Dreams going beyond borders
Software and mobile application developer Dream71 Bangladesh Ltd has won a global tender to build a mobile application for the parliament of East Timor.
On Wednesday, the local IT firm signed an agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the island nation virtually, said Dream71 Managing Director Rashad Kabir.
"We will deliver the iphone app by April this season," he said.
Winning the task order is a prestigious feat for Bangladesh, the entrepreneur said.
"Many Bangladeshi firms will work for foreign private companies. But the number of local organizations delivering ICT products to the governments far away isn't that much."
The national parliament of East Timor, or Timor-Leste, sought the bid for the application as part of the country's efforts to digitalise government and civic services.
Companies from many countries submitted their bids. Dream71 was selected considering its technical and financial offers, the Bangladeshi IT firm said.
The iphone app will support three languages -- English, Portuguese and Tetum, the local language.
The Parliament App is a platform which will facilitate interactive engagement between your persons of East Timor and the institution, the UNDP said in its project description.
Mobile phone and internet surfers are growing in East Timor. The quantity of internet users rose by 10 % in the last year.
The quantity of mobile connections is 17.3 lakh, and active internet users are 410,000 in the island nation. Around 31 per cent of the citizens in the country use internet and 96 % of them use mobile to hook up to internet, in line with the UNDP.
East Timor includes a population of 13.2 lakh and 34 per cent of the citizens have a home in urban areas.
Dream71 has been dealing with various ministries and government agencies in Bangladesh for the last five years. Now, the IT firm is going to work with government agencies far away in the e-governance sector, Kabir said.
The company is also in talks with the governments of Afghanistan and Bhutan for some projects. The software project may be the second scheme of Dream71 in East Timor. In June, the program company inked an agreement with the UNDP to build two educational video games.
The work to build up the game is at the ultimate stage. The games could be inaugurated in January.
There are at least 100 IT companies in Bangladesh that are delivering high-quality work in the e-governance sector. Riding on the knowledge, they can now use governments far away, Kabir said, seeking support from the government.
Although it started as a gaming developer, Dream71 has grown right into a full-fledged software company.
It has recently exported software to 12 countries, including Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, within the last several years.
Bangladesh is slowly but surely emerging as a supplier of IT and IT-enabled services.
Some 200 IT companies export software and IT services to 80 countries. ICT exports fetched $1 billion for the united states in 2018, based on the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services.
