An artificial intelligence-based platform for the Bangla language, Kagoj.ai, along with a new Bangla font titled Julai, has been launched under an initiative of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division.

The formal inauguration took place on 15 December at the Ruposhi Bangla Grand Ballroom of Hotel InterContinental in Dhaka.

Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser, attended the programme as chief guest, while Sheesh Haider Chowdhury, NDC, Secretary of the ICT Division, presided over the event. Mahbub Karim, Project Director of EBLICT, delivered the welcome address.

Speaking at the event, Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb said much of the knowledge stored in libraries remains non-searchable and must be converted into digital formats for reuse. He said Kagoj.ai addresses this challenge through Bangla optical character recognition (OCR) technology, which significantly reduces the time and labour required to convert printed materials into editable text.

He said the platform also incorporates speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies to support efficient writing and documentation. Referring to limitations surrounding earlier Bangla fonts, he said the Julai font builds on progress initiated by Avro and has been designed with compatible Bangla and English character heights and appropriate line spacing.

He added that 18 mobile phone manufacturers with factories in Bangladesh are expected to integrate the ecosystem into their devices within the next six months to one year.

According to him, the project has already collected 10,000 minutes of spoken data from nearly 40 indigenous languages spoken in Bangladesh, with plans to preserve similar datasets for languages such as Chakma. He said open APIs have been introduced and security-checking mechanisms will be provided for organisations with limited cyber security capacity.

In his presidential address, Sheesh Haider Chowdhury said the initiative would play a vital role in preserving Bangladesh’s linguistic diversity and expanding Bangla’s presence on digital platforms.

Other speakers included Dr Mohammad Azam, Director General of Bangla Academy, and Zahirul Islam, Additional Secretary of the Posts and Telecommunications Division.

Officials said Kagoj.ai is the first comprehensive AI platform for Bangla, supporting writing, official documentation, language processing and content creation. The Julai font has been developed for official and institutional use to address long-standing challenges in computer-based Bangla writing.

Both services were developed under the project “Enrichment of the Bangla Language in Information Technology through Research and Development”, implemented by the Bangladesh Computer Council under the ICT Division.