Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Executive Committee (EXCO) has suspended BASIS IT Association for 2 years.
The action was taken against BASIS for not complying with a directive to physically attend an award programme in Pakistan last year.
The ban will not apply to participants from Bangladesh in the upcoming APICTA programmes, according to a press statement issued by the alliance.
Chairman APICTA, Mr. Stan Singh said, “Despite all of this, Bangladesh through BASIS did not take advantage to explore this opportunity so that all judges and participants who were registered to attend could travel with ease and economically to Islamabad.”
On November 19, 2022, APICTA Secretariat received a letter from BASIS expressing in the letter that they were still “waiting” for APICTA EXCO’s response on their request to attend virtually.
However, the APICTA EXCO were confused over this strange and lapsed request as the matter was resolved at the November 8, 2022 meeting, but nevertheless APICTA EXCO responded soonest on November 20, 2022 expressing to BASIS that there was no actions or decisions pending from APICTA EXCO and that it was not only made clear at the November 8 meeting of the decision, but reiterated the decision in that, unless there was any travel restrictions due to COVID-19, all participants (excluding students) must attend in person.
BASIS was also offered additional time to register entries, even though the entry date into the judging system was already closed. Despite all of the support that was offered, there was no response from BASIS after the email which was sent from APICTA EXCO on November 20, 2022.
On November 21 & 22, 2022, the APICTA Secretariat with P@SHA, wrote to every participant from all economies respectively, informing them that unless their economy still had travel restrictions due to COVID-19, that physical attendance was mandatory. In the same correspondence, it was reiterated that Primary and Secondary Students Categories could participate virtually.
In the days leading up to the Awards, some of the participants from Bangladesh were actually applying for Pakistan visas and making travel plans to Islamabad. However, they informed P@SHA that BASIS requested them not to attend physically but rather virtually because APICTA EXCO had agreed for Bangladesh to do so.
BASIS also informed the students not to attend APICTA even virtually. APICTA EXCO states categorically that at no point did APICTA EXCO agree to participants from Bangladesh, (apart from the Student Category) to attend virtually.
Vice Chairman APICTA, Mr Fulvio Inserra said, “once judging schedules and other logistics were finalised, Bangladesh withdrew completely on the eve of the event from the awards program, without giving any notice whatsoever and silently, which caused chaos and wreaked havoc in the scheduling causing the host economy to re-schedule the entire program, and this was against the harmony of APICTA.”
Mr Singh continued to say, “This action taken by Bangladesh was reckless, unacceptable, and untenable to APICTA EXCO and against the spirit of APICTA. The action from BASIS has never happened in the history of APICTA and we were all profoundly upset over this matter. At the APICTA EXCO meeting in Islamabad, this matter was discussed and every EXCO member at that meeting felt such action taken by BASIS was truly reckless, unacceptable and a decision was taken to give BASIS the opportunity to explain their actions. The response from BASIS was assigned to an APICTA EXCO sub-committee ONLY to investigate the facts and carry out due diligence on the matter. The sub-committee shared their findings and recommendations to the APICTA EXCO who then unanimously decided to suspend BASIS as a member of APICTA for a period of two years. In addition, in the past we never had any issues arising with any of the BASIS leadership.”
Mr Inserra concluded by saying, “since its inception, every economy has had the opportunity to host the APICTA event and Bangladesh did so successfully in 2017. It is important to note that this suspension does not apply to participants from Bangladesh, whom we strongly felt were deprived the opportunity in Islamabad. As such they shall have the same opportunity to participate in the upcoming APICTA Awards 2023 & 2024. APICTA requires that all entries must come through a representative body of the member economy.
Since BASIS, as the incumbent member body representative is suspended, we will explore other options with the assistance of the IT Ministry to ensure active participation from Bangladeshi students, startups, IT companies and experienced category judges.”
APICTA will not be making any further commenIt regarding this matter.
However, It was not possible to get a comment about the suspension of 2 years by APICTA as Russell T Ahmed, president of BASIS was unable to reach over the phone.
BDST: 2112 HRS, FEB 15, 2023
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