for all students. Incentives, through public recognition of best contents, are being awarded to encourage teachers‟ participation. Digital World (international), Digital Innovation Fair (district and sub-district level), Education Leaders‟ Conference (international), and Teachers‟ Conference (national) are being organized.
3. ICT-based education Bangladesh has made some progress in this third area. Secondary and Higher Secondary ICT based Education project has established 20,000 MMCs (13,700 school, 5,200 madrassas and 1,600 colleges) – internet connectivity, one laptop and one multimedia. The Basic ICT Skills Transfer up-to-Upazila-level has set up computer labs at 192 educational institutions. It has provided training to 7,890 teachers as master trainers and to 112,189 students. In addition, 12,500 teachers have been trained to create multimedia content. These teachers are creating and sharing multimedia contents through a Teacher‟s Portal (https://www.teachers.gov.bd/), which is a central repository for e-learning content for teacher training and for all students. Incentives, through public recognition of best contents, are being awarded to encourage teachers‟ participation. Digital World (international), Digital Innovation Fair (district and sub-district level), Education Leaders‟ Conference (international), and Teachers‟ Conference (national) are being organized.
4. Vocational ICT training Finally, in terms of spurring ICT related vocational training, 4 MMCs in each of 64 Technical School and College (TSC) have been set up and teachers‟ training is
underway for all teachers. Bangladesh Open University (BoU) has undertaken an initiative to launch e-learning/online program for its target audiences. Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) is also set to launch e-learning courses for migrant workers. Under the 7FYP, proposals could be made to enable delivery of such e-learning courses through Digital Centers which have been established across rural and urban Bangladesh.
5. Ameliorated Skill development projects
- Learning and Earning Development Project(LEDP)
- Skill Development for Mobile Game & Application
- SHE POWER Project: Sustainable Development for Women through ICT
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