On February 5, 2020, the IEEE RAS BRACU SBC and IEEE BRACU SB jointly organized a successful virtual tech talk as its very first event for the year 2021. The webinar title says “Skills, Approaches, and Mindset required to the 4th Industrial Revolution”, to focus on the far-reaching changes within our regular life that comesup with the concept of the 4th Industrial Revolution. It was indeed an insightful session that entirely addresses the artful approach of youths to get adapt to the status-quo, the coping strategies for youths to overcome their lacking with the spree of fast-pacing technological movement and finally yet importantly the basic awareness to deal with the technological transition.

Md Mojammel Haque Shourobh, Mechatronics Engineer, Tiger IT Bangladesh LTDand Mohammad Zahirul Islam, Software Engineer, Embedded Logic Operations (ELO), Co-founder and Robotics Engineer of Trajectory Technology were invited to this webinar as principal guests to deliver their valuable speech and opinions. Shourobh is a BRAC EEE alumnus, who had distinguished undergraduate years. He was the Satellite Operations Engineer and the first Project Lead of the Ground Station for the BRAC Onnesha nanosatellite. Zahirul is another BRAC CSE alumnus and bright student, who once led the Mars-Rover team of Brac University in 2018. Honorable advisor to the IEEE RAS BRACU SBC, Dr. Md Khalilur Rahman began the session with his warm and generous gesture towards the guests and the audiences. He introduced the guests to the audience and reminded them of their fine contribution during their undergraduate years.

The chapter chair Md. Hasibul Islam commenced the session with a short introduction to the topic. Then he delivered the floor to the guests. Both Zahirul and Sourobh gave the audiences a brief introduction to what it means by the 4th Industrial Revolution, its transition period, how it’s affecting big startups like Google, Apple, IBM, Tesla, etc., how third-world countries like Bangladesh can pace up with the transition.

“Due to the massive technological emergence, not only big startups are changing their strategies but also small startups are fighting back to remain in the rat race. The booming advancement of technology can often be a qui vive for us if we do not respond according to its need. Like the company, Nokia had faced a downfall due to the rapid growth in iOS and Android. There might be a time shortly when we don’t even need drivers for our vehicles. So, we can presume that some of the current jobs will get saturate within 10 years. But it is surely going to happen.” Zahirul adds.

“As Bangladesh is still a third-world country, we have to quickly adapt the hard skills as engineers,” says Shourobh. Shourobh then emphasizes the challenges that Bangladesh is facing to cope with the change. “As we are still adjusting with the impacts of the 3rd industrial revolution, the 4th Industrial Revolution is the newest addition to our plate. We are already lagging here. We have to focus on industry-academia affiliations. The undergraduate students should explore different fields during their first two years of university life. They should gather practical knowledge and be open to any opportunities that can help them grow as a skilled individual. Not everything that the university will teach you. You have to open your eyes and be aware of the soft/hard skills that are indeed valuable for your career. To avail such opportunities, you must have the taste into platforms like Bracu ROBU nad IEEE BRACU SB.” Shourobh further adds. Zahirul and Shourobh also talked about their working life, the transition from an undergraduate student to an engineer in the technical field, the culture and ethics of the technical field, etc. The audiences were captivated to know Zahirul and Shourobh’s real-life experiences, motivations and inspirations. It encouraged them a lot.

The whole webinar was conducted through Google Meet platform and there were more than 60 attendees on an average throughout the two-hour session. The guests adjourned the webinar by thanking each and every audience who were present to the very end of the session.