Every University student in Bangladesh deserves a computer

In one of my early posting, I was expressing my joy, congratulating any University student in Bangladesh. By simple math each of them is “one in a hundred”. We have 44 lac 1st graders enrolled in 2005 and about 50 thousand 1st year students around the country based on BANBEIS http://www.banbeis.gov.bd/ statistics. So every University going student made the biggest hurdle, he secured a place in one of the Universities. Now he will prepare himself on how to be a better human being. He will argue and learn how to prepare him for the challenges of life in Bangladesh. He will learn how to resource himself to be able to earn a decent living. This process will continue and will contribute to the nation building in one way or other.

The moment a student walks into the University to study, the university opens up the doors of unlimited study materials. He goes to his area of specialization and starts building his growth of knowledge in a specific area of concentration and the lecturer guides him along the way. In this writing, I would like to concentrate my focus on how to bring the world of knowledge and information to him. We all know the answer: bring the internet to him; but it is expensive and infrastructure need to be there, are not available, student will be exposed to porn sites, student will learn bad thing more than the good things. Though there is plenty of parental control software available to limit the porn site access. These are some of the challenges.

Let’s jump to 10 years from now. Let’s visualize what is happening around the Universities in Bangladesh. Students of Statistics and Marketing of Dhaka University are modeling the NASDAQ indexes. They are predicting comparative growth of DOW chemicals and NASDAQ. A group of students is proposing a real time market analysis tools for Technology companies or Manufacturing sectors. Another group of students from the Institute of Business Management, researching on portfolio managements for some hedge funds. They are ready to serve customers in the geographically other part of the world.

Let us visit Dhaka Medical College. DMC in collaboration with North South University researched and developed a managed healthcare scheme. They did extensive research with National Institute of Health (http:// http://www.nih.gov/) using their dedicated backbone of mirrored network of servers (which is full of their research material freely available through the internet). Policy makers of Bangladesh made a commitment to train world class Nurses to capitalize the future growth of medical tourism in Bangladesh. The policy encouraged the medical professionals and business entities to invest in better health care facilities and nursing institutes. They provided education to gain respect of Nursing as a profession. Bangladesh now outsource Nurses around the globe, not to mention their outstanding service in the country as well.

In another development, Bangladesh Agricultural University students working along side with the students of BRAC University on a promising bioengineered seed to grow in barren lands of Sahara. They developed a new drink from pineapple (available in abundance in Bangladesh), which turned into a world wide sensation because of its use in weight management in the developed world. The students of these Universities published numerous articles in Amber Waves magazine (http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/) and doing joint research with USDA (http://www.usda.gov/).

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) have pioneered innovative schemes of database mirroring. This innovation came from the students’ extensive research on internet data sharing. Their expertises attract Google and myspace to setup student research centre in the Robert Noice simulation lab building. In the software arena Students of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology developed a program suits which gives you a generic package of application forms for various schools and colleges, archive of all the exam papers for various schools and colleges for various grades. They are text based and thereby easily searchable. They also developed an online schools system partnering with free online Global Education and Learning Community (http://www.curriki.org/). There mission is to improve education around the world by empowering teachers, students and parents with user-created, open source curricula and it's all free! They believe that access to knowledge and learning tools is a basic right of every child. Their goal is to make curricula and learning resources available to everyone.

Let me return from my dream to reality. The vision that I just travel through could become reality with proper planning and execution. It may not be easy; but it is very possible. To begin with, we have to guarantee easy access to global media to every University going students.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and BTTB need to ensure dedicated broadband service to every student in every University of Bangladesh. They may enforce to contribute 5% of the revenue from all the telecom companies in business in Bangladesh to fund this initiative.

Universities may offer each student a PC or Laptop like classmate PC or the equivalent during their registration process. Universities may work with various funding agencies, NGOs or foundations for the funding of these PCs. They may as well work with various bank and financial agencies for a package of installment payable by each student in absence of funding from non profit organizations. A student may pay as low as 500 Taka per month for a laptop during his full length of study. For this scheme we do not need any funding, we can work out with a bank for this venture. For funding example, Dhaka University has 30000 students. Dhaka University may search for a grant of 6 million dollars from Intel Corporation, Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Ford Foundation etc for closing the digital divide. They may purchase 30,000 PCs, one for each student. BTTB will ensure the WiFi or broadband connectivity though its submarine fiber optic networks.


There are 73 universities in Bangladesh. Out of these, 21 universities are in the public sector, while the other 52 are in the private sector. Out of 21 public sector universities, 19 universities provide regular classroom instruction facilities and services. Each of them may take initiatives to get grant and design their intranet and the gateway to internet. BTTB may just drop the extension of submarine cable and fiber to the nearest node. Again, government may impose a mandatory 5% revenue contribution from the entire telecom provider operating in Bangladesh including BTTB to fund such a connectivity project.

No University will benefit from the online capability more than the National University of Bangladesh. The National University caters the general education at graduate and post-graduate level in colleges/institutions which were affiliated to different public universities since independence. About one million students are studying in more than 1600 colleges/institutions affiliated to this university. The National University is expanding in terms of number of students, courses and institutions day by day. To day this university plays the most significant role to provide opportunities for higher education among the students living especially in rural and semi-urban areas. A dedicated connectivity and access to the internet with a computer in students possession may do more then the education. The student will have the vision.

How do we find the funding? I already discussed 5% telecom revenue for the connectivity solution. We need USD$ 40 million for 200,000 cheapest laptops. The hardware funding may come from various foundations and NGOs. Universities need to research for that. Again a dedicated internet may help the research process. There is a lot of funding available to close the digital divide. One of the cheapest laptop designed for educational purpose is classmate PC designed by Intel Corporation. There are 700,000 of them will be delivered to Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) with fully-functional Intel-powered PCs into the hands of students all across Pakistan by 2009.

I thereby propose, let us make a policy decision to hand an internet enabled PC or laptop to every University going students in Bangladesh. We can do it in small steps or a big stride. We have ~200,000 students currently studying in any Universities in Bangladesh. The Universities may collaborate and make a consortium for such computerization project. May I suggest the honorable Vice Chancellors of All the Universities around the country to exchange emails regarding the formation of such consortium? Call a meeting to distribute the task of funding proposal. We already laid out the plan as you read through the blog.