Broader application of relevant technologies is needed in Bangladesh. Progress is not possible without technologies, neither in science nor in any other field. The primary task is to establish digital society. How to do that effectively?
Before answering this question, the opinions of local people are needed whether they are interested in such activities and are ready to render support on it. Then we can come to the conclusion that the region like Village-Ikrail is ready to become an international pilot project of rural development. Indeed there is a movement or interest to make the Ikrail region an international focal point for innovative rural development. In the initial stage, a joint understanding is needed; what is rural development, what it is about, what kind of process is that. Let us suppose there is a village;-Ikrail as a locality and it has to live, it has to go on developing. Physically, the Village-Ikrail is located in the centre of a circular shaped island (char) of the river Modhumoti that flows along the western and southern borders of Gopalgonj, the birth place of the father of the nation, Sheikh Mojibor Raman.
It is extremely important that the locality should go on living and developing. Locality is turning into the omen or pivot of our time. Localities have to thrive in order that regions might thrive. That's why a new movement around relocalization has been growing in America for last several years. The same approach can be seen in many countries: Canada, Great Britain, Chile, Serbia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand and Kenya. People have taken into consideration that they need to make their life more local, if they want it to be safer and more successful. This does not mean destruction of global links. It means that global links have to acquire absolutely new meaning, a new sense. It means that we need to build a new big world which is a union and coexistence of a big number of small communities. Locality and local issues have again become political agenda. But we have to realize that development of local areas is not an easy task. It needs a lot of comprehensive changes, basic changes. We can't achieve anything if we go on supporting the state of things which existed before. We need to be realists. In previous decades, we lived in an industrial society which was constantly enlarging production, destroying all these small places, villages, small towns, and moving people to urban areas. Now the rural areas have become areas of non-compatibility and poverty. They have lost their own production facilities and markets and can't even maintain their human resources, as the young generation is leaving. So there seem to be no productive forces.
In order to stop being poor, people in villages need to make new ways of creating wealth and abundance the rationale of village life. But what is wealth now? One of the famous modern thinkers, Roberta Verzola from the Philippines says that wealth is based on two things: the ability of nature to reproduce itself (fertility) and the infinite ingenuity of human knowledge. We do have Nature. But technology knowledge is playing the absolutely leading, revolutionary role. Let's pay attention to the fact that through creation of “Digital Bangladesh”, Sheikh Hasina’s government puts knowledge economy promotion as the main priority and asks what it means precisely for the village.
Up until now, the widespread usage of modern technologies in rural localities was looked at as something totally impossible and unreal, as there was almost a monopoly of urbanity. But let's not forget one thing. Industrialization almost destroyed the charming ancient traditional system of knowledge which allowed rural areas to live up until the twentieth century. Peasants were part of nature and they knew a lot about how to handle nature. This tacit knowledge has almost all disappeared. No new knowledge system for rural localities appeared. Moreover, the village was excluded from any system of accumulating and leveraging information and knowledge. It was deprived of intellectual resources.
The world split into cities that were technocratic, industrial and adaptive, and rural regions that were "lost in the past" where people could "only twist cow's nails". The city was the only environment where technologies could be leveraged and could thrive. Cities dominated and like a vacuum cleaner swallowed, sucked out human resources, destroying rural places. For decades and decades, technological developments led only to village destruction.
But this all started to change. Further technological development pulled apart the limits of reality, stepped outside of cities, gave local places new possibilities. It started with the promotion of new agricultural technologies of mass production (agro-industrial production). But mass production is not possible everywhere. Brand new possibilities can be brought to almost every one living in the village like Ikrail far away from the city. There are in fact remarkable and plenty of possibilities. They can give new breath to localities. The young generations know how to utilize these possibilities.
There are a number of new technologies. The rapid growth of digital technologies, and their application and combination with other techniques have caused a brand new situation. They are smaller in size, more productive and more accessible. They don't require huge factories any more. A few people (or one person) can produce them. The equipment can be moved and installed almost anywhere, even in a remote village or in the middle of a forest. It makes for small but efficient production. This equipment allows one to build a new local economy. As other example, there are new types of compact transportable sawmills, which one can move to the forest and produce good quality desks right there. Using modern sewing machines, one can make dozens of complicated operations, including embroideries for t-shirts. We can provide many such examples in various spheres of life.
Up until now, the widespread usage of modern technologies in rural localities was looked at as something totally impossible and unreal, as there was almost a monopoly of urbanity. But let's not forget one thing. Industrialization almost destroyed the charming ancient traditional system of knowledge which allowed rural areas to live up until the twentieth century. Peasants were part of nature and they knew a lot about how to handle nature. This tacit knowledge has almost all disappeared. No new knowledge system for rural localities appeared. Moreover, the village was excluded from any system of accumulating and leveraging information and knowledge. It was deprived of intellectual resources.
The world split into cities that were technocratic, industrial and adaptive, and rural regions that were "lost in the past" where people could "only twist cow's nails". The city was the only environment where technologies could be leveraged and could thrive. Cities dominated and like a vacuum cleaner swallowed, sucked out human resources, destroying rural places. For decades and decades, technological developments led only to village destruction.
But this all started to change. Further technological development pulled apart the limits of reality, stepped outside of cities, gave local places new possibilities. It started with the promotion of new agricultural technologies of mass production (agro-industrial production). But mass production is not possible everywhere. Brand new possibilities can be brought to almost every one living in the village like Ikrail far away from the city. There are in fact remarkable and plenty of possibilities. They can give new breath to localities. The young generations know how to utilize these possibilities.
There are a number of new technologies. The rapid growth of digital technologies, and their application and combination with other techniques have caused a brand new situation. They are smaller in size, more productive and more accessible. They don't require huge factories any more. A few people (or one person) can produce them. The equipment can be moved and installed almost anywhere, even in a remote village or in the middle of a forest. It makes for small but efficient production. This equipment allows one to build a new local economy. As other example, there are new types of compact transportable sawmills, which one can move to the forest and produce good quality desks right there. Using modern sewing machines, one can make dozens of complicated operations, including embroideries for t-shirts. We can provide many such examples in various spheres of life.
Unfortunately, these opportunities are mostly not taken advantage, and not because of lack of finances. The matter is lack of understanding, lack of knowledge, lack of information. Often people don't know about the opportunity. And even if somebody tells them about it, they do not know how to take a step forward. We need people who will initiate changes. One of the main features of any rural society is its lack of ability to change. It is not ready for changes. It doesn't know how to create changes. As distinct from cities, where people are used to life changing all the time, rural inhabitants are used to live the same way year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation. Today the ability to change is absolutely crucial for survival. We also need to think how to bring back the young generation of the villages which moved to the cities. It is possible. But to make it happen one also needs to bring brand new technologies and build a new economy. Indeed, big cities are very problematic places to live. I know a dozen of persons who say that they would like to move to any nice old village, as they are tired of the city and its crazy ecology. We speak about Ikrail region as a pilot area in rural development as it has real assets for developing the new effective profession and providing changes. It is a real asset of the region. Village-Ikrail region has good perspectives in this direction. We have a large number of unique old villages.
So, there are many different possibilities. They do exist. But we need to mention that these possibilities will not appear and will not take place by themselves. Special efforts, special programs are needed in order to make it all happen. Special people are needed, which will let it all be brought to reality. Everything starts with people. Rural areas do not start to develop suddenly by themselves. We need people who should initiate changes.
Keeping the ideas in mind, the efficient human resources are being produced from the Khairunnessa technical institute that was established in 2001 at Village-Ikrail. It is a real platform for transforming indigenous technologists to modern and effective technologists. The project has proved that it is possible even in the most remote and unfortunate (almost destroyed) villages to bring change if proper attention is given
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