Wed 28 Mar 2007
The Global Information Technology Report by World Economic Forum has become a valuable and unique benchmarking tool to determine national ICT strengths and weaknesses, and to evaluate progress. It also highlights the continuing importance of ICT application and development for economic growth.
The Report uses the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) to measure the degree of preparation of a nation or community to participate in and benefit from ICT developments. The NRI is composed of three component indexes which assess:
- environment for ICT offered by a country or community
- readiness of the community’s key stakeholders (individuals, business and governments)
- usage of ICT among these stakeholders.
The 2006-2007 report report is published today. And where do we, Bangladesh, stand?
At the bottom, where else!
March 29th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
I think the failure goes not to the rest of 150 million people but only to the learned and educated people because we didn’t take any good step to make a move in this sector.
There aren’t any active goal or programme being set to achieve any thing in ICT sectors, either in private sector or in government level.
Last but not the least, I think the country really needs help from the Non-resident Bangladeshi IT professionals and experts to come forward and make a difference. If we don’t know how, than a crash course from Indian’s or Vietnami’s would really help us to learn how to make this happen.
Any one any suggestion?
Thanks
Kawser Jamal
http://www.changeBangladesh.com
http://www.provati.com
March 29th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
1) In the case of BD – (again) corruption killed the IT cat! Any govt funds that could be used to build this sector were eaten up in corruption. BTTB ate the pipeline cake, Rajuk stole the park pudding, and the ministers ate the IT foreign aid. Maybe because software revenue is not as tangible as other industries for bribery and corruption, both AL & BNP govt had not been responsive to IT vendors demands in BD.
2) Infrastructure has not been available. Vendors were left with a barren IT Desert, instead of an IT Park! for 10 years, dithering on internet-pipeline, and lack of IT education support and poor education in general, little IT training.
3) Govt support - With Musharraf-govt support, eg. Pak has built a $1 Billion IT software industry, while BD’s software size so far is only $ 80 million. Massive govt incentives, subsidies, grants, tax rebates and funds are essential to establish IT industry and connectivity.
4). NRB’s can help as in India, but without minimum govt support, NRB efforts are wasted. With huge poor population, India has to spend mega-billions to climb the NRI list, but BD can increase much easier with subsidies, investment and education (using IT to teach IT). Many NGOs incl Grameen were aggressive in trying to get PC and internet into villages, but govt corruption and ignorance has kept them down.
New CTG govt must make info tech part of BD’s rural and urban devt in education, tech, industry and govt sectors BD has advantages in labor cost, education and English language, which many nations don’t – and NOW is the time to capitalize on it.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
There are over 100 countries in the list and I dare to compare our situation with them all and neither do I have that knowledge to undertake such effort. So, I will just compare the weaknesses of our country with neighboring India.
India actually seeded the foundation of ICT sector even before Bangladesh became independent. For example the largest IT software services company TCS, a division of TATA conglomerate was formed back in 1968. There are numerous reasons why India is where they are today (ahead) and Bangladesh is where we are today (way behind):
1) Abundant technology skilled and good English speaking workforce. Bangladesh only recently started to emphasize on technology education where as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in India was established back in the 1940s. The emphasis on only using Bangla for a while plus the education system in general when I was growing up did enough damage on English speaking ability of our workforce. Though the “spoken English” skill of the newer generation is much better these days from what I can tell but then again my exposure unfortunately is limited to the private school and university students in and around Dhaka.
2) The telecommunication and IT infrastructure were already established in India for years now. Due to the shortsightedness, corruption and bureaucracy of our previous governments, we were left behind for too long while we witnessed our neighbors surpassing us. Many argue that education is not important to be politicians and to serve public office – I humbly disagree because due to lack of knowledge and understanding by those in charge, we can be left behind for no good reason but their poor decisions based on poor knowledge.
3) In order to be successful – a group of ICT specialists and especially managers with authority need to be in the west where the clients are primarily located and the other group with technical and managerial experience from the west need to relocate to the country where the work is outsourced to. Indians have done that in large numbers especially starting from the late 1990s when the Y2K scare shook the entire world and transitioned a lot of work to their country. Bangladeshis need to do the same because we do have the raw talents in Bangladesh but there aren’t many leaders and managers who are trained in the west and know the expectations and the standards to successfully attract and deal with the clients in the west and other emerging countries that are outsourcing their ICT jobs.
4) India has established them as “the location” for ICT related outsourcing for clients throughout the world with long experience in providing quality and economical services. It has reached a level of maturity considering an organization like NASSCOM was created by the industry members for an example. Just think – when we talk about buying used books in Dhaka Nilkhet comes to our mind and that is how India is perceived now by the ICT outsourcing clients. It will take time for us to establish such repute and perhaps we will never get to the level but we need to create some level of reputation and this can only be done over time through some quality and reliable work.
5) Whether it’s trade policy, tax policy or any other government policy, they all encourage and more importantly simplify any ICT related business in India. We didn’t have that for many years but it seems like it is getting better and hopefully with all the positive changes that we are seeing in Bangladesh, we will also see big changes that will directly benefit the development ICT sector.
There are many other items that I can highlight from my limited experience but I think I listed the top ones here. Any others with knowledge or thoughts on why we are where we are today?
Regards.