Digital Bangladesh is our nation’s dream a new world. It was basically declared in 2008 election manifesto to build up Bangladesh as a digital one by prime minister Sheikh Hasina. After 50 year of independence, the main goal is to achieve middle-income status country by 2021 and developed status by 2041.
The four key objectives of "Digital Bangladesh" are:
- Human Resource Development
- Connecting the internet
- e-governance
- Building IT industry
Digital Bangladesh will be ensure people’s human rights, accountability, job placement, health, poverty reduction, effective use of technology, deliver government service to general people, overall the ultimate goal being the improvement of the citizens. This is called digital Bangladesh.
The way Bangladesh will look in 2021ঃ
Goal 1: Root out extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Effective parliament and actual democracy
Goal 3: decentralization of power and ensure people’s participation
Goal 4: Established rule of law and justice
Goal 5: Complete universal primary education
Goal 6: Free from corruption and avoid political partisanship
Goal 7: Economic development and urbanisation
Goal 8: Better delivery of government through e- facilites
Goal 9: Good foreign partnership for development
Vision:2021
Education sector :
ICT minister
Mustafa jbbar said on November 18 that ICT labs and multimedia classrooms would be set up every educational institute within next 2 years.ICT subject mandatory from school level.Computer labs will be established for every school. All kind of form fillup will be in online and online course will be available. Government would free education up to degree.
ICT sector:
Government focus on using and developing ICT for the accomplishment of national vision. So the government is now implementating projects with the support from UNDP, USAID and various donor agencies. As a part of those project, access to information
(a2i) was launched in 2010. It has established more than 5400 digital center over the country. These center provide service including land record, digital birth registration system, eTIN (electronic tax identification number), NID database, overseas job application, mobile financial service etc with modern technology. Nowdays citizens are getting any kind of information from digital info center union and upozila parishad. A noteworthy issue is that new and modern technology replace the older devices. These updated technology help us to build and foster our IT industry.
IT related training will be provided to 2 lakh youths of the country by the 2021.
E-commerce sector:
Recently the e-commerce sector is booming in Bangladesh. With better opportunity, increasing web population, the expectancy of e-commerce is dramatically growing for the last couple of years.
In this modern era, we can hardly do our work without technology. The utilization of internet
technology is exceptionally common in every single way of our activity. Now we can utilize the use of internet in e-commerce business. E-commerce run with production of products and goods, marketing, delivery, service, payment with the use of internet. Our country’s central bank authority, the Bangladesh bank permitted online transaction since 2009 and purchase of goods and service online with using credit cards since 2013. In Bangladesh the mobile internet users is growing day by day. According to the
(ITU) International telecommunication union, the number of internet users was 6.5% of the population in 2013 and it was 18.2% in 2017 and it’s continously growing.
Currently four types of e-commerce are noticeable in Bangladesh :
1. Business to Business (B2B)
2. Business to consumer (B2C)
3. Consumer to Consumer (C2C)
4. Consumer to Employee (C2E)
In order to encourage e-commerce ICT 2006 was included. The e-commerce association of Bangladesh
(e-cab) listed 700 e-commerce site and 8,000 e-commerce Facebook pages in Bangladesh. Facebook pages is a polular way of selling products, advertising and reach to customer easily. Additionally, e-commerce is largly dependent on Mobile Financial service (MFS) as it's a easy way of payment. According to e-cab report 2017, 10 billion taka take place in transaction on e-commerce sites per year.
Althrough there are still some challenges including privacy policy, online payment system, online fraud, delivery issue. Bangladesh leading towards to bright future in e-commerce sector. If the e-commerce companies make sure their customers security and provide the best service the industry will be a bright future.
Number of internet users cross 9cr and mobile user 15cr:
The number of internet users across the world is rising day by day. We also not falling behind the race. Bangladesh ranked 5th top internet user in Asia. According to BTRC survey, currently the number of internet users crosses 9 crore which was only 1 lakh in 2000 and the number of mobile subscribers reach 15.5 crore.
Bangladesh now on 5G expressway:
5G will be available in Bangladesh from the first quarter of next year. 5G will not only related with telecom operator it will be boost every sector. The government launched 4G in 2018 February and 3G service.
MNP service:
Mobile number portability (MNP) is a common service in developed country in the world. Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Council (BTRC) launched the service for the first time in Bangladesh. It allows customers to switch any operator without changing their 11-digit mobile phone number.
Bangabandhu -1 satellite:
Bangabandhu -1 satellite is the first communication satellite of Bangladesh was successfully launched from Florida, United Sates. Private TV Channels of Bangladesh can take service fron the satellite. The satellite has 40 transponders. At the point of government, Bangladesh will use 20 transponders and other will be rent out to other countries.The total consumption of the satellite was about 2,765 crore.
We may have a long way to go and there is many issue which is very complicated, depend on many other factor and there is no quick solution. However, the process already started and hopefully we will be able to turn our country into a digital Bangladesh by bringing an all round development.