Digital World 2017, an exposition promoting the country's information technology sector, drew huge crowd on Friday, a weekly holiday.
Tech-lovers, especially youths, along with their close ones started gathering at the city's Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) since the morning to know about the latest developments in the ICT.
Visitors were seen waiting in a long queue for nearly an hour to enter the fair venue.
Abdul Halim Forhad, a private service-holder who came to the expo with his family, said he came here to know about local startups taking part in the fair.
"I think the country has been making a significant progress in the ICT in recent years," he said adding that: "I believe our local tech companies will be famous as like as Google, Facebook and Uber."
Mr Halim also said he wanted to see social robot 'Sophia' at the inaugural ceremony. "But I couldn't visit the fair on Wednesday when I went to my office. I took this opportunity today (Friday)," he said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday afternoon inaugurated the four-day fair as the chief guest.
A humanoid social robot with artificial intelligence named Sophia was presented at the inaugural ceremony. Her (Sophia) conversation with the prime minister created a buzz of tech-lovers. Though Sophia left the country on Wednesday, tech-savvies are coming to the fair to meet new technologies.
Information Communication and Technology (ICT) division has organised Digital World (DW) with support from various government and non-governmental organisations including Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) and Access to Information Program (a2iProgram) under the Prime Minister's Office.
The organisers are expecting 0.5 million visitors to witness the country's development in ICT, new technologies, products and services offered by local and global IT companies at the fifth edition of the fair.
More than 300 exhibitors including IT companies, financial institutions, hardware manufacturers, software and game developers and e-commerce companies are showcasing their products and services.
Around 30 seminars and conferences are also being held at several halls of the BICC. The exposition is taking place divided into several zones including e-government, startup, innovation, gaming and e-commerce.
Local startups are showcasing their services at the startup zone. One of such initiatives Jolpie Technologies Limited's founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abu Sina Mostafa Kamal said his company is offering healthcare consultancy through a smartphone app called 'Jolpie'.
"We are participating at the fair aiming to promote our services to the visitors," he said, adding that they were overwhelmed with response from visitors at the fair.
Underscoring the need for technology-based healthcare services, he said his company plans to team up with 40,000 physicians on the app.
Various government organisations including Bangladesh Police, National Board of Revenue, Bangladesh Railway and ministries are also participating in the exposition to promote their services using ICT.
Most of the participants expressed satisfaction with overall arrangements.
Many visited the fair along with their family members and friends.
A diploma engineering student, Abdullah Al Mahdi, was curiously looking at innovation and robotics zone.
"I have intense interest in robotics. As a mechanical engineering student, I dream to create a robot like Sophia in future, which will be a testimony of Bangladeshi engineers," he said.
At a seminar, held on the sidelines of the expo, state minister for ICT division Zunaid Ahmed Palak said a project titled 'Digital Municipality Services System Development' will be launched soon in 10 municipalities as one of the top priority initiatives of "e-Government Master Plan."
He said the project will include various services online including billing, tax service, certificate, automated property management and e-trade.
"In near future, we have plans to implement these services to all 328 municipalities," he said at the seminar.
Ahn Seong-doo, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Bangladesh, and Swapan Kumar Sarker, Executive Director of the BCC, also attended the seminar.
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