Global IT experts, leaders grace WCIT conference

The World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), a four-day world conference on information and communication technology, featuring various IT events and seminars, is being held in the capital with the participation of more than 100 IT experts from more than 75 countries.

President Md Abdul Hamid virtually inaugurated the event at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in the capital's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar on Thursday.

The conference is a collaborative effort by the ICT Division, Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) and Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) at the initiative of The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA).

BASIS, BACCO, E-CAB and ISPAB are the partners of this event.

The 25th edition of the international conference, which will continue till 14 November, is being held in a hybrid (physical and online) model considering the Covid-19 crisis under the theme "ICT The Great Equalizer". Participants can attend the conference at the BICC in person and online from anywhere in the world.

The Asia-Oceania International Conference ASOCIO "Digital Summit 2021" is being held simultaneously with the "WCIT 2021" conference.

ASOCIO, which stands for Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation, is an organisation of 24 countries in the Asia-Oceania region.

A total of 30 seminars, ministerial conferences and B2B sessions will be held in this conference. Anyone can participate in these seminars by registering online.

Walton is collaborating the event as a platinum sponsor, Dutch Bangla Bank as a gold sponsor, Huawei, Janata Bank, Minister TV and Thakral Information Systems Pvt Ltd as bronze sponsors and Amara Networks Ltd as internet partner of the conference.

Important personalities from various IT organisations around the world will participate in various seminars of the four-day world conference. Hundreds of IT experts from more than 75 countries are joining. They will share their experiences in seminars and technical sessions on information technology, informed the organisers.

Among the experts, Vint Cerf, American internet pioneer recognised as one of "the fathers of the Internet", will be attending the seminar virtually.

For the first time, personalities including Dr Radia Perlman, inventor of spanning-tree protocol, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, Dr James H Poisant, secretary general of The World Information Technology & Services Alliance, Danil Kerimi, deputy head (Center for the 4th Industrial Revolution, China) World Economic Forum Beijing, Dr Patrick Meier, co-founder of Werobotics, Guoming Cheng, director manager (Alipay and global payment), Ant group, and Omar S Ishrak, chairman, Intel Corporation will come together in one platform, 

The four-day conference will highlight the successes and achievements of Digital Bangladesh as well as discuss the latest additions of modern and smart technologies like IoT, BigData, Machine Learning, Robotics keeping in mind the fourth industrial revolution.

The first day of the conference featured "Digital Bangladesh Night", which highlighted Bangladesh's progress in information technology in the last 12 years in Bangladesh.

On the second day of the conference, various individuals and organisations from the Asia-Oceania region were honored for their outstanding contribution in the field of information technology.

Prime Minister's ICT Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy has been awarded the ASOCIO Leadership Award-2021.

Abdullah H Kafi, former chairman of ASOCIO, announced the award. State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Junaid Ahmed Palak received the award on behalf of Sajeeb Wazed Joy.

On 13 November, honors will be given to individuals, government and non-government organizations from around the world for their outstanding contributions to information technology.

On 14 November, the closing day of the event, WCIT's Silver Jubilee will be celebrated.

WITSA, founded in 1978, is a leading consortium of associations from the information and communications technology industry around the world. WCIT is a signature event of the alliance of over 80 countries.