Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced the “Digital Bangladesh: Vision 2021” manifesto back on December 12th, 2008. Digital Bangladesh is already a reality rather than the pipe dream it once was, as our country celebrates harnessing its digital dreams during Digital Bangladesh Day on December 12 every year. Today, a large portion of Digital Bangladesh's potential is benefiting the population directly, especially the underprivileged rural poor.
This jump was made possible by the incumbent government's daring and inspiring leadership, which has rekindled the hopes, aspirations, and beliefs of the population and has successfully expanded the boundaries of our nation's growth. This phenomena is blazing a new development trajectory for Bangladesh and setting examples for the rest of the developing world. It was inspired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's bold vision, implemented by all government agencies, and supported by the people.
By 2041, Bangladesh will be a developed nation, and it will also be a “Smart Bangladesh,” a new initiative that aims to make the entire society technologically smart. Machines that learn beyond the logic of the software that programs them (commonly referred to as artificial intelligence or AI), will predominate the road to 2041. In the last five years, AI has advanced more than it has in the previous 50 given the proliferation of AI assistants that aid people with daily tasks.
One of the main forces in the transition to 2041 will be AI. The Internet of Things (IoT), which is made up of trillions of sensors attached to virtually everything around us, advanced methods of editing, sequencing, and cloning genes, organs, and whole living beings, and nanotechnology with materials stronger than steel and thinner than human hair will be some other significant drivers.
To make Smart Bangladesh a reality, the government has set up four pillars: Smart citizens, a smart economy, a smart government, and a smart society. Not to mention that the country will move forward thanks to the potential of the youth, who are technologically savvy already. Bangladesh will undoubtedly transition from being a labour-driven economy to a sophisticated knowledge-based one by 2041.
Our nation has succeeded in becoming Digital Bangladesh, one of the largest countries in terms of online worker sources. Based on this success, Bangladesh plans to create a sustainable, knowledge-based, and innovative Smart Bangladesh by 2041. In 13 years, our ICT industry has seen significant advancements, before then there were just shy of five million internet users; today, there are 130 million.
There was no ICT industry, in fact, and just $26 million worth of technology was exported. Now, the annual amount from the software, hardware, and service sectors is $1.4 billion. Ensuring digital equity -- the notion that everyone should have access to the information technology required for full engagement in our society, democracy, and the economy -- requires unwavering and persistent emphasis. Government agencies are already using technology more frequently to bring their services to citizens' homes. MyGov, for example, is a platform that offers a variety of solutions to accelerate the digitization of government services.
The website for the Bangladesh National Portal houses more than 51,528 government offices under one roof. The government, non-profit organizations, and our industries have all come together to develop a multimodal digital education environment, which combines a variety of high-tech, low-tech, and even non-tech learning modules.
A digital economy was established thanks to Digital Bangladesh 2021. The delivery of government services using new methods in place of the outdated analog ones will take a few more years to fully institutionalize and transform how our national bureaucracy behaves. The process of societal adoption will take some time and there are risks including cybersecurity and privacy concerns over citizen data, among others.
The disparity between urban and rural users' access to information via ICT, or the “digital divide,” grows when there are power outages because the servers regularly crash. Due to the recent frequent power outages, many independent contractors nationwide have been less productive than they could be. They have been unable to access uninterrupted internet services.
According to government sources, the effort has been taken to make cellphones more readily available to the general public at the lowest possible prices in order to spread the use of digital technology, in addition to making access to the internet relatively inexpensive.
Building a truly digital and smart Bangladesh will require the appropriate digital equipment and connectivity available for all. Now, it's crucial to put this strategy into action, and specific steps should be taken in this direction. First and foremost, everyone should have access to information technology -- in order to build the essential infrastructure for information technology, government initiatives should be implemented and private organizations should be supported.
Additionally, steps should be taken to make information technology affordable for women and disadvantaged groups. The government has already made the majority of the required arrangements for digital connectivity to effectively combat the fourth industrial revolution and beyond.
Al-Amin is an Assistant IT Officer at Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management.
