Dream71 wins UNDP contract to develop strategic digital system in Timor-Leste

Bangladesh-based technology company Dream71 Bangladesh Ltd has been awarded a contract by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to develop and implement a Strategic Planning and Investment Management Information System (SPIMIS) for the Ministry of Planning and Strategic Investment of Timor-Leste.

The project is being implemented under UNDP's Pro PALOP-TL programme and aims to establish an integrated digital platform for managing and monitoring the country's national development plans, public investments, budgets, development programmes and international commitments, reads a press release.

According to the project terms of reference, the system will support strategic planning, monitoring and reporting while providing evidence-based information for decision-making.

The web-based platform will support the monitoring of Timor-Leste's Strategic Development Plan 2011–2030 and Medium-Term Plan 2026–2030, while also tracking progress against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and relevant Asean commitments.

The system will enable government agencies to collect, validate, approve, store and analyse data through structured workflows. It will also monitor public investment projects, including project implementation, budgets and expenditure, and provide information on project locations and other spatial attributes.

A major feature of the system will be its interactive dashboards. These will include dashboards for the Strategic Development Plan, government programmes, sector-level development priorities, SDGs and cross-cutting indicators. Users will be able to monitor targets, indicators, progress, budgets and implementation performance through visualised data.

The platform is also designed to operate in low-bandwidth environments. It will support offline data entry and later synchronisation, while incorporating role-based access controls, audit trails, data versioning, automated backup and recovery mechanisms to strengthen data security and reliability, added the press release.

The development, testing, deployment and capacity-building activities are scheduled to be completed within six months, followed by at least 12 months of technical support and maintenance.

Dream71 Managing Director Rashad Kabir said the award was an important milestone for the company as well as Bangladesh's technology industry.

"We are extremely proud to have been entrusted with the development of such an important digital system for Timor-Leste's national strategic planning and investment management. This is not simply a software development project; it is an initiative to make development planning and investment management more data-driven, transparent and effective," he said.

Kabir said Dream71 had already developed three software solutions for UNDP in Timor-Leste and had experience of working on 18 projects with UNDP overall.

"Our previous experience in Timor-Leste gives us a strong understanding of the local context and stakeholder requirements. We will work closely with UNDP and the relevant government institutions to develop a sustainable and user-friendly platform that can support evidence-based planning and decision-making over the long term," he added.

The award comes as Bangladesh's ICT industry continues to expand its international footprint. According to BASIS, nearly 500 member companies were engaged in ICT export activities in FY2024–25, with around 300 operating as regular exporters, serving clients in more than 104 countries.

Government data shows that Bangladesh's IT service exports reached nearly $629 million in FY2024–25, while IT exports increased by 13.54% during July-November of FY2025–26, reaching $269.84 million. Industry estimates, however, suggest that the broader ICT export earnings may be significantly higher because some freelance and service-export earnings are not fully captured in official statistics.

Bangladesh currently has more than 4,500 software and IT-enabled service companies, employing over 3,00,000 professionals, according to industry data. Software development, outsourcing, artificial intelligence, IT-enabled services and digital transformation are increasingly becoming important areas of the country's technology export industry.

Against this backdrop, Dream71's latest UNDP contract is being viewed as another example of Bangladeshi technology companies moving beyond conventional outsourcing towards larger, development-focused digital transformation projects in international markets.