ICT entrepreneurs urge govt to ease tendering conditions

ICT professionals and entrepreneurs made the appeal at a seminar on “Industry Readiness for Digitization of Government Service” where the government policy makers also participated. In response, government policy makers, however, urged the entrepreneurs to come up with best solutions and to show the capacity to take the risk of handling big projects. Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) senior vice president Russell T Ahmed moderated the seminar, organised as part of the three-day “Digital World 2016” Expo being held in Dhaka. At the seminar, entrepreneurs complained that the current process of bidding is not in favor of local entrepreneurs. If we want to boost the local industry, we have to create space allowing them to work jointly with foreign companies. Proposing that the conditions in the tendering process should be in such way that local companies can participate and bid, Spectrum Engineering Consortium Limited Managing Director Forkan Bin Quasem said, “When a multinational company gets a software-implementing tender, it should be mandatory to have local agents with it, so that the local professionals can acquire knowledge and experience of big projects.” “If all the software-related tasks are done by the foreign companies, the local companies will have to do only the hardware-related tasks which would bar the growth of the sector,” he added. Stressing that digital literacy is very important to digitise the country, Microsoft Asia pacific Sales Director Arijit Roy, said, “We are working with partnership so that professionals of the country can be skilled and increase capacity.” Citing example of local ICT company Tiger IT which is now working in Nepal, REVE System CEO M Rezaul Hasan said, “We have to prove that we can take risk and want to compete with everyone. If we cannot compete in the local market, then how we will be able to compete in the global market.” “The local entrepreneurs should come up with bigger plans and solution regarding digitisation of government services with challenges and BASIS should take the lead,” said State Minister for Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid Bipu. Advising local professionals to forget about the high efficiency of multi-national companies, the state minister said, “You should take the risk and challenge. Show your capacity and compete with others. This is the time to deal with your confidence. The market is getting bigger and we have several ministries as well as companies to digitise,” said Nasrul. Talking on the opportunity of digitisation in the day to come, the minister said his ministry is going to float tender of $200 million to digitise the power division.