The door of unlimited hopes has been revealed by the blessing of Information and telecommunication technology. As the technology is developing each and every day so the world market is also changing and witnessing the new potential areas. To uplift this momentum of technological advancement ITU (International Telecommunication Union ) celebrates World Telecommunication and Information Society Day on 17 th of May each year. Worldwide all the telecom and information society organizations give special importance to this specific day. Each year ITU gives a certain theme for the day and the day has been celebrated on that theme, this year the theme is “protecting the children in cyberspace”. With a view to celebrating this International Day last Saturday 16th may,2009,South Asia Mobile Forum organized a Round Table Discussion on “ Protecting the children in cyberspace” at Spectra Convention Center, Gulshan-1. Famous and Renown personals of telecom and information industry enthusiastically participated in the discussion. The Round table was moderated by Mr. Mostofa Jabbar, Chairman , Bangladesh Computer Samity and Mr. Mehboob Chowdhury, Chairman, South Asia Mobile Forum.

Speakers discussed the issue of internet penetration in Bangladesh and on that very point they also added how family awareness is must to save a child from the curse of pornography.

The Chairman of South Asia Mobile Forum said “This is the high time to save the children of Bangladesh from the child abuse of cyber world by implementing new and effective laws.” He also said that the parents should be more aware of this situation and protect their children form misusing the internet as technological innovations are making internet unavoidably the main access to the world ahead, furthermore he added that the government has promised to spread out the internet into the villages of Bangladesh by 2015, so the children of this country will be more exposed to the threat of cyber world abuse and that is the reason why the government has to come forward to take the necessary steps so that the future leaders of this country do not get derailed or misuse the internet.

Moderator Mr. Jabbar said though the rate of child abuse in cyber space of Bangladesh is not alarming but the global rate is quite high and Bangladesh can be a bad victim of this epidemic, so the proper laws should be passed from the parliament house as soon as possible. With great anxiety he said “we have ICT Act-2006, but still we haven't seen the proper implementation of this law.” He also added if there is any political information over internet then it gets censored but when the children are exposed to pornographies in cyber space then there is no regulation.

CEO of Citycell Mr. Michael Seymour said, Citycell is providing internet facilities to the subscribers through their ZOOM . Now an organization can provide data transmission service but cannot monitor which user is browsing which website, so for this he emphasized on social awareness. He said the two most important factors for a country's development is Education and Internet connection. He urged the government to increase the penetration rate of internet and also warned everyone regarding cybercrime.

The editor of daily Shamokal , Mr Golam Sarwar said, Bangladesh is not a perfect case of cyber threat for the children yet but soon as the internet will spread out the probability of this insecurity will go high. So he asked for combined effort from all the parts of the society to build awareness and also said media can play a vital role here, both print and electronic media has to work hand in hand to dissolve this issue.

Among the distinguished speakers Mr. Parvez Ahmed , Advisor, Banglalion, Mr. Reza Salim, CEO , Amader Gram, Mr. Abdus Salam, Ex-President , ISP Association of Bangladesh, Mr. habibullah N Karim , President, BASIS, Ms. Khusi Kabir, NGO Personal and Mr. Fazlur Rahman, Ex- President , AMTOB and Advisor, AKtel also added valuable notes to the discussion.

The South Asia Mobile Forum intends to create a platform so that the stakeholders of the telecommunication and information sector of this region get an opportunity to freely interact with each other and express each other's interests. SAMF wants to boost further the telecommunication sector of this region that has grown so dynamically in spite of changes and diversities in the business environment. To ensure this healthy growth and keep the momentum, the Forum intends to create an information exchange hub that will benefit all the value chain players. And also bring all the telecom personnel's on one platform as we become more dependent on technology day by day, keeping all these views in mind South Asia Mobile Forum organized this Round Table Discussion of 16 th May. This is one of the initiatives SAMF has taken for the betterment of this industry, following this are some prospectus events and seminars among which is the annually held South Asian Mobile Summit 2009, being held later this year.