To further encourage and attract the European Investors and investment Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) organized Europe Bangladesh Technology Summit 2014 in various European countries from 10 March 2014 onwards. A delegation on behalf of BASIS took part in the summit from 20-21 March 2014 in Oslo, Norway.

The delegation was led by Sajeeb A Wazed, ICT Adviser to the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Government of Bangladesh, who gave a key note speech at the summit, BASIS President ShameemAhsan, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister, Minister for Posts, Telecommunications & Information and Communication Technology, M. Rashidul Hasan, Joint Secretary General, BASIS. Also Hans Martin HøeghHenrichsen, Telenor Group Bangladesh, Stein-Erik Moe, Accenture Norway, Martin Toftebe, Vizrt and LubabaFarinTanisha, Vizrt were among the distinguished speakers also gave their valuable words of speech.

Sajeeb A Wazed gave a presentation on ‘Bangladesh ICT Industry overview’. He said ‘Digital Bangladesh” initiative of the present government has increased the export revenues in this sector from US $ 24 million to US $200 million in the last five years since 2007 and we believe that in the next five years the export revenues will surpass the targeted US $ 1 billion and also this initiative is helping set up infrastructure for enhanced connectivity, ICT based citizen service delivery and ICT based Education system, multiple internet connectivity. Internet connectivity has been enhanced vastly over the country. Moreover Expatriates working in Bangladesh can repatriate 100% percent of post-tax salaries. The recent government initiatives and incentives include already zero corporate tax facility, zero computer/hardware import duty, zero cost of capital, zero expatriate employees’ income tax and the ongoing planned High Tech Park over an area of approximately 1,346,827 sqm for the ICT industry’.

BASIS President said “the aim of this Summit is to further strengthen the bilateral economic & technological ties and policy advocacy between European countries and Bangladesh. Also with cooperation and support from both Government & private sector, as per the roadmap and vision BASIS is determined to extract and earn US $ 1 billion as exports within the next 5 years from Europe and the Americas. The vision to firmly accomplish Bangladesh as an IT hub worldwide is not far away with appropriate policies and I hope our IT sector shall prevail as one the Leaders in the future and also believe that the 100 million youth of our country will work together to make Bangladesh not only a middle income country but a high income country in the next 15 years”. He extended his heartiest gratitude and thanks to all the co-organizers, partners and co-partners and all related to this Summit.

Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister said `Government of Bangladesh has identified ICT as a key pillar and enabler for the country’s socio-economic transformation and development. The mandate of the Ministry is to provide strategic and technical leadership, overall coordination, support and advocacy on all matters of Policy, laws, regulations and strategy to achieve targets and to excel in growth and development for the betterment of Bangladesh’.

Bangladesh Association of Software and Information on Services (BASIS) has organized Europe Bangladesh Technology Summit 2014 and Co-organizers are Innovation Norway & DFSME. The Partners of this summit are Grameenphone & Agrani bank ltd with the support of Embassy of Denmark in Bangladesh, Telenor, Ministry for Posts, telecommunication & Information and Communication Technology, Export Promotion Bureau, Norwegian Embassy, and CBI Netherlands. The Europe Bangladesh Technology Summit 2014 was initiated from 10-14 March 2014 Hannover, Germany, from 17-18 March 2014 Copenhagen, Denmark, from 20-21 March 2014 Oslo Norway and will end on 01-04 April 2014 in Dhaka, Bangladesh

HP Roadshow at BUET Held
World leading information-technology brand HP conducted a day long roadshow at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) on March 9, 2014. HP displayed a variety range of products and technologies at the central cafeteria premises of BUET. Imrul Hossain Bhuiyan, Country Manager, PPS, HP Bangladesh and Dr. Md. Delwar Hossain, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Director, Office of the Director of Student’s welfare, BUET inaugurated the event at the morning. Other officials from HP Bangladesh and HP partners attended at the event premises. Students, teachers and stuffs of BUET visited the event and experienced the latest technologies of HP
TIS Hosts

Workshop on Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructure
Thakral Information Systems (TIS), a leading IT Hardware, Services & Solutions Company in Bangladesh, hosted an exclusive workshop on virtualization and cloud infrastructure technologies for leading financial organizations in Bangladesh at a local Hotel on March 20, 2014 .
The workshop featured presentations by Senior Management from Thakral Information Systems, VMware and Industry experts. VMware, the industry-leading virtualization software company, empowers organizations to innovate and thrive by streamlining IT operations. By virtualizing infrastructure—from the data center to the cloud to mobile devices—VMware enables IT to deliver services from any device, anytime, anywhere.

“Business priorities are clearly shifting amongst organizations in Bangladesh. We see a huge opportunity for virtualization and cloud infrastructure in the country as we believe that organizations here are increasingly looking at IT to be more flexible and responsive to their dynamic business needs, while improving efficiency and controlling costs,” said Rezwan Ali, Vice President, Thakral Information Systems Private Limited.

“We’re working closely with VMware to address the reduction in the TCO across all Industry verticals in the country” added Basab P Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, Thakral Information Systems Private Limited.

Speaking at the sidelines of the event, Naresh Purohit, Manager - Systems Engineering, VMware India & SAARC said, “Our customers have been on a journey towards IT–as-a-Service and VMware has been at the forefront of assisting companies through the phases of IT transformation to realize the business benefits of virtualization in the mobile cloud era in the region. We remain committed to evolving the software-defined data center architecture to address IT’s critical needs - enabling businesses to build infrastructure that is radically simpler and more efficient.”
Workshop of “Otobi presents AD Maker Bangladesh 2014 driven by Navana, Toyota” at NSU Campus.

Last Friday, on the 4th of March, the Workshop of the only Inter University Advertising competition of the country, “Otobi presents AD Maker Bangladesh 2014 driven by Toyota Navana” organized by the only business club of North South University “Young Entrepreneurs Society - YES!” was held in the university Campus.

In today’s business world, advertising and promotion is at the core of every marketing activity. In today’s competitive market, advertising has become all about being creative and imaginative. And thus to show the skills in the advertising world, NSU YES! has introduced for the third time, the creative fight AD Maker Bangladesh. This is an Inter-University Advertising Competition highlighting the skills of the participants in planning, making, and executing everything starting from Television Commercials for specific products to the whole IMC campaign that supports it. It gives the students of Bangladesh the biggest platform to compete with the best teams from all around Bangladesh in the biggest stage of creativity.

A total 254 teams from 75 different universities from all over the country have registered to participate in this competition. In order to groom the participants on the different aspects of advertisement, the workshop was held. The conductors of this workshop were Gousul Alam Shaon,CEO, GREY Advertising Bangladesh Limited, Amitabh Reza Chowdhury, Producer and Director at Half Stop Down, Ms. Ruhina Halim, Vice President and Researcher at Quantum Consumer Solutions and Mr. Soumendra Sankar Das, Marketing Director, GSK.

They discussed about different aspects of marketing, advertising, and most importantly TVC making, to guide the participants throughout the event and in their future careers.
The President of “NSU YES!” Syed Mahabub Islam Shohan said, “The purpose of this event is to flourish the talent among the young students of our country. Through this, the true creative AD Makers will emerge.”

General Secretary of “NSU YES!” Syed Shahriar Hasan said, “It will be a really tough competition for all the teams, as they will have to go through an extensive evaluation process. Our aim is to find out the best creative minds.”

Abdullah Al Mamun Fahim, Joint Secretary of “NSU YES!” commented, “This is a fight of wit, wisdom, ingenuity, and most importantly creativity.”
Prize money for the winning team has been declared 1 lakh, 1st runner-up gets 60 thousand, and 2nd runner up gets 40 thousand.

Otobi is the title sponsor of this year’s competition, Toyota, Navana Limited is the Co-Sponsor, WEBTVNEXT.COM is the Live broadcasting partner, Desh TV is the Electronic Media partner, Shomokal is Bengali Print Media partner, Shout, Daily Star is the English Print Media partner, bdnews24.com is the Online Media partner, Radio Foorti 88.0 FM is the radio partner, SevenHill restaurant is the Catering partner and Wedding Diary is the Photography partner throughout the event.