Set up data centre to ensure BD's data sovereignty: Jabbar

FE REPORT
Posts and Telecommunications Minster Mustafa Jabbar Wednesday stressed the need for setting up data center whoever using data of Bangladesh and its people to ensure data sovereignty in the country.
"Every national and international organisation working in the sovereign areas of Bangladesh must have to set up data center in the country," he said while addressing as the chief guest the closing ceremony of Datathon at a city hotel.
The Datathon competition was organised by the country's leading digital operator, Robi, powered by 'AWS' (Amazon Web Services). 'Huawei' was the platinum sponsor, and 'Brain station' was the cloud expertise partner of the data championship.
Mr Mustafa Jabbar said everyone can use data but with proper approval.
He said data can be far more precious than oil and gold, but "We need to have Data Scientists and Data Engineers who can elevate the worth of data to that level".
"I will urge other operators to follow Robi's lead in implementing the vision of Smart Bangladesh," he said.
'Team Instinct' became champion in the competition while another team named, Numpy, secured the first runner-up position. Viking Raiders was named as the second runner-up.
The champion team won Tk2,00,000 prize money, while the first and the second runner-up teams walked away with Tk1,50,000 and Tk 1,00,000 respectively.
Nuren Shams and Yeaminur Rahman received Tk 1,00,000 each for being the best Data Engineers of the competition. Abdul Basit and Partho Ghosh were recognised as the best Data Scientists of the Datathon 2.0 event and got Tk 1,00,000 as prize money.
The posts and telecom minister handed over prizes to the winners.
Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Education Mohibul Hassan Chowdhury and Malaysian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Haznah Md. Hashim attended the closing ceremony as special guests. Peter Pan Junfeng, CEO, Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Ltd was also present at the event.
More than 2,800 participants from 11 countries took part in the Datathon 2.0 competition. Following tough contest, 100 participants qualified for the final round grouped into 25 teams.
The top 25 teams then battled it out in a rigorous two-day hackathon.
Internationally renowned Data Science and AI practitioners were part of the grand jury.
Grand jury included Professor Paul Morrissey, Global Ambassador, AI/BDA TM Forum, Md. Anowarul Arif Khan, Results Management Expert, Aspire to Innovate (a2i), Ramana Jampala, President & CEO, AVLINO, Huang Weiming, Head of Marketing and Solution Sales, Cloud Department, Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) LTD. and Mohammad Arif, Data Scientist, Cognizant.
Speaking at the event, Mohibul Hassan Chowdhury said: "The country needs to have a fresh perspective on our education system so that we can create human resources who can benefit from the digitisation of the society."
He said the Datathon 2.0 competition has certainly generated a momentum in this regard across the country.
Robi's Acting CEO and Chief Financial Officer M. Riyaaz Rasheed said: "The digital economy we are creating for a Smart Bangladesh will require skilled Data Scientists and Data Engineers."
A panel discussion titled "Data Science for Smart Bangladesh" was also arranged during the closing ceremony.
Professor Mohammad Kaykobad, PhD, Distinguished Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, BRAC University, Dr. Syed Ferhat Anwar, Chief Advisor of Bangladesh Brand Forum, Russell T. Ahmed, President, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) and Ruhul Amin, Chief Strategy Officer, Robi Axiata Limited, took part in the panel discussion.
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