ICT sector should get ready for the fourth industrial revolution

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There is absolutely no doubt that people have completed an extended journey towards the implementation of the Digital Bangladesh vision and our industry in addition has become much more stable although some IT companies are doing excellent in the neighborhood and foreign markets.

The country has already hit the landmark of earning an export income of $1 billion from the ICT sector and is getting big projects from the international industry, which highlight the industry's spiralling growth.

Right now the industry is upon the verge of facing the impacts of the 4th commercial revolution or 4IR and it'll be a major problem for the industry.

During the 4IR, you will have dominance of systems like artificial cleverness (AI), machine learning, net of issues (IOT), robotics, big info, augmented reality and other folks.

These developments beg the question: just how much is our industry prepared to adopt these technologies?


A developed country just like South Korea is currently fighting the novel coronavirus by counting on its technological forte in AI and equipment learning.

If we want to become a real digitalised region, we also need to take the task to fix local problems with the aid of ICT following footprint of Korea. And the chance is huge here.

But we even now lag behind others regarding taking preparation for adopting those systems and creating skilled manpower to seize the opportunities.

Every year thousands of graduates come out from universities with engineering degrees. However they aren't well qualified to grab a pie of this huge outsourcing/offshore production market.

In a country like Bangladesh, we always depend on the government to accomplish everything for all of us. Yes, the authorities should play a essential role when it comes to insurance policy support and providing other strategical facilities. But the government can't ever run fast like the private sector.

Actually, no government on earth can manage at the same tempo as the personal sector. So, the market should take steps themselves to prepare the resources and also to pick up the billion-dollar industry that will emerge within the next decade.

The initial step is to minimise the gap and strengthen collaboration between your industry and academia. University curriculums remain unable to meet up with the industry's demand that will be produced in the coming times.

Special focus should be given on the emerging technologies and there should be a provision of six-month internships for every single student so that they are able to gain some practical knowledge from the industry and prepare themselves before arriving at the job market.

To attain the target of $5 billion export earnings by 2025, we should focus more available and industry. We as well need to discover which technologies we are actually good at.

Japan will be one of the pioneers in the 4IR and a huge offshore development industry is going to be designed for the emerging technologies.

It is stated that Japan will maintain a shortage of more than several lakh skilled engineers by 2025, that they are desperately looking towards the offshore development companions.

Over 50 % populace of Bangladesh are aged below 25 and the united states can definitely utilise the energy of the youths to achieve more growth.

The positive thing is that Bangladesh has been seriously considering the Japanese market since 2014 and some of the firms are doing excellent in this market.

But we are falling behind others as a result of dialect barrier, while Vietnam has done very good.

It's been reported that almost all of the Japanese companies prefer Vietnam above Bangladesh, since Vietnamese engineers can speak Japanese fluently as a result of learning the dialect from the institution level.

That's why Bangladesh is usually lagging behind Vietnam irrespective of providing more quality function. Time has arrive for the industry and the federal government to address this matter.

The government has introduced a project called BJET (Bangladesh-Japan ICT Engineers' Training Programme), where we teach them Japanese dialect and etiquettes. But the number of students we are making per batch isn't even close to the demand we've in our market.

Another point is definitely that we also have to produce satisfactory number of graduates qualified in emerging technologies.

Like Japan, countries just like the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland are also likely to witness negative human population growth, which explains why also, they are looking for skilled engineers and outsource companions.

But the European marketplace has been very difficult for Bangladesh in the modern times because of the surge of Ukraine and Poland in the tech sector. Most Europe are at this moment preferring to visit Ukraine and Poland instead of arriving at Southeast Asia.

We've another big market we've always ignored: Africa. Within the next 10 to 15 years, it'll be a great market for the ICT companies.

Some African countries just like Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Ghana are actually thinking to digitalise their countries, a journey that Bangladesh started 10 years ago.

So, enough time is ripe for Bangladeshi ICT corporations to focus on that marketplace. As a lot more than 100 Bangladeshi corporations have the knowledge of completing large-scale ICT projects, they have an advantage over others if indeed they end up being the first movers.

The bottom line is, it's today which will decide where we will go tomorrow. If we can't take the proper step today, our market will lose a great opportunity.

All the parties, including the government, non-public sector and academia, should sit together and generate a masterplan to be the leader in the ICT sector in the next decade and become another ICT destination.
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net

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