Challenge Overview: Culture

Increasing the use of Bengali vocabulary in daily life presents a unique challenge, especially in an era where global languages dominate digital and educational spaces. Many people, particularly the younger generation, are losing touch with the richness of the Bengali language, opting for English or other languages in their everyday communication. The task is to find a technological solution that encourages people to use Bengali more frequently, helping to preserve and expand their linguistic heritage. The solution must be engaging and accessible, integrating seamlessly into daily routines without feeling like a burden or a traditional learning tool. It could be an app that gamifies the learning process, making it fun to discover new Bengali words and phrases, or a social platform that rewards users for creating and sharing content in Bengali. Additionally, technology like augmented reality (AR) could bring words to life in people’s surroundings, offering interactive learning experiences. Moreover, the tool should cater to all age groups, making it equally appealing to children, teenagers, and adults. It should also be adaptable, capable of evolving with users’ growing language skills and changing interests. In summary, the challenge is to develop a technological tool that makes using and learning Bengali vocabulary a natural and enjoyable part of daily life. This tool should not only enhance users’ language skills but also foster a deeper connection with their cultural identity.

In Bangladesh, many people find it challenging to understand important laws, which can lead to difficulties in their daily lives and professions. This issue stems from legal information often being complex and not easily accessible to the average person, especially those with limited formal education or those who speak Bengali as their primary language. To tackle this problem, we’re looking at using modern language technologies to make legal education more accessible right from the comfort of one’s home. The goal is to create a solution that uses simple Bengali, both visually and audibly, to explain crucial laws across various professions and social standings. For example, it could help a person learn about land laws, inheritance rights, and the legalities surrounding dowry. A rickshaw puller could get a clear understanding of traffic laws, while a vegetable vendor might learn about the Consumer Rights Act and Safe Food Act without needing to sift through complicated legal texts. The challenge lies in developing a technological platform that can deliver this legal information in an easy-to-understand manner. This could involve creating an app or a website that uses videos, audio clips, and simple text to explain laws. The solution must be intuitive and user-friendly, ensuring that even those with minimal education or tech-savvy can benefit from it. By improving legal awareness in everyday language, this initiative aims to empower the people of Bangladesh to better understand their rights and responsibilities, leading to a higher quality of life and a more informed public. The challenge is not just in creating the technology but ensuring it reaches and is usable by a wide audience, from urban dwellers to the rural population.

Creating a plagiarism checker for the Bangla language presents a unique set of challenges. Plagiarism detection tools are essential for maintaining the integrity of academic and professional work, but most existing solutions are optimized for English and other widely spoken languages. This leaves a significant gap when it comes to evaluating content in Bangla, a language spoken by millions of people. The task involves not only understanding the linguistic nuances and complexities of Bangla but also developing an algorithm capable of accurately identifying similarities and potential instances of plagiarism in texts written in this language. One of the main hurdles is the lack of a comprehensive database of Bangla texts to use as a reference for comparison. Additionally, Bangla’s rich morphology makes it challenging to develop algorithms that can recognize not just exact matches but also paraphrased content or text that has been slightly altered to avoid detection. This requires advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques tailored specifically to the Bangla language. Moreover, the solution must be user-friendly and accessible to educators, students, and professionals, allowing them to easily check their work for originality without needing specialized technical knowledge. It should also respect user privacy and ensure the security of the documents being analyzed. In summary, the challenge is to create a plagiarism checker specifically designed for the Bangla language that is accurate, easy to use, and sensitive to the linguistic characteristics of Bangla. This tool would be a valuable resource for upholding academic standards and promoting originality in written works among the Bangla-speaking population.

We propose to build a Large Bangla Generative Model (LLM), a specialized AI system trained to mimic behaviors and understandings unique to the Bangladeshi context. This model, unlike general LLMs which may have cultural biases, will be fine-tuned with Bangla and Bangladeshi English data, ensuring local relevance. It will be designed to handle tasks like text classification, question answering, summarization, and generation in both Bangla and English, finding applications in government, healthcare, finance, and more. The project requires substantial infrastructure for training and deployment, aiming to support both business-to-business and consumer models, along with developing client applications for widespread service provision. This specialized AI system will be capable of performing a variety of tasks, such as sorting text, answering questions, summarizing information, and creating text in both Bangla and English. Its uses span across several sectors, including government services, healthcare, finance, and many others, offering tailored support that understands local needs and languages. However, building such a model is no small feat. It requires a robust infrastructure for both the training phase and when it goes live, to ensure it can handle the workload and provide accurate, helpful responses. This project isn’t just about creating the AI but also about setting up the systems that can train it effectively and deploying it in a way that businesses and individual consumers can easily access and benefit from. Additionally, we’ll need to develop applications through which clients can interact with the model, bringing this powerful tool directly into their daily operations and lives. This ambitious project has the potential to revolutionize how AI and language models are used in Bangladesh, providing services that are truly made for and by Bangladeshis.