Visiting World Bank Managing Director Axel Van Trotsenburg on Sunday lauded the excellent progress of Digital Bangladesh and said it would continue its support for Bangladesh's digital journey to flourish the ICT sector.

His assurance came at a function organized by ICT Division marking 'Celebrating 50 years of Bangladesh Partnership' at the conference room of ICT Division, said a press release.

While making comments on the PowerPoint presentation by State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak on progress of Digital Bangladesh and plan to build Smart Bangladesh, Trotsenburg said that the World Bank is one of the important partners of Bangladesh's development and both Bangladesh and the World Bank are ready to work together in the days to come.

He welcomed Bangladesh's initiative to flourish startup culture and laid emphasis on latent talent of the young generation.

The ICT state minister said, "We've already developed a Smart Bangladesh Master plan that has proposed for implementing more than 40 projects in line with four pillars- citizen government, smart government, smart economy, and smart society.”

He said the Smart Bangladesh vision has been announced by visionary and prudent leader Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after the successful implementation of Digital Bangladesh. The ICT state minister praised the World Bank for financing various projects including Enhancing Digital Government and Economy (EDGE) project that suits with objectives of Smart Bangladesh.

Seeking assistance from the World Bank, Palak said that US$300 million will be required for building a new data center, US$ 50 million for establishing Smart Digital Leadership Academy.

US$ 100 million for Sheikh Rasel Digital Lab and School of Future and US$ 300 million for establishing 35 Sheikh Kamal IT training and Incubation Centers.

Managing Director of Startup Bangladesh Sami Ahmed who also made a power point presentation focusing on startups said the government will build at least 50 unicorn startup companies by 2041 following the Smart Bangladesh Plan.

At that time, Executive Director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) Ranajit Kumar, Managing Director of Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority Dr Bikarna Kumar Ghose, Addition Secretary of ICT Division Dr. Khandoker Azizul Islam, Managing Director of Startup Bangladesh and Adviser of EDGE Project Sami Ahmed, Project Director of Enhancing Digital Government and Economy (EDGE) Dr Muhammed Mehedi Hassan, Senior Operations Officer of World Bank's Regional (SAR) Vice President Martin Raiser, Country Director, SACBB Abdoulaye Seck, Infrastructure lead Rajesh Rohatgi, and Digital Development Specialist Suparna Roy were among others, present at the program.

Three beneficiaries described their success stories after getting training from the World Bank financed LICT project while one official from Ministry of Finance depicted e-services provided by the government including operation of ibas plus. Later, the delegates from the WB visited the Data Center and Idea Project set up at the ICT Tower.

TMT/Desk/Kamran