Innovators have urged industrialists to support marketing of their products or services already invented under the iLab of a2i.
They came up with the call at Industrial Leadership Summit, where they displayed their innovations to the country’s leading businesspeople and government officials.
Salman F Rahman, private industry and investment advisor to prime minister, attended the program as chef guest, where ICT Division Senior Secretary NM Zeaul Alam, and BIDA Executive Chinaman Sirazul Islam also joined the program as special guests.
The innovations on display included rapid beverage cooling system, fuel from using wasted cooking oil, infant incubator, ramp pump, dual system refrigerator, driving simulator, smart white cane, kochuri bazar, electrical vehicle and bicycle from fiberglass.
a2i has provided seed funds, monitoring of the projects and intellectual property rights to the inventors.
This summit was organized as part of a three-day Digital Device and Innovation Expo 2019, which began on Monday at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Dhaka.
“With passion and hardship, we have invented our technology-based solution. Now, it is time to commercialize it for the people, which needs fund,” Ahsan Habid, inventor of smart white cane, told Dhaka Tribune.
White Cane is a GPS-enabled cane that triggers vibrations and makes different kind of noises to help persons with visual disabilities to navigate spaces by themselves.
Ahsan urged the private sector people to come up with financial support to market and commercialize his invention.
“Innovative minds are everywhere in the country and they need support in materializing what they have on their minds. Private sector people should take lead in this regard,” said Mamun, an academic of United International University.
“The young minds have shown their talent through innovation. How we'll commercialize their inventions is the most important thing,” said Rana Sohel.
For commercialization of the invention, there should have a road map and policy, Sohel demanded.
“There is a problem in information and technology innovation as the value added tax (VAT) and other taxes are higher. And taking the advantage, Chinese products are capturing the markets,” Engineer Tahmid, an IT sector entrepreneur, pointed out.
In creating local capacity and helping the domestic innovation, the government should extend policy support to this end, he added.
“Fund is a big issue to produce or innovate and commercialize innovation. Interest rate is high and the banks seek collateral in lending money,” Hasan Rahman Ratan of Data Soft said.
Talking on the innovation displayed in the summit, Salman F Rahman said the government already developed required infrastructure for innovation.
“Digital infrastructure are in place. We have launched Bangabandhu Satellite 1, there is submarine connectivity at Union Parishad Level and low cost broad band in the rural area,” said Salman. This help a lot to invent new technology-based services and products, he added.
He also termed tackling the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) as a serious challenge in attaining the government vision of a middle income country by 2030 and a developed country by b2040.
"This is a challenge for what we have to get prepared and enabled for the revolution," said Salman.
After the summit, Walton Group, Transcom Food Limited and Nitol Niloy Group signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the a2i.
Under the MoU, Walton Group would provid support for marketing Dual System Refrigerator, Transcom Food Limited will help fuel from using wasted cooking oil and Nitol Niloy Group to support Smart White Cane.
