Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) of the ICT Division has founded a project called "Connected Bangladesh" to provide internet access to remote areas of the country. The project started in October 2018 and will run till December 2023 with an estimated cost of  BDT 50443.31 lacs. Through this project, BCC will ensure internet facilities in 617 remote unions of Bangladesh. Under the project, a high network will be established in the telecommunication-deprived areas. One of the objectives of this project is to provide network connectivity to all schools, colleges, madrasas, growth centres, telecom operators etc. in remote areas. Apart from promoting e-commerce, e-services, telemedicine through high-speed internet usage, one of the goals of the project is to increase employment in the IT sector and create new entrepreneurs. T The Connected Bangladesh project is being implemented with the funding of the “Social Obligation Fund (SOF)” managed by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) under the Posts and Telecommunications Division to expand telecommunication facilities. Under this project, 8106 km of optical fibre cable is being installed at the union level, backbone router and DC power system are being installed in the union and pop room renovation work are underway. Bangladesh Cable Shilpa Ltd, Khulna a state-owned company, has procured 8106 km of optical fibre cable and 5,000 km of duct pipes. As of January 2022, according to the internal data of the project, the work of Pop Room Renovation is about 51.28% and the work of laying Optical Fiber Cable is about 40.22%.

Customers can now pre-order their Samsung Galaxy S22+ or S22 Ultra. The devices can be pre-ordered through the Samsung website.

Four-day workweeks? Sounds like a dream? Or is it too good to be true? Feel free to dive into our cover story to find out how some countries around the world are embracing the 4-day workweek and how Bangladesh can employ the practices as well.

YouTube recently elaborated on its blockchain and metaverse plans for 2022, saying it could harness the emerging technologies to cut fraud in the fast-growing digital art market and offer a more social viewing experience for gaming content. The announcement was made on 10 February.

Featuring a system full of powerful hardware, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and S22+ are two devices that attempt to take advantage of the latest smartphone features and come with a new style.

Apple is reportedly working on two augmented reality projects due release in 2023, which will reportedly feature the brand new AR/VR operating system realityOS.

In the digital age, eBook reader apps have partially, or in some cases, fully replaced conventional printed books.

Nordic countries are continuously experimenting to improve traditional economic systems. The proof of this is the trials of four-day workweeks conducted between 2015 to 2019. In Iceland, the experiment achieved overwhelming success with similar or improved productivity. The Finnish prime minister Sanna Martin is also considering four-day workweeks. Can Bangladesh do the same?

Google will start limiting ad tracking on Android devices, according to an announcement made by the tech giant yesterday. This announcement follows Apple declaring ad tracking to be a privacy concern on iOS devices.

Instagram, the Meta-owned social media platform, is launching a new feature called Private Story Likes, which will allow users to like someone’s Insta Story without sending them any direct messages. Instagram is moving away from the previously enabled feature where any response sent by a user appeared as a direct message in the creator’s inbox, regardless of it being an emoji or a complete message. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, shared the news of rolling out the Story Likes feature from his Instagram account. “As you go through Stories, between ‘Send message’ and the airplane icon, there will be a heart icon. And if you tap on it, it will send the author of that story a Like. And that like will show up on the viewer sheet, not in your DM thread with them.” he mentioned. The Likes on stories will be private and will not have any counts. They will appear as 'hearts', next to the viewer's handles in the user’s Stories view sheet. The popular photo-sharing app hopes that users can express their support for each other without crowding their DMs through the Story Likes feature.

Google has revealed that it is giving early access to a new version of the Chrome Operating System. The latest version is called Chrome OS Flex. It is designed for schools and businesses and will run on old PCs and Macs. According to Google’s blog post, the new OS can be installed "within minutes".

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk donated a total of 5,044,000 shares in the world's most valuable automaker to a charity from Nov. 19 to Nov. 29 last year, its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed on Monday.

Netflix, 2K, and Take-Two Interactive announced on Tuesday that they will collaborate on a live-action BioShock film. According to Netflix's website, the film is based on the BioShock franchise but no details on the potential plot were revealed.

Garena Free Fire, a popular Battle Royale game, was reportedly among dozens of apps hit with a ban on national security concerns. Tech giant Sea, which is backed by China's Tencent, has apologised to users in India following the ban.

The iconic DMC DeLorean, made famous by the Back to the Future films, is set to be reborn as an all-electric sports car, nearly 40 years after its first release. 

Simcubator, an incubation program for local healthcare and education startups in Bangladesh, has successfully completed its three-day-long workshop ‘Simcubator Bootcamp 2022’ on February 13. The program was sponsored by the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and SELISE, a leading IT consultation and software firm based out of Switzerland with offices in Dhaka.

Wander Woman, a social venture catering to female travellers from Bangladesh, has won a grant worth $22.5K at the UNLEASH Plus 2021 Program for “developing a revolutionary platform for female travellers in South Asia,” according to a press release.

Where gender stereotypes and biases persist, could an experiential MBA help women overcome challenges and achieve their career goals? A good MBA program imparts more than just knowledge. It helps students to build a network, gain valuable leadership experience, and improve their confidence. According to Professor Imran Rahman, Vice-Chancellor at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh), these benefits are especially poignant for women. Professor Rahman, who is also the Dean of ULAB School of Business thinks MBA programs could give women a boost in securing their fair share of influential positions. It is often hard to grasp for the male-dominated corporate world that something as ostensibly simple as confidence may prove vital if women are to achieve true equality. This phenomenon is dubbed ‘the confidence gap’ by some researchers who believe it partly explains why women are underrepresented in positions of leadership. Because women are less likely to talk up their abilities, the theory goes, they’re less likely to get noticed in the corporate world. Undertaking an MBA could help women to narrow the ‘gap’. “It will push women to move outside their comfort zone and give them the confidence to be less modest and allow their talent to shine,” Asif U Ahmed, Director of ULAB MBA program observes. “They will learn to push boundaries in innovation, accept risk, and welcome leadership roles.” Of course, low confidence is just one factor in a cultural milieu that holds women back from positions of power. “The bias against women’s progression is more of a systemic problem,” Asif cautions. “What needs to change are the social views and attitudes in society that hold women back from taking leading roles in organizations of all types.” Despite this bias—or because of it—Asif believes that MBA programs offer a great space to design programs integrated with the MBA curriculum about gender inclusion. And that thought inspired the design of a program for gifted female MBA students that would push them to challenge their comfort zone and take their learning from a business school to work with rural women entrepreneurs in remote villages and explore ways they could learn from each other. D uring the initial days of the Covid, WorldFish, a leading international NGO took an initiative titled “Post Covid-19 Eco-System Development for Bangladesh Aquaculture Activity participants” under the USAID funded Feed the Future program in Barguna and Patuakhali district. The idea was to help the rural women entrepreneurs, from the women-headed households, pivot their business model to cope with the crisis. The project wanted to use both resources and training to help them achieve production efficiency, reduce cost and develop new products to adjust to the changing market needs. ULAB MBA program had been in discussion with ENLIVEN- a youth-led organization working in youth employability and entrepreneurship, to design a program that would give female MBA students without full-time work experience a chance to work with the rural enterprises in remote villages. The idea was to create an “MBA Field School” where MBA students could apply some of their theoretical learning and at the same time gain invaluable knowledge from the entrepreneurs who have been doing it one their own. This initiative under the Bangladesh Aquaculture Activity to assist rural women entrepreneurs created a perfect opportunity. ULAB MBA program, ENLIVEN and BAA project of WorldFish designed a pilot initiative to create a partnership between female MBA students and rural women entrepreneurs. Ten female MBA students selected through a process went through a 2 week long virtual training of trainers (TOT) conducted by ENLIVEN during June 2020. The training of the trainers was primarily designed to get the female students to conduct a three days long training program for the rural women entrepreneurs and provide business development services in the long run. However, a big part of the training also made attempts to help the female MBA students understand the field reality, the context of the rural women entrepreneurs and norms of working in a remote village. Once the training was completed, 10 female MBA students divided into two groups, visited Barguna and Patuakhali region, to conduct a rapid need assessment and provide business development training to 60 female entrepreneurs in two districts. After the training, the MBA students had the opportunity to work with the rural women entrepreneurs to better understand their business model and challenges. After they had returned, ENLIVEN and the female students from ULAB developed a pictorial business management handbook for the rural women entrepreneurs so that they could use it in the long run. The handbook was published recently and the Bangladesh Aquaculture Activity project plans to use it widely in helping rural women entrepreneurs. “Rural women have more confidence in their ability that we often lack. They seem to be ready to face any obstacles in their lives. They are extremely innovative and resilient. And my biggest learning working with them has not been in the field of business but in the areas of my own personal development. I came back from the trip with a sense of gratitude for everything that I have but also with a determination to create an impact in my life and in the community” says Falguni Rahman, a final term MBA student while sharing her experience. For ULAB, the program has created a new frontier in making business education inclusive and relevant. The stakeholders are in discussion to expand the program for 1200 female students over the next few years. “An MBA is a movable asset,” Asif U Ahmed, Director of MBA program explains, “you take it with you wherever you go”. Looking at the future, Professor Imran Rahman Vice Chancellor of ULAB, observes “An MBA remains an excellent medium for talented women to both gain further management and leadership insight while providing proof of their undeniable abilities,”

TrainingPool has launched its online marketplace platform for training and courses. The platform was launched yesterday, February 12, at 5 PM in Six Sessions hotel at Gulshan. According to a press release, they have already onboarded more than 10 EdTech platforms and training institutions with more than 40 courses. On the inauguration program, founders have informed that more than 20 institutions verbally agreed to a partnership with them who have over 300 courses combined. The current team size is 11, including co-founders, advisors, and hired professionals. Prominent EdTech startup founders, enthusiasts, training professionals, mentors, investors, and journalists were present during the launching ceremony.

The final match of the Australian Open witnessed how Spanish tennis superstar Rafael Nadal pulled off a miracle to clinch his 21st championship title against all odds. Nadal was behind after the first two sets. And after falling behind in the middle of the third set, his defeat was on the cards. At that time, it appeared that the Russian marquee superstar Daniil Medvedev would secure the first championship of the year. But what data did not consider was the heart and willpower of the Spaniard. While data calculated the previous track records, it could not decipher Nadal's resolve to come back and win the title.  Data is beneficial as it helps us solve problems and predict narrowed down forecasts. In most cases, it is perfect. But what we often miss out on is the fact that 'Data is Tense Bound'. It can gather information from different timelines and show a future path. However, human imagination is not tense bound. It does not travel from past to present to future. It is not confined. It has no limits.  Nowadays, we see plenty of debate about AI/Machine Learning making humans obsolete. It also inquires whether it will take over human jobs or not. From my perspective, AI can never replace the human brain. It is because humans are creative and are capable of thinking beyond any limit. However, technology cannot go beyond its limitations. We are creating technology, and it will be us who will be controlling it. Technology will make a lot of jobs standardized. It will also provide people with new job opportunities as the human imagination is limitless. All in all, it is the human imagination that will create groundbreaking techs in the future. Sajid Mahbub is a Brand Marketing Professional. He is currently working as the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Editor of Bangladesh Brand Forum.