Women in science and technology-dependent Bangladesh

At the moment, the most interesting and exciting message for Bangladeshi citizens is that our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken much interest in empowering the nation, particularly the new generation, with knowledge about science and technology. She is laying special emphasis on girls' and women's empowerment in the area of technology. Her initiative has been appreciated not only inside the county but outside as well, such as in the World Science Forum (WSF2015) held in Budapest, Hungary where almost 900 scientists from different corners of the world were present. At the event, the roles of women scientists were important who mentioned examples of technological and financial development of Bangladesh under excellent leadership of women.

In early 90s, the London-based Commonwealth Science Council (CSC) made a survey in their 52 member countries which were ruled by the British. The CSC found that the countries were not uniformly developed in science and technology, and the women scientists, technologists and researchers were in disadvantageous positions in almost all the countries including Bangladesh. Women's skills and talents were not recognised and utilised in most cases. Based on the study report, the director of CSC adopted a project for empowering women scientists, technologists and researchers of the Commonwealth countries with modern technology.

The project was implemented first in an African country - Tanzania. One Bangladeshi scientist (this writer) was trained in the USA on a Fellowship of Commonwealth and then sent to Africa to pick up the project ideas in 1996. Getting the responsibility to design a similar project in the context of Bangladesh, he established "Association for Advancement of Information Technology (AAIT)," an ICT organisation in Bangladesh. The senior women scientists, technologists and researchers were drawn from universities, research institutes, medical institutes, and government and non-government organisations and they were trained by the AAIT and international experts on ICT with the objective of empowering them to connect their colleagues and fellow scientists all over the world. The participants drawn are highly qualified, many with PhD in respective fields, and the training programmes were held at universities under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the government of Bangladesh at different stages till 2004. The director of CSC visited Bangladesh twice to observe the activities of the Bangladesh project director (the writer), how he was faring with the modern technology project that could transform the traditional country to a technology-dependent one.

In 1997 and 1998, three programmes were held in the capital city of Dhaka. Participants were selected from among applicants spanning from life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences and engineering. For the first phase, trainees were drawn from the government institutions responsible for health, environment, education, mineral resources, energy, industry, agriculture, fisheries and forestry.

In the second course, participants came from research institutions relating to jute, food science and technology, fuels, space and remote sensing, housing and building, meteorology and electronics and communications, academia, local government, the national library and television. The third course held at the Institute of Scientific Instrumentation (ISI) of the University Grants Commission (UGC) included women from NGOs and the private sectors. In August 2000, the fourth course was held at NTRAMS in Bogra. This time the courses were redesigned for the qualified female medical professionals (nutritionists, psychologists, microbiologists, pharmacists, research and industrial scientists and technologists) working in the northern region. The fifth course was held at Rajshahi for the medical doctors in cooperation of regional medical colleges, universities and Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC). After a long gap, the sixth programme was held in 2004 for various disciplines of participants at the first ICT-based university (namely Pundra University of Science and Technology) in rural atmosphere of the northern region of the country.

Encyclopaedia of Gender and Information Technology published by the IGI group has included a chapter titled Gender and ICT in Rural Bangladesh under the editorship of this writer and Dr Eileen Trauth, Professor and Chairman of Computer Science at the Pennsylvania State University, USA who is the Chief Editor of the book.

An absolutely separate guideline titled "Science and Technology to Build up Digital Bangladesh" was developed by collecting information on performances of AAIT-stakeholders in respective areas in 16 years.

The writer is a Professor of Computer Science and Treasurer, Stamford University. E-mails: [email protected], [email protected]