Bangladesh plans to earn $1 billion from ICT exports by 2018

The government has plans to earn $1 billion by 2018 from information and communication technology exports, State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak says.

He also hoped that tech tsars like Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates and Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zukerberg will emerge from Bangladesh if the right facilities were available.

Palak was addressing the maiden high school level computer programming competition in Dhaka on Friday.

The government’s ICT Division organised the national contest to make the students interested in programming.

“Only a few days ago, foreigners used to call Bangladesh a ‘bottomless basket’. We have not only moved on from there but are now exporting in ICT sector as well,” he said.

“We plan to earn one billion dollars from exports in this sector.”

Nearly a thousand students competed in the final round. One hundred of them won awards in different categories.

Referring to ‘one student one laptop’ project, Palak said the students would not look behind if his government could provide every student with the ‘dream device’.

“The government will establish thirteen high-tech parks in Gazipur and elsewhere in the country. 

“We will need 70,000 technology experts. The young students of the day will become those experts,” Palak hoped.

He said IT clubs would be set up in all the districts and at 128 universities in the country.

“We will appoint two trained moderators in every club in the district level,” he said.