An artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform for the Bangla language, ‘Kagoj.ai’, has been launched. At the same time, a new Bangla font titled ‘Julai’, designed for official and publishing use, was unveiled. These technological services have been made publicly accessible under the initiative of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division.

The formal inauguration of the two technology products took place at the Ruposhi Bangla Grand Ballroom of Hotel InterContinental in the capital on Monday, says a press release.

The event was attended as the chief guest by Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb, Special Assistant to the Honorable Chief Adviser. The program was chaired by Sheesh Haider Chowdhury, NDC, Secretary of the ICT Division. At the beginning of the event, Mahbub Karim, Project Director of EBLICT, delivered the welcome address.

A video message from Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb was first presented, after which he elaborated on the features and objectives of Kagoj.ai and the Julai font from the stage. Referring to the points highlighted in the video message, Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb said that the books in existing libraries are largely non-searchable, and the knowledge contained in them must be brought into digital formats for reuse. Converting written materials into digital form currently requires a significant amount of time and labor, a challenge that this project addresses through Bangla Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology.

He further stated that to save time and labor in writing and documentation, speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies have been incorporated. He noted that during the previous government period, a person-centric dependency and limitation had developed around the Bijoy font. The momentum that Avro had initiated to overcome this limitation has been further advanced through this project with the introduction of the Julai Bangla font.

Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb added that the project has already collected 10,000 minutes of spoken data from nearly 40 indigenous languages currently spoken in Bangladesh. In the future, similar data-such as 10,000 minutes per language-will be preserved for languages like Chakma, enabling their transformation into text-to-speech and speech-to-text formats. He emphasized that OCR technology will be extremely helpful in reducing the labor required to convert hard-copy documents into editable text.

In his presidential address, Sheesh Haider Chowdhury said, “Two new feathers have been added to the crown of success of the ICT Ministry through Kagoj.ai and the Julai font. Bangladesh has 42 languages-by some accounts, 40-and there are even languages spoken by as few as six people”.

Speakers at the event also included Dr. Mohammad Azam, Director General of Bangla Academy; Zahirul Islam, Additional Secretary of the Posts and Telecommunications Division; and Project Director Md. Mahbub Karim, among others.

It was stated at the event that Kagoj.ai will ensure the use of artificial intelligence in Bangla-based writing, preparation of official documents, language processing, and content creation-marking a significant milestone in the digital advancement of the Bangla language. No such comprehensive AI platform for Bangla had been launched previously.

On the other hand, the Julai Bangla font has been developed for official and institutional use and is expected to address various existing limitations in computer-based Bangla writing, according to officials concerned.