Joy puts kids first in IT education

The government is planning to introduce the information technology education at primary level in future, said Prime Minister's Information Technology (ICT) Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy.Joy said, a huge opportunity is waiting for network administrators and engineers in future. So, new generation will have to be trained up for this.

He also said, "Currently, sixth graders are education on ICT. So, the government has a future plan to start IT education at primary schools for getting a skilled manpower."The ICT adviser said these while presenting a keynote paper at a ministerial conference of Digital World 2017 which started on Wednesday at Bangabandhu international conference center (BICC) in the capital. 

Joy believes that the introduction of ICT education at primary level, will not be harder than sixth graders, as today's generation is much friendly to technology. The limitation of our resources here is a challenge, we will try to give them low-cost tablets and computers so that they can know how technology works. Hopefully, the primary ICT education will be started at elementary level within a few years.

He further said, "The government is investing in Human Resource Development and currently running training programs for over 75,000 college graduates to enter the industry of today and tomorrow; training in emerging technologies such as IOT, Analytics, Mobile Applications, and Cyber Security."

He said, a great concern for the nation today is the loss of jobs due to the advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics. But 4th Industrial Revelation (4IR) is also brings with it many opportunities. For example, today's program is being shown live on social media by a company - a company and a job opportunity that did not exist even 2 years back. 4IR will bring along many new jobs in the near future, jobs that we may not be able to predict today. 

"For this we have developed and fostered a culture of innovation through the Startup Bangladesh initiative - we will support the growth of 1000 startups by 2021. We, from the government are investing as angel investors, as VC, in many of the Startups through the IDEA project, and have setup incubation centers at our Hi-Tech parks and several universities, providing shortlisted Startups with infrastructure and mentorship support with no cost to them, he said. 

Joy said, within a short period, 80 percent of the government work will be available at smartphone as government already completed 40 percent of its service digitalized.He said, the world is moving for 4th industrial revolution and human like rapidly changing through technology and as a result, the growth of the economy and industrialization is going faster. Now the time has come to talk about 'Fourth Industrial Revolu-tion'. 

Bangladesh is also ready to lead in future IT sector with strong hand. He said, "More than 10 percent of car will be driverless in the future. It will be a necessary part of every government, business and general life. In future, Bangladesh will go ahead with adopting these advanced technologies of the world. "

Sajeeb Wazed said that the government has been working with the private sector for the development of the IT sector of the country.  The people of the country are getting benefits of these modern technologies.ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said, in last 9 years Bangladesh has seen rapid change through ICT development. Now we are focusing on developing skilled manpower for the industry revelation as it is one of the main pillar of real development.

Dieudonne Kalombo Nkoke Badibanga, Principal Adviser to the Prime Minister of Congo, Kan Channmeta, Secretary of State, Ministry of Posts and  Communications of Cambodia, Dina Nath Dungyel, Minister, Ministry of Information and Communication of Bhutan, Tariq Ali Luthufi, Deputy Minister of Armed and National Security of Maldives were also present at the conference among others.