School teaches rural Bangladeshi children about technology

Global Business

Tech Academy, a school in Bangladesh, is teaching minority schoolchildren programming and robotics.

CCTV’s Taimoor Sobhan reports.

Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts, a region of hills and forests that’s home to over 45 tribal minorities, is one of the most remote areas in the world. A long history of armed conflict has left the area secluded from the modern world. About 700,000 indigenous people live here, without electricity or running water.

But for 8-year-old King Doe, whose parents are farmers, technology dominates his world. As a student at Tech Academy, a supplemental program to his government-run school, Doe is one of more than 25 children who are learning computer coding, and how to control motion sensors and motors.

“We had never seen a computer before. I first saw a computer when I got to class 4,” Doe said.

Using a few solar-powered laptops and basic hardware, the children are taught skills that could one day help lift them out of poverty.

The Tech Academy was created in 2013 by Shams Jaber and has trained more than 150 children to become gadget creators and technologists, instead of just consumers.

“More than electronics we also help them develop and nurture their intellect, which is critical for analytical and problem solving abilities,” Jaber said.