Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said it must be ensured that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) tools are not used to hurt or undermine humanity.

“We must make sure that the 4IR tools are not put to use to hurt or undermine our humanity,” she said.

The prime minister said this while responding to a question in a programme titled A talk at the event on New Economy and Society in Smart Bangladesh organised by the World Economic Forum at its office here.

PM’s speech writer M Nazrul Islam briefed reporters after the programme.

The PM put emphasis on putting safeguards against cyber-attacks, disinformation and other vices.

“We have to collectively keep protection against cyber-attacks, disinformation and other vices,” she said.

Hasina also called for ensuring that 4IR does not create further divides within the society.

“We want to make sure that 4IR does not create further divides within our society. We must build effective public-private partnership at the international level for this purpose,” she said.

In this connection, she said that her government has started preparing youth of the country for 4IR and the future of work.

“I am confident that our boys and girls will not just follow 4IR trends but will actually lead them,” she said.

Read: PM Hasina thanks Prince Rahim, Aga Khan Development Network for contributions in Bangladesh

She said that she feels encouraged to see the kind of innovative work the country’s students are doing in robotics.

“We have also seen great enthusiasm among them at the Innovation fairs we have been organising across the country,” said the PM.

She said that Bangladesh would certainly welcome an independent 4IR Centre in partnership with WEF.

The prime minister said that the government is already working on having the right kind of legal, policy and institutional framework for 4IR in the country.

Also read: PM Hasina thanks Prince Rahim, Aga Khan Development Network for contributions in Bangladesh

“We have developed individual national strategies on artificial intelligence, internet of things, nanotechnology” she said

In this connection, she said that the government is setting up specialised institutes for frontier technologies, nanotechnology and other issues in different parts of the country.

“We have also launched Smart Leadership Academy to develop future political leaders for smart governance,” she added.

She said that Bangladesh, therefore, is taking keen interest in the UN’s work on developing a Global Digital Compact.

“We hope that this Global Compact will have clear guidelines for the international community on responsible and productive use of digital and frontier technologies.”

Talking about the education system of the country, the prime minister said that the COVID-19 pandemic opened eyes of the government to the immense possibilities of blended education.

“We could take full advantage of the nationwide digital backbone at the time of the pandemic. We transferred the education system online, with the educational institutions carrying out their work in a more or less uninterrupted manner,” she said.

However, she said that in order to reach out to students all over the country, the government has turned Parliament TV Channel into an Education Channel with arrangements for broadcasting daily lecture sessions.

“This could partly compensate for the disruption in regular schooling,” she said.

She mentioned that the government has also uploaded all textbooks online and made them available free of cost.

It launched an app titled ‘Muktopathh’ to upload teaching contents and model class lectures.

“We arranged to have teachers’ orientation to introduce them to online teaching methods,” she noted.

She said that the government has advised teachers and administrators to make appropriate changes to their evaluation systems.

“I hope that these initiatives could mitigate learning losses to some extent,” she said.

Hasina said that the government has now redesigned country’s school curricula to give emphasis on critical thinking and creativity among the students.

“We are encouraging them to think and do things on their own instead of storing information by rote. We hope to nurture our future generations with social and analytical skills to prepare them to compete on a global stage,” said the PM.

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She also mentioned that the government is also giving importance to pre-schooling as well as post-graduate research and development.

PM Hasina said that Bangladesh has made some specific commitments at the UN Secretary General’s Transforming Education Summit held in New York last year.

“Our government will continue to deliver on those forward-looking commitments towards achieving quality, inclusive and transformative education,” she stated.

The prime minister said that during Bangladesh’s last Presidency of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), it took a decision to shift climate vulnerability narrative into one of resilience and prosperity.

In order to achieve this, she said, "We shall primarily follow four seminal documents":

First, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) submitted with UNFCCC with specific, time-bound commitments to reduce green-house gas emissions.

“We have made both conditional and unconditional commitments to this effect. We believe we shall be able to meet the conditional commitments upon receipt of adequate international financing, technologies and capacity building support.”

Second, she said, "we shared with UNFCC our National Adaptation Plan (NAP) last year."

“Under the Plan, we hope to scale up our good practices with climate adaptation based on both nature-based and technological solutions.”

She said the government has estimated that Bangladesh shall need US$ 230 billion by 2050 to implement NAP for our long-term climate resilience.

Third, the government has also developed a Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan (MCPP) which aims at pursuing a low-carbon economic growth pathway through green transformation in energy, transport, agriculture and other critical sectors.

“We have aligned MCPP with our Vision-2041 to become a ‘Smart Bangladesh’. We are pleased that a number of other climate vulnerable countries are also developing their own Climate Prosperity Plans following our template.”

Fourth, the government has also taken a long-term perspective and developed the Bangladesh Delta Plan (BDP) 2100 to build a climate-resilient and prosperous delta for our future generations.

“This has been our gift to our future generations," she said.

The prime minister said that the government has already started implementing a number of projects under the supervision of a Delta Governing Council with me in the Chair.

“We are currently in discussions with the World Bank and other international financial institutions on some high-impact mega-projects like restoring the five rivers around our capital Dhaka.”

She also said that Bangladesh does need to mobilise large amount of international private sector financing to implement some of these ambitious plans.

“I would urge WEF to carry out its advocacy in our favour. I can assure the international private sector through you that investing in Bangladesh will have its desired impact as we have proved time and again," Hasina said.