The largest ICT exhibition in the South Asian region, Basis SoftExpo 2023, will end in the capital on Sunday evening, leaving behind its ever shining marks in promoting the country’s biggest leapfrogging potentials in terms of grabbing the demographic dividends and export diversification, rightly addressed by the government through targeting a $5 billion export of IT and ITES products and services.
Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) President Russel T Ahmed in exchange announced $20 billion export target by 2031 and gave a 3x3 formulae to achieve it.
“The story is all about the next big leap,” said Russel T Ahmed, the leader of the exhibition organiser.
The formulae include three sectors — the government, the industry and the academia working hand in hand, while three major tasks are product innovation, proper branding of the country and industry, and developing the human resource.
Over 350 of the BASIS members are now exporting IT and ITES to around 80 countries, up from 250 companies exporting to half of the market before the pandemic, according to BASIS.
The US market where 34% of Bangladesh’s IT and ITES exports are going nowadays has a shortage of around 3 million IT professionals, followed by the shortage of 1.5 million of the knowledge workers in the European Union, a million in the United Kingdom, 0.85 million in Japan.
The BASIS president is a bit on the optimistic side about the $5billion IT and ITES export target by 2025 as the Prime Minister and her ICT advisor are seriously guiding the sector.
Demand is there and it is only growing since the pandemic as the world’s companies are embracing IT more and more, said Ahmed.
He suggests complete collaboration among policy makers, industry and academia that is a must to fully unlock potentials.
Having the right master plan and the execution roadmap, branding the country and the industry should be the first task as the world’s buyers need to know Bangladeshi firms and their knowledge of workers’ capabilities, according to him.
Then there need to be investments in a right way that yields the maximum in terms of building capacity to compete with other countries.
IT and ITES, however, have emerged as the largest graduate job creator as the industry has already employed 0.15 million knowledge workers, while around 0.6 million are working as freelancers.
Every year, around 25 thousand IT graduates enter the industry but that is not enough for reaching the 2031 export goal, feels the BASIS President.
Right now, the workforce of 0.1 million is bringing $1 billion export income and the industry needs at least 1.5 million skilled people in 2031 to earn $20 billion.
ICT graduates in the pipeline alone are unlikely to fill the gap, which needs to be addressed in the interest of higher revenue tasks related to software and other high-end tasks.
The good thing is that a big workforce of non-ICT graduates also can be prepared for a better income from ICT and ITES-related work and support the industry target, said Russel T Ahmed.
Over 200 Bangladeshi firms are showcasing their IT and ITES products and services.
Starting at 10.00 am on 23 February at Bangabandhu Bangladesh-China Friendship Exhibition Center, Purbachal, in Dhaka the show and get together of thousands of ICT professionals is set to end at 8.00 pm on 26 February.
Besides so many awareness-creating events and thought provoking seminars every day, the exhibition comes live and engaging through the job fair, career camps, B2B matchmaking, freelancing conference, startup conference, developers’ conference, women in IT program, ministerial conference, and ambassadors’ night.
Visitors rush to AI stalls
Most of the visitors in the ongoing BASIS SoftExpo 2023 in the capital’s Purbachal is rushing at virtual reality-powered game, artificial intelligence and robotics stalls.
Some 200 exhibitors at the fair are displaying a wide range of software and IT-enabled services – from mobile application, website, animation to robots – while virtual reality games, artificial intelligence, and robotics are attracting most visitors, particularly the youth.
Bikroy.com, Grameen Communications, CodersTrust Bangladesh, ADN Group, BracNet, Brain Station 23, Golden Harvest Infotech, Technobd, Digi-Tech Industries, Unisoft Systems, TMSS ICT, ACME AI, Asiatic Marketing Communication, Berger Tech Consulting, LankaBangla Information System, Sysnova Information Systems are some exhibitors among 200.
College-going student Afsana Akhter, who along with his family came from Cumilla, was surprised to have experienced the immersiveness of a virtual reality-powered game presented by Grameenphone at the ongoing BASIS SoftExpo 2023 in the capital’s Purbachal. She also won a match in the game and received a T-shirt as a prize.
“Visiting such a big expo of IT-enabled technologies is really amazing. What I have learnt from here will inspire me to further think about technology,” Afsana said while talking to The Business Standard at the exhibition venue – Bangabandhu Bangladesh-China Friendship Exhibition Center.
She was one of the hundreds of visitors who came to the exposition on Friday, the second day of the four-day event, to explore different software technologies and join seminars on IT entrepreneurship.
“I came here to understand the trends of the technology world. I am thrilled to see different tactics of robotics and how they perform complex tasks,” said Fahim Abrar, another college student who came from Barisal with his uncle. He also participated in the Startup Conference at the expo.
“Such arrangements should also be done at district levels so that we can easily participate,” he added.
“People of all ages have been playing games in our stall since Friday morning. I did not think we would see such responses from a large number of visitors,” said Iqbal Ahmed, representative at Grameenphone’s VR Games stall.
“Youths are now highly interested in robotics. They come to our stall and enjoy interaction with robots,” said a student of Brac University who was showcasing robots at a stall. “I am surprised to know that many of the school and college-going students during their visits said they are passionately learning robotics,” he added.
Students from some other universities, including the University of Dhaka and Comilla University, are also displaying robots in the exhibition.
The main objective of the expo is to show the potential and capacity of local IT firms and attract local and global clients. The Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services or BASIS, the body of the flag bearers of $1.4 bn ICT exports, stresses a rigorous collaboration among the government, industry and academia at national and international levels with the 17th edition of the expo to reach its goals of exporting $5 billion by 2025 and $20 billion by 2031.
An IT job fair and career camp, B2B matchmaking, outsourcing conference, startup conference, developers’ conference, and ministerial conference are taking place at the four-day event.
Nearly a dozen seminars and dialogues are being held with policymakers, ICT business leaders, national and international speakers, influencers, and motivators under one roof, on issues such as awareness and capacity-building programs, e-commerce, cyber security, human resource development, and 4IR.
Around 80 foreign delegates and businesses are participating in the business-to-business matchmaking sessions. The exposition houses two large business lounges, a free shuttle bus service for visitors, gaming zones, and many other conveniences.
Daraz Bangladesh, country’s largest online marketplace, organized “Daraz Payment PartnerAwards 2022” at the Grand Ballroom, Sheraton Dhaka recently to acknowledge the continued support of the partners in the banking and mobile financial services (MFS) sectors for the development of e-commerce. Bjarke Mikkelsen, Global CEO, Daraz; Syed Moshtahidal Hoq, Managing Director, Daraz Bangladesh; Khondoker Tasfin Alam, Chief Operating Officer, Daraz Bangladesh and Monjuri Mallik, Director, Technology & Digital Payment and Strategy, Daraz Bangladesh, were present at the award giving ceremony. Md. Mezbaul Haque, Director, Payment System Department, Bangladesh Bank, graced the occasion with his presence. Besides, MD, DMD, and CXOs, other senior officers from different banks and financial institutions were also present at the event. Payment partners including different mobile financial services are playing an instrumental role in the growth of the e-commerce sector. Especially behind Daraz’s growth, these payment partners have a significant role. To express gratitude to their contributions, Daraz has awarded 15 payment partners in different categories. The awardees include bKash as Best Performer of The Year; The City Bank Limited as Most Valued Partner- Credit Cards; BRAC Bank as Most Valued Partner- Debit Cards; LankaBangla Finance Limited as Best in EMI Growth; The City Bank Limited as Most Consistent Partner; Southeast Bank Limited as Best Acquiring Partner- GOLD; Eastern Bank Limited as Best Acquiring Partner- SILVER; Prime Bank Limited & HSBC as Best New Entrant; VISA, MasterCard & Shahjalal Islami Bank Limited as Best Strategic Partner; Islami Bangladesh Bank Limited, United Commercial Bank & Standard Chartered Bank as Best Organic Customer Growth.
Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Limited has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Robi’s wholly owned ICT focused subsidiary, RedDot Digital Limited, to facilitate the industries of this country with cloud solutions. They both will work together with a concentrated focus on specific domains and industries.
An MoU signing event to this end has been held at Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Limited’s office located in Gulshan recently. Pan Junfeng, CEO of Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Limited, and Hasib Mustabsir, CEO of RedDot Digital signed the agreement on behalf of their organizations in presence of other officials from both companies.
Under this agreement, Huawei and RedDot Digital will work together in the development of the cloud ecosystem in Bangladesh and facilitate the private sector from across the industries to explore the business prospects. In addition to working as a cloud partner of Huawei, RedDot Digital will implement a pilot project for itself with the help of Huawei Cloud solutions.
Pan Junfeng, CEO of Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Limited, said at the event, “Under the guidance of all stakeholders and eco-partners from various industries, Huawei has become the fastest growing cloud provider in the region just within four years of starting its operation in the Asia Pacific. Our cloud solutions have already achieved second position in China, third position in Thailand, and fourth in the developing markets in this region. We have versatile cloud solutions and intelligent cloud networks to serve enterprises, traditional and digital banks, medical institutions, educational institutions, and so on. As an ICT partner of Bangladesh for 23 years, I am very proud to ensure that Huawei will continue its effort to help Bangladesh reap the benefits of digitalization”.
Hasib Mustabsir, CEO of RedDot Digital shared, “We are very excited to work with Huawei to support the digital transformation of the enterprise sector of the country. Cloud solutions are well known around the world for their ability to optimize cost and bring efficiency to business operation. In collaboration with Huawei, we are confident to emerge as the preferred cloud service provider for the country’s rapidly expanding enterprise sector. In this backdrop, I believe this MoU will facilitate the implementation of the Government’s Smart Bangladesh vision.”