ITU chooses Bangladesh for another award for progress in ICT

“The ITU has awarded Bangladesh several times earlier. It has decided to honour Bangladesh again with the ‘Award for ICT’s Sustainable Development’,” Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters on Monday.

He said Bangladesh was selected this year in recognition of its achievement in ensuring use of information and communications technologies for sustainable development.

ITU Secretary General Houlin Zhao has sent a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in this regard.

State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Tarana Halim handed over the letter to Hasina after the regular Cabinet meeting at the Secretariat on Monday, Bhuiyan said.

He added Zhao in the letter requested the prime minister to receive the award at a function in New York on Sep 26, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

The prime minister’s schedule in this regard is yet to be finalised.

The Awami League-led government after coming to power in 2009 has envisaged turning the country into ‘Digital Bangladesh’ by 2021, as part of the ruling party’s campaign pledge 'Vision 2021'.

The government claims it has already achieved ‘most of the goals’ it had set.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Office’s Access to Information Project last year was awarded the ‘World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Prize’.

The award was in recognition of the project’s role in taking technological services to people’s doorsteps. 
State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak had received it at the ITU headquarters in Geneva.

Bangladesh in October same year also received the 'Global ICT Excellence Award' in the 'Public Sector Excellence' category at the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) in Mexico’s Guadalajara.