Digitalisation creates 20 lakh jobs for youths in IT sector: Palak

Bangladesh has been able to earn $2 billion from IT exports by employing some 20 lakh youths in IT and IT enabled services, State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Junaid Ahmed Palak said on Tuesday. 

Speaking at a discussion on "Using AI to Build an Intelligent Cloud" in Singapore, he said the Bangladesh government has successfully implemented its vision for a 'Digital Bangladesh' in a short time. 

As part of that, some 2500 services have been digitalised by launching more than 52,000 websites in the country. Currently, there are about 7 lakh IT freelancers in Bangladesh, he said. 

Oracle's Global Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice-President Jay Evans also took part in the discussion, organised under the 'Oracle Cloud World Tour Singapore' programme, according to a release. 

Palak highlighted that Bangladesh now aims to transform into an inclusive, innovative, sustainable, knowledge-based smart nation by 2041 based on the four main pillars: Smart Citizen, Smart Economy, Smart Government and Smart Society.

The government has different policies, partnerships with different stakeholders. 'Smart Bangladesh' of the future will be built in coordination with industry, government and academia, he noted. 

"In this era of the fourth industrial revolution, technology like artificial intelligence has become a part of our daily life. AI is being legislated with everything in mind," he said.  

Besides, the government has drafted the Cyber Security Act, the Personal Data Protection Act and now it is launching some frontier technology based services.

"We are following the path of how we can meet the needs of the private sector in the industry by developing our strategies and introducing new legislation," he told the discussion. 

Highlighting the success of 'Digital Bangladesh', the state minister said the government has also developed education, health and other government services on the basis of the cloud first approach. 

He also acknowledged Oracle's contribution to developing digital government services in Bangladesh.