Yesterday was the 50th birthday of honorable ICT Advisor Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the grandson of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the son of honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy is the true example of iconic young leader of the time. With his sparkling light, he has already made the country more shiner than ever. For idea, design and implementation he is true architect of Digital Bangladesh.
With the manifesto of ‘Digital Bangladesh’ in the National Election of 2008, Prime Minister’s ICT Advisor Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy introduced the vision to develop a strong ICT industry in Bangladesh through initiating e-governance and IT education on a mass scale. Elected as the Global Leader of the World by World Economic Forum in 2007, A Harvard graduate, IT expert and very much IT passionate figure Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy has brought an uprising scheme on information and technology sector of the country.
The policies taken by him opened a new dimension of ICT usage in Bangladesh as the country continues to improve rapidly in all indicators of technological advancement including mobile phone user, internet user, digital public services, mobile banking and earnings from ICT exports. He is also playing an important role to create young leaders in the social, economic, political, educational and economic sector by inspiring the youth of the country with patriotism.
His visionary approach and attention to ICT sector has seen a radical transformation. Twenty-eight high-tech parks, 64 Sheikh Kamal incubation centers, 8000 Sheikh Russel Digital Labs and another 5000 labs are yet to set up for strengthening ICT capacity ensuring the quality of output. About 60 lakh citizens are getting doorstep services in every month through 5656 Union Digital Centers.
Receiving IT skill trainings millions of youth of the country currently contribute to stand Bangladesh as the 2nd largest IT freelancer professionals in the world. We earn more than $1 billion in 2019 from ICT exports. One million youth employment has been created in the last 11 years. With world’s largest national web portal for public and private services, Bangladesh is now becoming the role-model for other countries.
Apart from, Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy has been working hard for last 11 years for last mile internet connectivity. By forming the domestic-network-coordination-committee (DNCC) that ensure a high speed internet connectivity to 4500 unions, 43000 government offices, 13000 community health centers, 1,70000 educational institutions by 2025. Besides, Info-Sarker project of ICT Division aimed to expand existing backbone network through 20,000km optical fiber cable.
Under Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy’s guidance, the government has installed an IV Tier National Data Center, the 7th largest data centers in the world. He had taken a fabulous step to enter into the fourth generation (4G) data service era and hope for 5G mobile network service to be available soon to cope with the demand of time. Bangladesh has reached a new height in internet communication and services after the commercially inauguration of the second submarine cable with 1500-gigabit per second (gbps) bandwidth capacity.
Under the supervision of Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Bangladesh launched Bangabandhu Satellite-1 (BS-1) into geostationary earth orbit (GEO) in May 2018 as the 57th nation in the world to join the elite satellite club.
Along with the digital activities, we also find another charming side of our honorable ICT advisor. The iconic leader interacts directly with youth and listen their recommendations to govern the country in a better way. Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy communicates with the youth through Let’s Talk and Policy Cafe program that witness a huge response in the meantime. His connection through ‘Young Bangla’ platform gives a positive vibe among the youths and draws over 500000 youths and more than 300 organizations from different parts of the country.
However, with hard work, intellect and idealistic nature placed him as the most liable youth leader of our country. His contribution to country’s ICT industry is indescribable and cannot be written in one article or in a single book.
Inspiring from his grandfather Bangabandhu’s noble ideology, Mr. Sajeeb Wazed Joy has proven him as one of the key persons to tag Bangladesh as a lower middle income country from a lower income one for the first time since independence. Thanks to his vision, complimented by one of the finest leaders in the world, honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh is now set to reach the goal of becoming a higher middle income country by 2021 and a developed one by 2041 by harnessing the power of science and technology. On his 50th birthday, wish him a long life and sound health.
Source: Web Portal, Newspaper, Internet, Video Presentation
Author: Liakat Hossain
Chief Executive Officer of Babylon Resources Ltd. & Newgen Technology Ltd. and Secretary General of ‘Amrai Digital Bangladesh Foundation’.
