The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The two-day National ICT for Development exhibition held at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Centre in the city ended yesterday.

On the second day of the exhibition various books, audio-visual CDs of information and knowledge were launched in the presence of Prof Jafar Iqbal and Selina Hossain.

The Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN) organised the exhibition on the occasion of launching of its mission 2011, which was taken by BTN with a view two building up 40,000 telecentres across the country to ensure access to information and knowledge by the poor and underprivileged people by 2011.

The telecentres would provide content-based information and knowledge service on various livelihood issues, Helpline based information, video documentary, internet browsing, issue based campaign, water pH test, soil test, height and weight measurement, photography, composing, scanning, photo scanning, equipment rental, blood pressure measurement, government forms, e-mail, commercial phone and mobile, university admission form service and DV form.

BTN treasurer TIM Nurul Kabir said that BTN has launched the mission 2011 with a view to building 40,000 telecentres throughout the country to ensure access to information and digital knowledge by the grassroots people within 40 years after the country's independence and build information based society, as information was power and knowledge.

He also said that the mission 2011 would be supportive to ensure access and right to information and build up information society across the world by 2015 as per the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and World Summit of Information Society (WSIS).

Access and right to information should be ensured for sustainable development of the country, he added.

The telecentres would be used by the grassroots-level public, while the centres help them to learn and develop skills, create local content and capture local knowledge, create economic opportunities, access to doctors and other distant professionals, overcoming isolation, bridge the digital divide and reach out to youth.