BASIS SoftExpo starts stressing govt, industry, academia collaboration

The 17^th BASIS SoftExpo kicked off at the Bangabandhu Bangladesh-China Friendship Exhibition Center in the capital's Purbachal area on Thursday to showcase the country's ICT capabilities and talents.

Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), the body of the flag bearers of $1.4 bn ICT exports from the country last year eying $5 bn by 2025 and $20 bn by 2031 stressed a rigorous collaboration among the government, industry and academia to reach the achievable goals.

And the three tasks are research and development of the IT sector, the industry branding all over the world and the making of the necessary skilled manpower in the country, said BASIS President Russell T Ahmed at the inauguration ceremony of "the largest South Asian ICT exhibition".

"2025 is not too far. Neither 2031 nor 2041 is too far away. There are many possibilities in front of us. We should not miss the boat of that possibility," he said.

Our main objective of this arrangement is to show the potentiality along with capability of the local ICT institutions and BASIS can be the strongest partner of the journey towards a 'Smart Bangladesh' from 'Digital Bangladesh', he said.

Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury inaugurated the exhibition at 11am on February 23 while Mustafa Jabbar, Minister for Posts and Telecommunications of Bangladesh, State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak, were present as special guests.

In his address Mustafa Jabbar lauded the country's overall achievement in the IT sector, saying "Now we should give more focus on the issue of exporting software and ITES-enabled services as it adds 100% value locally."

Zunaid Ahmed Palak said the Expo would play a significant role in promoting the country's IT sector as well as achieving IT export target.

In the fair, different programs will be held to take new initiatives along with expanding business. Over 800 high officials of corporate institutions are expected to attend the Business Leaders Meet program.

Besides, grand inaugural and closing ceremonies, there are some special programs such as Ministerial conference, Ambassadors' Night with the participation of Ambassadors and representatives of different countries, to be attended by ministers, IT Job Fair and Career Camp for giving info on job in the IT sector, B2B Matchmaking session, Freelancing Conference, Startup Conference, Developers' Conference, Women in IT program and Japan Day. Besides, at least 18 seminars and technology sessions will be held with the participation of high officials of the public and private sector.

The organizers of BASIS SoftExpo 2023 said that special campaigns have already been held at 50 universities in the country. There is an arrangement of special shuttle bus service for facilitating the visitors so that they can easily visit the venue. Besides, there is also an everyday concert, gaming corner, business lounge and food court.     

In this fair, display of robots is one of the most attractions for the visitors where a total of five university's student including University of Dhaka, Brac University and Comilla University are displaying their robots.  

Over three lakh people including public and private policy makers, about 200 national and international speakers, high officials of public and private institutions, IT experts, IT businessmen of different countries, foreign delegates, IT users from home and abroad, and the interested youths are to attend and throng the fair venue.         

The four-day exhibition will end on Sunday.