Dhaka, Sept 26 (UNB) – The test run of much-awaited mobile number portability (MNP) service will be launched on October 1, Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabbar said on Wednesday.

The MNP service allows a subscriber to change telecom carrier keeping the same phone number.

The minister said the service will be launched officially later following feedback from customers on the test run.

He also said the mobile phone operators will be forced to develop the MNP service as there will be a competition.

Mabroor Hossain, managing director of Infozillion BD Teletech which has received the licence of the service, said all preparations have already been completed to launch the service. “The service will be launched on October 1.” 

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has fixed Tk 50 for availing the service at the customer level, he said.

The operator will be changed 72 hours after applying for the MNP and a customer will have to wait for 90 days if he/she wants to change the operator again.
 

DHAKA, Sep 26 (UNB) - Grameenphone, Telenor Group and UNICEF formally kicked off the safe internet outreach programme in schools nationwide on Wednesday to create awareness and understanding of a safer internet environment for the youth, as a part of the agreement signed earlier this year in June.

The programme titled “Be Smart, Use Heart” was officially rolled out today in the presence of State Minister of ICT, Zunaid Ahmed Palak; Grameenphone CEO, Michael Foley; UNICEF Bangladesh Representative Edouard Beigbeder; Grameenphone Deputy CEO, Yasir Azman; Grameenphone CCAO, Mahmud Hossain; and Telenor Group’s Vice President, Sustainability and Child Online Safety Specialist, Ola Jo Tandre.

The programme has been specially designed to engage and empower 400,000 children aged between 11 and 16 years and sensitize 50,000 parents, guardians and teachers on how to facilitate a safer digital experience. The training in schools focus primarily on building awareness on safety measures for digital learning.

Moreover, the scope of the Child Helpline hotline (1098) service has been expanded to incorporate Child Online Safety issues, where the youth can receive counseling and other support directly from the hotline.

This initiative will help Grameenphone and Telenor Group support their global commitment to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 – Reducing Inequalities.

Speaking on the occasion Grameenphone CEO said, “As the biggest internet service provider in Bangladesh we have a responsibility to ensure a safer digital experience for our young users. The internet is a key source for knowledge, entertainment and communication and everyone should have safer experience.”

“We are committed to driving this Child Online Safety initiative forward to ensure that our children reap the most benefits from the internet and digital services,” he added.  

“Children everywhere deserve to be empowered equally in order to both benefit from digital opportunities and stay safe online. Telenor Group believes that a supportive ecosystem can help to address digital risks and increase children’s resilience, which is why we are investing in building capacity through Grameenphone’s initiative,“ said Mai Oldgard, Head of Sustainability at Telenor Group.

“Ensuring Internet Safety is a key element of achieving our dream of a digital Bangladesh. As a nation, we want to equip our youth with the right modes of technology so that our youth can compete in a global scale,” said Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister of ICT who was present at the event as chief guest.

“Initiatives like Child Online Safety will play a significant role in creating awareness and will also help us understand the responsibility that each one of us has. We want to take necessary measures and help organizations like Grameenphone and UNICEF to create safer digital environment for our future generations,” he added.

Grameenphone has been actively advocating safer internet messages amongst children since 2014 and also reached out to 130,000 students nationwide. In 2015, Grameenphone and UNICEF had also launched a parent’s guidebook for responsible internet usage and best practices.

“Internet is a platform that provides people with opportunity to connect with each other and learn. The possibility of learning and gaining information is endless. We are hopeful that this partnership with Grameenphone will help us disperse a sense of responsibility amongst all users of digital platform. Users of internet amongst all ages should increase.” said Edouard Beigbeder, Country Representative of UNICEF. The event was also attended by other Officials from Grameenphone, UNICEF and Telenor.

Cape Canaveral, Sep 26 (AP/UNB) — NASA's Mars rover, Opportunity, has been seen, but still not heard.

A spacecraft around Mars has sent back a photo of Opportunity, which has been silent ever since a massive dust storm engulfed the red planet in late spring. The rover appears in the photo as a pale dot.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the picture last week from 166 miles (267 kilometers) up. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory released the photo Tuesday.

The global dust storm prevented sunlight from reaching Opportunity's solar panels, and the rover fell silent in June. Although the skies have cleared considerably, Opportunity has yet to send word to flight controllers. NASA has stepped up efforts to contact Opportunity, but acknowledge the nearly 15-year-old rover may not have survived the prolonged power outage.

San Francisco, Sept 25(AP/UNB) — The co-founders of Instagram are resigning their positions with the social media company without explanation.

Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said in a statement late Monday that he and Mike Krieger, Instagram's chief technical officer, plan to leave the company in the next few weeks and take time off "to explore our curiosity and creativity again."

"Mike and I are grateful for the last eight years at Instagram and six years with the Facebook team," Systrom said. "We've grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world, all while building products used and loved by a community of over one billion. We're now ready for our next chapter."

"Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that's what we plan to do," Systrom said. "We remain excited for the future of Instagram and Facebook in the coming years as we transition from leaders to two users in a billion."

No explanation was given for their sudden departure from the photo-sharing network they founded in 2010.

Facebook bought Instagram in 2012, just before going public, at a price that seemed inconceivable at the time — $1 billion — especially for a little-known startup with no profit. At the time Instagram was ad-free, with a loyal following of 31 million users who were all on mobile devices — still a somewhat elusive bunch for the web-born Facebook back then. Since then, the service has grown to more than 1 billion users and has of course added plenty of advertisements.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Systrom and Krieger "extraordinary product leaders" and said he was looking forward "to seeing what they build next."

The departures are a challenge for Facebook. Instagram has been a bright spot for the company not just because it's seen as a more uplifting place than Facebook itself, but because it is popular with teens and young people — a group Facebook has had trouble keeping around.

"The challenge with Instagram has always been balancing its strong desire for independence, with the need to make Instagram a part of the Facebook machine," said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

She said one of the key reasons why Instagram has done so well is because it's been integrated into Facebook's advertising system.

Instagram has largely escaped Facebook's high-profile problems over user privacy, foreign elections interference and fake news, even though it is not immune to any of these things (Facebook recently disclosed it has deleted hundreds of pages on its namesake site as well as Instagram that were linked to global misinformation campaigns intended to disrupt elections).

Though Systrom, in the early days of Instagram ads, famously checked each one personally to ensure it aligned with the app's aesthetics, he was not as loudly anti-ads as the founder of another popular Facebook-acquired mobile app, WhatsApp.

WhatsApp's CEO Jan Koum resigned in April.

Koum had signaled years earlier that he would take a stand against Facebook if the company's push to increase profits demanded radical changes in the way WhatsApp operates. In a blog post written when Facebook announced the biggest acquisition in its history, Koum wrote that the deal wouldn't have happened if WhatsApp "had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product."

Dhaka, Sept 25 (UNB) – Facebook authorities have selected Bangladeshi entrepreneur Razib Ahmed as fellow of its ‘Community Leadership Program’ for his group ‘Search English’ where members help each other to become more fluent in English.

Razib Ahmed, former president of the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), will receive a grant of US$ 50,000 for further development of the project. 

The tech giant on Monday said it has selected five people into its ‘Community Leadership Program’ as leaders in residence, and more than 100 people as fellows and youth participants from 6,000 applicants from around the world. 

The social media giant is giving upto $1 million to each leader in residence to fund their community projects, and up to $50,000 to every fellow and youth participant.

The group was founded in June 2016 with the slogan “Learn English to Change Life” by Razib Ahmed along with Abul Khayer, Neyamot Ullah and SM Mehdi Hasan. At present the group has more than 1.6 million users.

“This recognition will not only motivates us but also will help us to reach more people to help learning English,” ‘Search English’ co-founder Abul Khayer told UNB while expressing their joy.

“We want to spread our programme to every village of the country will participation of more than 10 million users,” he added.

Using this platform hundreds of people not only secure jobs but also improve their English skills in both educational and personal grounds, he further said.

The programme has three main components: an educational curriculum designed around leadership development, strategic community engagement and technical skills, financial support for offline community building activities and help and guidance from community building experts, Facebook leaders and other participants.

Earlier in last year, Facebook Business, an official page of the social media giant, has released a video featuring the achievements of a Bangladeshi public group ‘Search English’.

In August 2017, a four-member team from Facebook’s Singapore headquarters had come to Dhaka to meet the founders of the group and its members. The video was made with the interviews of Razib and several other members.
The page published the nearly two-minute video on October 25, with a caption that said the founder of the “Search English” group is helping over 360,000 people in Bangladesh improve their English skills and confidence on Facebook.