Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has inaugurated the Sheikh Kamal IT Business Incubator at Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (Cuet).
She joined the opening ceremony via videoconferencing from Ganabhaban on Wednesday morning.
The prime minister also inaugurated the two separate four-storey dormitories of the incubator, named after Sheikh Jamal and Rosie Jamal, for male and female entrepreneurs. The total area of the two buildings is 40,000 square feet and each dormitory has 40 rooms.
After the assassination of Bangabandhu, Sheikh Hasina said, she returned to the country with a goal in the midst of many challenges. “That goal is to change the destiny of the exploited people, so that we can walk with our heads held high, as a dignified nation.”
“There have been many obstacles, but we have tried to establish human rights and restore democracy,” she added.
The Sheikh Kamal IT Business Incubator is Bangladesh’s first university campus-based business incubator, built with the aim of developing entrepreneurship and expanding knowledge-based economy.
Around 220 entrepreneurs, trainees, freelancers and potential startups can get infrastructural, logistic, technical, financial and mentorship support from the incubator to transform innovative ideas into products and services in order to build a “Smart Bangladesh” by 2041.
“The objective of setting up the incubator is to establish effective links between universities and IT-based industries as well as create opportunities for research and innovation,” Cuet Vice Chancellor Dr Mohammad Rafiqul Alam told reporters on Tuesday.
Dhaka TribuneThe 10-storey incubation building has been constructed, beginning in July 2017, on 4.7 acres of the Cuet campus at a cost of Tk113 crore. Each floor has about 5,000 square feet of space.
The incubation building has a startup zone, innovation zone, industry-academic zone, brainstorming zone, exhibition centre, e-library zone, data centre, research lab, video conferencing room and a conference room.
There will also be separate corners for banks and IT firms, cyber cafes, food courts, cafeterias, recreation zones, display zones and media rooms.
There is also an Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab, machine learning lab, optical fibre backbone and high-speed internet connection at the incubator.
