A daylong online training on “BigData” was organized by the “Innovation Design and Entrepreneurship Academy (iDEA) project” of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) under the ICT Division. Hon’ble State Minister of ICT Division Mr. Zunaid Ahmed Palak MP inaugurated the program on Thursday morning, June 11, 2020 through video conferencing under the “Education for Nation” of Startup Bangladesh- iDEA project. The Senior Secretary of ICT Division Mr. N M Zeaul AlamPAA and the executive director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) Mr. Parthapratim Deb were the special guests on the opening.

As the chief guest, Hon’ble State Minister for ICT DivisionMr. Zunaid Ahmed Palak MP said, Bangladesh is the 8th most populous country in the world where about 17 crore people are constantly generating data. “Data” is being considered as the most valuable resource in the world now. The more information a country or nation has and is able to process and analyze it properly, the more wealthy that country or nation is said to be. There are now more than 10 crore mobile phone and internet users in the country and more than 16 crore SIM cards are being used where there are millions of computer users including around 4 crore smartphone users. Specially in this Corona situation, the government is trying to provide education to about four crore students and provide primary health care to 17 crore people by using online technology from March 2020 till now, in the last 3 months. He also added that through Data Analysis, it is possible to initially estimate the number of affected areas in Corona situation or the number of symptoms is high and the number of areas may increase in the next. That means, there is a strong ability to Data Analyze. The Hon’ble State Minister said that now the common posts like CEO, CFO or CTO as well as Chief Data Officer (CDO) will be required in all government and non-government offices. This is because public-private offices are now emphasizing data analysis for decision-making. Now, our main objective should be to enable the country’s researchers, inventors, and entrepreneurs to use the country’s data to provide new services. He also highlighted the need to use Frontier technology.

As a special guest, the Senior Secretary of ICT Division Mr. N M Zeaul Alam PAA said, Data-based policies are more sustainable and effective. So whenever we talk about creating evidence-based policy, we need to increase data resources and pieces of information. The more we improve in data management, the better our policies will be. We have started practicing it which we have to continue. However, if we can increase the work in this regard in Bangladesh, we will be able to be richer in data resources. The executive director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) Mr. Parthapratim Deb,as a special guest said that one of the resources of the modern age is information or data. This is very important all over the world now. Overall, it has a significant role to play in the world economy.

The online program was presided over by the project director (Additional Secretary) of the iDEA Project Syed Mojibul Huq. He said in his welcome address that the era ahead is the era of Frontier Technology. Therefore, the iDEA project is organizing such events to encourage young people about Frontier Technology. He said that different programs would continue in the future as well.

This training focuses on Making sense of Bigdata, Bigdata & Smart Analytics, and how can we harness opportunities in Bigdata as topics. Data Science student at the University of Queensland in Australia & Deputy Commissioner (Tax) of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) Md Abdul Bari, Lecturer in Big Data Analytics of School of ICT at Griffith University Dr. Saiful Islam and Founder and CEO of Technohaven Company Limited Habibullah N Karim joined the training as the resource person. More than 60 trainees from Chittagong Division took part in the training through the online platform Zoom and will be awarded certificates later. Besides, the whole program was broadcast live on the official Facebook page of “Startup Bangladesh” so that many interested people get a special idea about “BigData“.

The Deputy Project Director (Deputy Secretary) of iDEA Project Kazi Hosna Ara, the project’s senior consultant R. H. M. Alaol Kabir, Consultant of iDEA Project Dewan Adnan, Shohag Chandra Das, Students from University of Chittagong, Comilla University, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Rangamati Science and Technology University, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Premier University, Chittagong Independent University and different academic institutes of Chittagong Division, BCC and other officials of ICT division were present online at the time.