Dhoritry Samaj Kallyan Songha, WARP, Hunger Free World, Samsuddin-Nahar Trust and Pallitathya jointly organized a regional workshop titled "Telecentre: Bridging Opportunities" at Hotel Royal International auditorium in Khulna on June 02, 2008. The program was graced by the Khulan Divisional Commissioner Eunusur Rahman.

Eunusur Rahman, Divisional Commissioner, Khulna and the Chief Guest of the program said, "Information is a power that in effect empowers people to build a true knowledge based society. But developing countries like Bangladesh poverty is a big challenge. In this regard, we should come forward to utilize ICT to eradicate poverty".

"We must ensure Internet connectivity to all telecentres across the country. Mobile network operator can play a significant role to bring all telecentre under Internet coverage. Internet can transform each centre into an information hub where rural people get health, education and other livelihood related information. Technology can change the fortune of the rural if we properly mobilize right technology for them", he added.

Mr. Rahman also said, "The telecentre practitioners must be cautious about their operation so the rural people can get right service from them. We should be aware about the vested interest so that no one can discover the loophole to exploit unprivileged community".

Naimuzzaman Mukta, Project Coordinator, CeC Project, UNDP informed that "UNDP currently supports Access to Information (A2I) project at Chief Advisor office. The main goal of this project is to disseminate the ICT facilities to all citizens of the country. We are continuing our discussion with different ministries so that they can digitalize their services. At this moment we basically require an ICT channel such as telecentre to deliver all ICT facilities to the people".

Mahmud Hasan, Chief Operating Officer, Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN) said, "BTN is committed to bring ICT opportunity to the rural people by building a unique knowledge sharing network. Government has several ICT development initiatives and BTN is closely working with that so that all BTN members can get the right scope to contribute in national ICT based activities".

"BTN is currently working with NGO Foundation to rollout their 1500 telecentres across the country. BTN also advised Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (MOPT) to convert 5000 post offices into telecentres. We also work with global technology leaders like Intel, Microsoft in order to expedite telecentre deployment process in Bangladesh", Mahmud added.

Dr. Ananya Raihan, Secretary General, BTN said, "ICT has enormous power to minimize the digital divide and at the same time help rural people to change their living standard. First when we were started our ICT based development initiative we were very suspicious about outcomes because we did not understand how ICT help rural people to change their fortune. But nowadays we discovered that ICT can acts as a catalyst to poverty alleviation. New concept and new technology has profound impact on lifestyle of rural people"

Mr. Bivash Chandra Biswas, Chairman, Dhoritry Somaj Kallyan Songha chaired the inagural session. Mr. Forhad Uddin, Deputy Director, D.Net presented the key note paper in the inagural session.

This regional workshop is supported by Microsoft Unlimited Potential. The workshop was organised in association with Development Research Network (D.Net), CLP and Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN).