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PALAK-PLAN-4IR
Palak unveils plan for developing youths to utilize potentials of 4IR
DHAKA, Nov 18, 2020 (BSS) – State Minister for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Zunaid Ahmed Palak today unveiled Bangladesh’s plan for developing youths as qualified for the optimal use of potentials of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) which is knocking at the door.
The state minister unfolded the plan while presenting a keynote paper through zoon online at the inaugural function of the FICCI Global Young Leaders’ Summit being held in India, said a press release here.
Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana Dushyant Chautala and Co-Chair of FICCI Young Leaders Forum spoke at the function, among others.
Palak said, “We have made the ICT education mandatory in secondary and higher secondary schools. Besides, processes for building schools of future and advanced digital labs across the country are underway”.
Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, he said, the government has been building 64 Sheikh Kamal IT training and incubation Centers and 13,000 Sheikh Russel Digital Labs in educational institutions across the country.
The ongoing digital initiatives are being implemented at the advice of architect of the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ICT Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy aiming at transforming the young generation into human resources, the state minister added.
Noting that the government has been providing digital literacy and skills trainings on various trades and digital jobs in the global IT and business process outsourcing industry, Palak said the government has already provided jobs to more than a million youth and women.
Referring to the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) survey on online labor force, he said, Bangladesh has over 600 thousand digital workers, which is the second largest pool of online workers in the world.
Even during the pandemic, the ICT ministry has provided trainings to almost 50,000 youths and women using digital tools,” the state minister added.
“We have used Digital Technologies to sustain our economy – from working from home to maintaining the agriculture supply chain, Digital technology has played a key role in achieving the 5.2 percent GDP growth till June 2020,” Palak said.
He went on saying that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has envisioned three major milestones for Bangladesh – 2021 to achieve ‘Digital Bangladesh’ by reaching the country to middle income status, and 2030 to achieve SDGs and to take the country’s GDP from the present 348 Billion US Dollars to 700 Billion US dollars.
The main objective of the government is to make Bangladesh the 26th largest economy, and transform into an economic knowledge based and high-income country with per capita income of over 12,000 US dollars by 2041, ICT state minister said.
BSS/PR/SAH/GA/1824 hrs