Science  & Education

Foreign Investors Keen to Set up the Largest Cyber City of South Asia in Bangladesh

Kamal Arsalan

Cyber City to establish Bangladesh on the hi-tech map of the world and eventually create countrywide job opportunity for the young generation.

 M  Shoeb Chowdhury, A leading ICT entrepreneur of the country and Director of BASIS (Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services) frequently visits foreign countries on business purposes and to attend international seminars, conferences and workshops. He is the first Bangladeshi to become Advisor of Commonwealth Business Council and secretary general of International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). During a recent visit he met some leading investors and high officials of giant ICT companies of Singapore, Malaysia, India, China and Philippines who expressed their keen interest to set up a Cyber City in Bangladesh. Bangladesh being an unending reservoir of human resource, it would be possible to develop thousands of hi-tech professionals.

M Shoeb Chowdhury is a pioneer in introducing exciting net based projects for the advancement of the young generation. He launched 'Aiminlife", the only career Portal of Bangladesh. Unlike other jobsite of the country, it does not  provide only latest  job news but also offers career counseling, interview tips, adding values to resume preparation and e-learning facilities. 

The prospective clients of aiminlife include leading private and multinational Companies, Print and electronic media, Local Foreign NGO's, Leading public and private Universities, Local and Foreign Banks, Garments and Textile Industries, Hospitals and  Medical Colleges, Real Estate Companies, etc.

Aiminlife  offers the following attractive features :-

• The only career portal offering services which covers whole recruiting process.
• SMS alert for the jobseekers and  ensure highest feedback for employees.
• As the Bangladesh partner of U21 Global provides the only online University service in Bangladesh.
• Career counseling and appropriate training for office executives .
• Online access to database of more than 50,000 professionals.
• M Shoeb Chowdhury has also introduced web-based international post graduate courses for the first time in Bangladesh.   
• Aiminlife provides e-learning through U21 Global Education.
• Universitas 21 Global, established as a joint venture between Universitas 21 and Thomson learning, offers professional subject and programmes designed to provide higher education of exceptional quality. Its postgraduate courses are internationally accredited and undergo stringent review processes to ensure excellent education for global leaders of tomorrow.
• Universitas 21 Global builds on the strength and resources of 19 leading Universities from across the globe to deliver valuable skills and knowledge to discerning executive.  Universitas 21 Global responds to the requirements of the information economy and leverage the Internet to deliver innovative and stimulating courses that are carefully developed by their experienced team of academic.
• Whether an individual wanting to enhance his/her career, or represent a corporation seeking to prepare its best talent for future growth, Universitas 21 global offers a high quality, web-based educational experience designed to their needs.  
• Availing this great opportunity, Bangladeshi students can now apply to world class universities and obtain online degree at a much lower cost . The students can take part in 19 world class universities which include Mac Gill University, Verginia University, British Colombia University, Mexican University of North America and Glasgo University, Nottingham University, Edinburg University, Burmingham University,  University College of Dublin, Lord University of Europe, New South Wales University, Queens land  University, Melbourne University, Auk land University Australia and New Zeland, Singapore National University, Korea University and Hong Kong University of Asia   in the following programs :
  • Business management
  • Master of Business  Administration
  • Master of Management in international
  • Executive Diploma of Business Administration
  • Executive Certificate of Management Studies
  • Executive Certificate of Financial Management
  • M. S. in Tourism and Travel Management
  • Information Technology Management programs
  • Masters of Management in IT
  • Executive Diploma of IT Management
  • Executive Certificate : IT Management
    1. IT Project Management    

At present the site has more than Twenty-five thousand registered jobseekers. and number of hits ranges from  7,000 to  10,000.

Using the exciting online education system the Bangladeshi students and professionals  will be able to earn globally recognized degrees and certificates at a much affordable cost. It is observed nowadays that local leading software companies (specially those companies which are engaged in software-export) are worried for the lack of computer graduates with requisite skill as required to develop quality software for the international market.

To overcome this great challenge of the local software industry, the ICT visionary entrepreneur, M Shoeb Chudhury has launched the online education facility for promoting global standard higher education in the country which will eventually create a big pool of global standard professionals as needed by the relevant industries.    
M Shoeb Chowdhury informed that the proposed Cyber City will consists of the following projects:

1) Smart or Finishing schools:- Smart schools are now functioning in different parts of the world. The term is used specifically for those schools that have applied information technology to various aspects of teaching. The faculty of this hi-end school will consists of mostly expatriate Bangladeshi ICT professionals attached with North American and European Universities, Research establishments and leading ICT companies along with highly experienced specialists around the globe. It may be mentioned here that a good number of Bangladeshi ICT professionals are now holding important positions in different global IT companies like Microsoft, IBM, Bell Lab.

The syllabuses of the courses will be formulated by these highly experienced professionals .All labs and classrooms will be equipped with latest ICT facilities and will be constantly upgraded. The ICT graduates and Postgraduates coming out from local universities will be admitted in these smart schools The schools will have arrangements to groom up about 1000 global standard h-tech professionals initially of different descipline. Most global companies like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP, Siemens, Samsung, etc., always look for low wage destination with some appropriate technical background. At present India has become the most preferred destination for the North American and European companies followed by China, Vietnam and Philippines. Microsoft decided to set up its first offshore software development plant in India when it was fully convinced that there are sufficient number of Indian technical professionals with requisite qualities, may be a grooming of six months will be required. Similarly Intel invested in Vietnam when their study indicated that young technical graduates will be able to perform successfully in their highly sophisticated chip production plant.

The specialized smart schools of the proposed Cyber City of Bangladesh will ensure to provide capable hi-tech professionals for global ICT companies so that they don't hesitate to rush to this new ICT hub of South Asia, By the time they set up their plants here, their required work force will be ready to start production in respective plants with may be a few months hands-on-training.

2) Software Development Houses : - The software companies  like Microsoft, Oracle and many multinational companies are conducting their research and development activities in their offshore plants in India and China. A number of local software companies have started conducting software development contracts with foreign countries specially in the European region. and a number of them will achieve CMMI level soon. Bangladeshi software companies with international recognition will be able set up software centers in the proposed Cyber city and avail the grand opportunity to go for joint-venture projects .The global standard facilities of the Cyber City, presence of the smart schools and local international standard software companies will definitely attract multinational companies to set up their research and development plants here. The software export of Bangladesh will reach a Billion US $ within a few years of operation of the Cyber City.

3) IT Enabled Services (ITES) - BPO/KPO/Call-center :- These outsourcing services use IT in their processing and also Internet during the delivery of the service. BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing .It covers a wide variety of activities such as human resource, accounting, financial research, marketing, sales, legal works and so on. Software services are also considered as part of the BPO. Similarly KPO which stands for Knowledge Process Outsourcing is also expanding very fast around the globe. In a call center an operator will answer any query from a caller by accessing the database of the company. The call centers generally provides services for sales supports, airlines/hotels reservations, technical queries, bank accounts, clients services, telemarketing market research, etc. The smart schools of the proposed Cyber City will develop a large pool of workforce for the above mentioned IT enabled services Like India Bangladesh also has 12 hours time difference with North American countries. Utilising this unique advantage the Cyber City will soon become an important hub for BPO, KPO and Call center related business in South Asia.

As the mobile phone technology has spread almost all over Bangladesh Internet facility will now be available in all corners of the country. When the Cyber City will become wellknown  as an important  destination for BPO and Call centric jobs  it will be possible to distribute large chunk of the contracts to BPO and Call centers set up in district towns or even in villages. Using mobile internet infrastuctre and hands on trainning countrywide job opportunity for the young generation could be generated.