Remarking the "Empowerment of the Neurodevelopmental Disorders and other Disabled People using Information and Communication Technology"

Enamul Hafiz Latifee writes,

Yesterday (January 29, 2018) at 3:30 PM a meeting was held in the Conference Room, Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) presided by Mr. Swapan Kumar Sarker, (Additional Secretary) Executive Director, BCC titled "Empowerment of the Neurodevelopmental Disorders and other Disabled People using Information and Communication Technology". From the BASIS Secretariat, I was present in the meeting.

After the briefing of Engr. Mohammad Enamul Kabir, Director (Training & Development), BCC, about the project (scanned copy of the presented slides are attached below), Mr. Swapan Kumar Sarker, opened the floor for the meeting attendees to exchange their opinions.

I appreciated the BCC for taking such initiative and shared my opinion in the following way addressing Mr. Swapan Kumar Sarker, and  Engr. Mohammad Enamul Kabir,

• As if the project is about Empowerment of Disabled persons, so I would like to first recall the meaning of Empowerment itself which stands in real as-

a) Economic empowerment, indicating to be mainly equal access to financial tools
b) Equivalent social status like any other human being
c) Opinion of the said group is valued equally

So from that sense, this project can be seen as a good start that intends to work with ICT Skill Development of the disabled group of people, however, in this context, I would like to propose the following three points to be taken under your kind consideration-

• The project may include developing tools and solutions suitable for each category of the disabled people, as if firstly, not all types of disabilities are same, and secondly, as the one of the project objectives is to create lots of audio visual contents for them, it would be more accessible and useful for them if they can have appropriate hardware tools and software solutions developed to use and learn.

• The project may include developing a dedicated social network platform for the disabled people. As the project has taken an objective- Job Placement and CV Upload Feature, hence, social network platform will enable the disabled people to share their regularly faced challenges, share their experiences- how do they overcome those, how do they apply and get jobs, and ultimately how they become successful. This life stories will certainly inspire and motivate other disabled persons to think of their life newly and get more involved with this project, I believe.

• As our present Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister, Mr. Mustafa Jabbar, has been saying always that around 96% of country people do not understand English but can only understand the Bangla, so that, all the contents should be developed primarily in Bangla. This will enable connecting them more with the developed contents. However, it is my great pleasure to see that, today the presented slides are also developed in Bangla. We really appreciate this good move.

Mr. Swapan Kumar Sarker, Engr. Mohammad Enamul Kabir, and Md. Mizanur Rahman, Project Director, welcomed and took note of the shared opinions.

Engr. Mohammad Enamul Kabir, requested all the relevant stakeholders to assist BCC in organizing the next Job Fair and ICT Competition for disabled people in bigger ways.

As there was no further agenda to be discussed, the discussion session was ended with vote of thanks to and from the chair, Mr. Swapan Kumar Sarker.