Why Dhaka University could be Bangladesh’s first digital campus city

I have carried Dhaka University inside me long before I ever entered a boardroom or wrote a strategy paper. My fascination began in childhood, the day my elder brother took me to the campus. I remember the faces before I remember the buildings. Young, confident, restless minds who seemed to hold the future in their hands. That energy shaped what I believed a university could be.

As I built my career in digital banking, fintech, and ecosystem strategy, that childhood fascination matured into deeper understanding. Dhaka University is not simply an educational institution. It is one of the largest and most emotionally connected communities in Bangladesh. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, researchers, merchants, artists, and micro entrepreneurs form an ecosystem that influences millions of lives every single day.

Now, as both a strategist and a parent, I dream differently. I want my son to someday complete his degree on a campus that is safe, clean, organised, green, and digitally intelligent. A campus where intellectual excellence meets environmental responsibility and where innovation thrives without sacrificing heritage.

To understand its potential, we must recognise DU as a city. On a typical day, the effective population within the DU zone reaches eighty thousand to one hundred thousand people. Students rush to classes. Faculty move between departments. Micro entrepreneurs prepare food or photocopies. Merchants serve the academic community. Visitors attend cultural events. This is the scale of a small city.

Yet many systems that enable this city remain disconnected. Identity management, payments, admissions, mobility, event management, safety, governance, library systems, and cultural programming all operate in silos. From a fintech perspective, thousands of micro businesses operate informally without records or access to credit, even though daily transaction volumes reach millions of taka.

The question becomes natural. Why not transform Dhaka University into Bangladesh's first digital, sustainable, cashless campus city and use it as a blueprint for national digital infrastructure? Not as a project, but as a movement.

Bangladesh is already moving toward a digital-first economy. More than seventy-seven million people use the internet. Over sixty million mobile financial service accounts are active. The government has allocated significant funding for digital transformation and plans to develop millions of ICT professionals by 2030. Our fintech ecosystem has matured, now including QR payments, digital wallets, and API-driven services.

Dhaka University is uniquely positioned to become the pilot, the model, and the blueprint for this future. From my experience in digital banking, the real challenge is not technology. It is governance, trust, and cultural adaptation. Dhaka University already holds all three within its identity.

The vision is not for another mobile app. This is an intelligent and inclusive digital ecosystem. A unified platform connects all layers of campus life: from digital identity to financial transactions, academic services to cultural archives, and mobility to alumni engagement.

The most transformative aspect is that the digital identity is lifelong. Every alumnus from 1921 onward remains connected through the same platform. A retired professor who taught for decades maintains their research identity and access. A grandparent and grandchild can use the same DU app to access different layers of the ecosystem.

This single secure digital identity becomes the key to everything: gate entry, class registration, library services, transportation, payments, event participation, and digital certificates instantly verifiable worldwide. Economic governance follows the same principle. Every commercial entity serving the DU community can be recognized through the platform, gaining access to digital payments, credit, analytics, and insurance. A small bookshop near TSC can now access credit to expand because it finally has transaction history. This is merchant onboarding at scale, the same playbook that built bKash and Nagad.

Charukola can become a curated cultural marketplace with exhibitions, performances, festivals, and technology fairs year-round. A digital marketplace can allow student and alumni artists to sell their work globally. Events can be livestreamed to the DU diaspora, becoming the largest cultural platform in South Asia, rooted in DU's creativity and courage.

As a father, I imagine my son at TSC sharing a cup of cha with an alumnus who graduated half a century before him, both connected through the same digital ecosystem. That continuity across generations is the beauty of this dream.

The next Prime Minister, the next Governor of Bangladesh Bank, the next social reformer, the next scientist, the next global entrepreneur are already walking inside this campus. They only need the ecosystem to unlock their potential.

The moment is here. The momentum is here. The community is ready. Dhaka University can once again inspire the nation, this time through digital independence. 

Let us build tomorrow's university today.

Photo: Courtesy

Md Mahmudul Hasan is a Digital Banking and Fintech Strategist focused on financial inclusion, literacy, innovation, and platform strategy.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.