Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabbar on Saturday said Bangladesh has missed the first three revolutions, but now it will lead the world in the coming 4th revolution.

The minister was addressing a discussion styled “4th Industrial Revolution – Are we ready?” in city’s BRAC Inn Auditorium.

At the same time Jabbar also pointed that proper human resources and education process are also needed to seize the opportunity. “We will make ICT education mandatory at any cost, we did it for secondary level education a few years ago,” he added.

To face this challenges Bangladesh needs to develop its human resources as soon as possible as the country has demographic dividend, they said.

“Country like KSA will be our big market for next five years if we can send trained people over there but at the same time lots of expatriates might also come back from that market as they wouldn’t match with the technology,” said Mushfiq Ahmed, director of Digital Tranformation at eGeneration.

Currently 65 percent of the Bangladeshi population is youth and it will be the key driver for this country but they need proper skill to face the fourth industrial revolution.

President of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) Osama Taseer said the 4th industrial revolution can accelerate sustainable development if both private and public sector can implement it in a right way. Adopting Smart manufacturing, analytics and IoT can give a new lease of life to industrialization in Bangladesh, he added.

Managing director of Mutual Trust Bank Limited Anis A Khan said some industrial units have already introduced high class technology but that are not matching with others.

Chairman of eGeneration Group Shameem Ahsan said the very primary phase of 4th industrial revolution is already here in Bangladesh as the local IT companies have started making solutions using disruptive technologies like blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence etc.