A cheery visit

The offer, up-front, of a hundred thousand dollars for the development of our IT sector, especially for training up over ten thousand teachers and two hundred thousand students, is a most generous as well as timely gesture by him. We are also grateful to him for his most generous grant of $15 million for the Asian Women's University in Chittagong.

In recent times there has been a considerable number of policy statements made by the government on IT development; numerous seminars have also been held on the subject and public displays staged of computers. But it must be said that there has not been any worthwhile development in infrastructure building which is pivotal to the growth of the technology. We are yet to see any comprehensive institutionalised effort in catching up with the rest of the world, especially the neighbourhood, in terms of accelerated development of the specialised sector. Today no sustainable development, whether social, administrative, management and economic can be achieved without integrating our systems with the IT technology.

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Bill Gates has made his offer of partnership with us in the field; it is now for us to play our part with total commitment. IT is a technology that has many dimensions. Its functions are all-pervasive. In order to reap the maximum benefit from it we have to improve and modernise our telecommunication network as a first step forward. It is sad that we are still struggling with setting up of the undersea submarine cable, a vital link to modern day IT growth. Today India, our neighbour, is regarded as one of the leading countries in IT technology. Given the will, the determination and honesty of purpose we can also make our mark in the field. The inspiration Bill has given us by his commitment to continuing support for us must be built up on in concrete terms.