STAR BUSINESS REPORT

An artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform for the Bangla language, Kagoj.ai, has been launched along with a new Bangla font titled Julai, designed for official and publishing use.

The technological services have been made publicly accessible under an initiative of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division.

Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser, virtually inaugurated the products as the chief guest at an event held at the InterContinental Dhaka on Monday, according to a press release.

In a video message, Taiyeb elaborated on the features and objectives of Kagoj.ai and the Julai font.

Referring to the points highlighted in the video, he said books in existing libraries are largely non-searchable and that the knowledge contained in them must be converted into digital formats for reuse.

Converting written materials into digital form currently requires a significant amount of time and labour— a challenge the project seeks to address through Bangla optical character recognition (OCR) technology.

To further save time and effort in writing and documentation, speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies have also been incorporated, he said.

Taiyeb noted that during the previous government period, a person-centric dependency had developed around the Bijoy font. The momentum initiated by Avro to overcome this limitation has been taken forward through this project with the introduction of the Julai Bangla font.

According to him, the Julai font has been designed to ensure compatibility between Bangla and English character heights, along with proper line spacing.

He also said that 18 mobile phone manufacturers with factories in Bangladesh are expected to integrate this ecosystem into their products within the next six months to a year.

Sheesh Haider Chowdhury, Secretary of the ICT Division; Mohammad Azam, Director General of Bangla Academy; Zahirul Islam, Additional Secretary of the Posts and Telecommunications Division; and Md Mahbub Karim, Project Director, among others, were also present.