A day-long online training on "BigData" wasorganized by the Bangladesh Computer Council of the Information andCommunication Technology Department under the "Innovation and EntrepreneurDevelopment Academy Establishment Project (iDEA)".

State Minister for Information and Communication TechnologyJunaid Ahmed Palak, MP, inaugurated the event on Thursday (June 11) morningthrough video conferencing as part of the iDEA project "Education forNation". Senior Secretary of ICT Department NM Ziaul Alam PAA andExecutive Director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) Parthapratim Dev werethe special guests on the occasion. The online event was presided over by SyedMojibul Haque, Director (Additional Secretary) of iDEA Project.

As the chief guest, Junaid Ahmed Palak, MP, State Ministerfor ICT, said Bangladesh is the 8th most populous and largest country in theworld where about 170 million people are constantly generating data. Data isbeing considered as the most valuable resource in the world at the moment. Themore information a country or nation has and is able to process and analyze itproperly, the more wealthy that country or nation is said to be. There are nowmore than 100 million mobile phone and internet users in the country and more than160 million SIM cards are being used where there are millions of computer usersincluding around 40 million smartphone users. Especially in this Coronasituation, through the use of online technology, the government is trying toprovide education to about 4 crore students and provide primary health care to160 million people from March 2020 till now, i.e. in the last 3 months.

He further said that through data analysis, it is possible toinitially estimate the number of affected areas in Corona situation or thenumber of symptoms is high, and the number may increase later in the area. Thatis, there is a strong ability to analyze data. The Hon\'ble Minister of Statesaid that now the prevailing posts like CEO, CFO, or CTO as well as Chief DataOfficer will be required in all public and private offices. This is becausepublic-private offices are now emphasizing data analysis for decision making.Our main goal now is to enable the country\'s researchers, inventors, andentrepreneurs to use the country\'s data to provide new services. He alsohighlighted the need to use Frontier technology.

As a special guest, NM Ziaul Alam PAA, Senior Secretary, ICTDepartment said that data-based policies are more sustainable and effective.So whenever we talk about creating evidence-based policy, we need toincrease data resources. The more we improve in data management, the better ourpolicies 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 beable to be richer in data resources. Parthapratim Dev, Executive Director ofBangladesh Computer Council (BCC), who was the special guest on the occasion,said that one of the resources in the present age is information or data. Thisinformation or data is very important all over the world now. All in all, ithas a significant role to play in the world economy.

ID Project Director (Additional Secretary) Syed Mojibul Haquein his welcome address said that the era ahead is the era of FrontierTechnology. So the iDEA project is organizing such events to encourage youngpeople about Frontier Technology. He said that various programs will continuein the future as well.

This training focuses on Making sense of Bigdata, Bigdata& Smart Analytics, and how we can harness opportunities in Bigdata. DataScience student at the University of Queensland in Australia and DeputyCommissioner (Tax) of the National Board of Revenue joined the training as aresource person. Dr. Abdul Bari Tushar, Lecturer in Big Data Analytics atGriffith University School of ICT. Saiful Islam and Habibullah N Karim, Founder , and CEO of Technohaven Company Limited. More than 60 trainees from ChittagongDivision took part in the training through the online platform Zoom and will beawarded certificates later. Besides, the whole event was broadcast live on theofficial Facebook page of "Start-up Bangladesh" so that manyinterested people get a special idea about "Big Data".

iDEA Project Deputy Project Director (Deputy Secretary) KaziHosne Ara, Project Senior Consultant RHM Alaol Kabir, Project Consultant DewanAdnan, Sohag Chandra Das including Chittagong University, Comilla University,Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Noakhali Scienceand Technology University, Rangamati University of Science and Technology,Premier University, Independent University Chittagong, including students ofvarious educational institutions of Chittagong Division, teachers, BCC andother officials of ICT Department were present online.