Home ›› 18 Dec 2021 ›› Front
Economic enormity is climbing up rapidly as the country's digital landscape goes through an envious technology-ridden environment.
This has been possible as the government has adopted a process driven approach to transform many places of the country into technology hubs to cope with the changing global economic scenario.
Towards making people economically solvent Bangladesh faces a historic opportunity to see Sheikh Hasina Software Technology Park emerging as an information technology (IT) hub in the southwestern region of the country.
This inspirational technological venture has created a congenial environment for technology-based work as it was built in 2017 at a cost of Tk 283 crore.
The IT park makes the area more conducive to IT sector growth and also Bangladesh one of the country's foremost IT hubs.
It is hemmed with eye-catching greenery and lakes and has created a room for a large number of entrepreneurs and 2,000 employments, facilitating working on software development, freelancing and outsourcing, call centres, and research and development.
According to the park authorities, a total of 56 entrepreneurs have already invested in the park while 46 are currently working, creating employment for 2,000 people.
Rakib Hasan, chief executive officer of the Jashore IT, is operating his outsourcing firm with 22 employees from his park office, which is working with the USA, Canada, and the UK based clients. His company in the last fiscal year earned remittance worth of around Tk 2 crore.
He said the infrastructure facilities like Sheikh Hasina Software Technology Park basically created a work environment for the entrepreneurs and helped launching new start-ups.
Zahir Iqbal, chairman of the Abacus Soft BD Limited and president of Jashore Start-up, is also operating his company from the technology park where his company gives training on ICT to the youths and develops software on freelancing basis.
"I have two offices in the park. We work with the training part and software-based IT products. We already have imported some IT products to the USA and India," he said.
The Joy Bangla Youth Award and the United Nation Volunteer Award winning youth entrepreneur Zahir said, "Due to the setting up of such infrastructure after the name of the prime minister, we have marched much forward. We are proud of it as many entrepreneurs and start-ups like me took space here and are gathering IT related knowledge under the government initiative."
The technology park was built on 12.12 acres of land at Bejpara of the district town as per Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina commitment she made during the inauguration of Jashore University of Science and Technology on December 27, 2010.
The prime minister, later, inaugurated the park named after her on December 10 in 2017.
The park has been featured with the country's second data centre called “Disaster Recovery Data Centre” with a capacity of three petabyte, providing an important backup to the country's first National Tier IV Data Centre at Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City (BHTC) in Gazipur.
The park comprises around 2,32,000 square feet of space with modern facilities including a 15-storey MTB building, 12-storey three-star standard dormitory building, a state-of-the art convention centre and underground parking will be able to create employment for 20,000 people.
A total of 1,35,285 square feet space has already been rented to 56 entrepreneurs while more 1,68,655 square feet of space is ready for rent in the 15-storey earthquake resistant composite MTB building.
A private property management company Techcity Bangladesh Limited is operating and managing the park.
Jashore Deputy Commissioner Md Tamijul Islam Khan said to promote the country's IT sector the government has decided to give tax holiday for 10 years to the entrepreneurs investing in the park.
The entrepreneurs in the park are enjoying tariff exemption on importing capital machinery raw materials while the skilled professionals would get an income tax holiday for three years, he said.
State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said around 1,000 youths are now working at the Sheikh Hasina Software Technology Park, which would help the government to go to trade diversification.
Noting that the export income from the technology industry has stood at $1.3 billion from $26 million, he said, "We have a target of earning $5 billion by exporting IT products from the hardware, software and service sector (by 2025)."
