The youths should become entrepreneurs to bring more digital transformation in the country, said speakers at the Digital Summit 2019 held at a city hotel in the capital on Saturday.
Bangladesh Brand Forum (BBF) organized the summit in association with ada (Analytics. Data. Advertising) and The Daily Star. Meghna Group of Industries presented this year’s summit.
In his inaugural address, BBF Founder and Managing Director Shariful Islam said digital technology turned as a way of life for the millennium natives, and youths should come up to intervene in it as entrepreneur to create employment.
"While marketers are trying to embrace digital technology in every facet of their brand-building activities, we need to realize that the human connection needs to be at the centre of everything that marketers do to thrive in this new ecosystem," he told the audience.
This year's summit, sixth in its series since 2014, brought together leading and global industry professionals, decision-makers, successful entrepreneurs and creative leaders under one roof to exchange and share their experiences about all aspects of digital developments in light of global transformation.
The summit also provided a multidisciplinary forum to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, strategies, challenges and solutions in the field of digital media and marketing.
The daylong summit had interactive sessions over question and answer about digital space and its challenges through case studies and panel discussion. Around 500 professionals including chief executive officers, heads of marketing, brand managers, agency heads, operation heads and digital marketing departments participated in the summit.
At the summit, everyone told their stories of becoming successful in digital entrepreneurship or leading an institutional team deployed to adopt digital technology and deliver required services or be a digital crew. They also shared challenges they passed through the journey and advocated strategies to overcome challenges for the newer ones.
They said the country was gradually moving towards digitalization as its people adopted digital technology at workplace, home, self-employment and academic purposes to keep competitiveness in light with the ever-rising global trend of digital transformation.
They also said the government was also playing a significant role in adopting digital technology to deliver services to people.
The summit was followed by announcement of winners of Digital Marketing Award 2019 in the night, where best digital works were awarded in 16 categories. More than 500 nominations were submitted for the award. The awards were in four ranks – grand prix, gold, silver and bronze.
This year’s Digital Marketing Award had 79 winners. There were 1 grand prix award, 12 gold awards, 16 silver awards and 50 bronze awards.
This year’s summit had three global speakers, who came from different regions of the world and shared their knowledge with the audience. Alongside, there were notable local experts who discussed on multiple topics.
Keynote speakers were Rob Sherlock, executive adviser, Global Communications Consultant at ADK and chief creative officer, Executive Search at Cognasia Talent; Vittorio Furlan, head of business insights at ada (Analytics. Data. Advertising), Malaysia; and Protik Basu, managing partner at WeAddo.
