Executive agency

Amader Gram ICT4D Project of Bangladesh Friendship Education Society (BFES)

BFES is a non-government development organization based in Bangladesh. It was established in 1993 with a view to support education projects in rural areas. The founders are basically educationists and development practitioners.

It is registered as an NGO, under the Foreign Donation and Contribution Act 1982 from the NGO Affairs Bureau, Prime Minister's office, Government of Bangladesh

Project background

Amader Gram ICT4D Project is building knowledge society under a pilot scheme (Action Research) that has been supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Government of Bangladesh (July 2004 - June 2006) in twenty villages of Bagerhat and Khulna Districts in southwest Bangladesh by providing appropriate knowledge and ICT intervention that facilitates both skill transfer and employment creation and has enabled the villagers to get information that they need and can use to improve their lives.

The bottom up exercise at the pilot phase involves local youths to gather information, and provide ICT access through Gyan Kendra (Knowledge Centers) in different villages. Value addition to the raw information, use of the local language (Bangla) and multimedia (to facilitate illiterate users) and participation by local people right from the beginning are the noteworthy features of the proposed project for future model intervention. Most of the operators and workers providing primary information are women, thus giving them status and influence. All centers will evolve themselves to meet the information demands made by the community.

To achieve this goal to reach rural youths the project is planning to establish 100 ICT Based Community Learning Centers at the village level in Bangladesh.