This year Basis arranged eight seminars and roundtables at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre (BCFCC) during the five day-long mega exposition of software industry that started on March 28.

Prominent personalities, IT professionals, academicians and politicians delivered their speech and interacted with the audience to share their vision and expertise. Interested people from different professions, students and faculty members from different university participated these programmes.

The first roundtable on 'Fight Against Corruption-Role of Information Technology' was held on the second day of SoftExpo and prominent economist Prof Dr Mozaffar Ahmed, chairman, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) presided over the roundtable and Habibullah N Karim, former president Basis delivered the keynote speech.

"All ministries should implement internet facilities in all segments and tender process should be taken into consideration", said M A Muhit, former finance minister.

Hua Da, country representative, Asian Development Bank (ADB), stressed the necessity of technological content in education especially at the primary level. Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, former commerce minister, gave a practical example of Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) where IT implementation dramatically reduced corruption.

Discussants of the roundtable unanimously agreed that corruption is a major setback for socio-economic development of the society. In this regard, IT can play a provocative role to prevail corruption by ensuring transparency.

Second roundtable on the same day titled 'Corporate IT Procurement: Challenges & Best Practices' emphasised on the procurement process based on IT. Aref R Bashir, managing director, SynTec Consultation unveiled several strategies regarding this issue.

A seminar on 'Rural Development through ICT: Bangladesh Experience' jointly organised by Basis and Development Research Network (D.Net) was held on the third day of SoftExpo.

Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, former adviser, caretaker government and chairman Bangladesh Telecentre Network was the chief guest of the seminar. In his speech he elaborated three types of IT services to uplift the living standard at the rural level. These services include IT service in heath, education and land information. A K M Fahim Mashroor, CEO, BDJobs, also treasurer of Basis & convenor of Basis SoftExpo 2007 presided over the seminar.

Ananya Raihan, executive director D.Net, stated different aspects of telecentre activities and at the same time presented several ICT related activities of D.Net for rural development.

Speakers focused on 'Common Access Point', while mentioning the importance of IT at rural level. The implementation of IT at root levels and resulting in economic development were the main topics of discussion. Speakers also discussed about 'Mission 2011' with objective of development in rural sector, part of which is setting up 40,000 telecentres countrywide within the year 2011.

Another seminar on the same day, entitled 'Open Source & Open Content' was organised by Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN). Munir Hasan, national project coordinator, Strengthening the ICT Capacity of Prime Ministers Office, in his keynote speech systematically described different issues to promote open source in real life activities.

"Open source can not bring any breakthrough in business if there is no dynamic leadership", said Fokhruz Zaman, co-founder and CTO, Millennium Information Solution Ltd., while delivering his keynote speech. He also analysed open source from business perspectives and mentioned "Open source can gives us freedom from vendor lock in".

Dr Zafar Iqbal, Dean, School of Applied Science & Technology, SUST, in his speech as chief guest urged everyone to work together to promote open source. He also envisioned that, one day Bangladesh would become a unique platform for open source lovers.

On the fourth day another roundtable on 'Electronic transaction in ICT Act 2006-New Business opportunities' was organised having SM Wahiduz Zaman, secretary, ministry of science and information & communication technology as the chair. He mentioned about the pilot project related to the set up of govt. community e-centre for the benefit of rural community through IT.

Barrister Tanjibul Alam presented his papers as the keynote speaker. He talked about the legal validity of electronic transaction under the newly gazetted sections of ICT ACT-2006.The passing of this law has given legal recognition over online & cellular transactions which will play an important role in promoting e-commerce.

A roundtable on 'Non-Traditional Financing for Software & ITES Industry' took place on March 31. Sarwar Alam, President, Basis presided over the roundtable while Senior Vice President of Basis, Rafiqul Islam Rowly presented the keynote paper.

"There are more than 450 registered software companies in the country employing around 5,000 technical professionals. The market size of software and IT enabled service industry within the country estimated to be more than Tk. 300 crore per year", Rowly shared this statistics in his presentation.

At the end of Basis SoftExpo 2007 another two roundtables also attracted concerned persons. The first round table on 'Awaiting Opportunities: Aligning IT Education towards Software Industry Needs' encompassed several renowned academic personnel including Dr Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, vice chancellor, BRAC university.

Remaining roundtable on 'IT Outsourcing to Bangladesh: New Growth Trends' highlighted the obstacles and opportunities of outsourcing. Mahboob Zaman, managing director, Datasoft Systems (BD) Limited was the keynote speaker on that occasion.

Ideas and suggestions that came from the seminars and roundtables need to be implemented in the right way and in time. In this regard, government and other private organisations can come forward to take pragmatic steps to consider these concerns to build up a true knowledge based society.