In the era of information technology that we are living in now, we all want accurate information. But do we really understand how information is processed? To put it simply, information is dependent on some raw data. Data is processed scientifically by mathematical, statistical, or computational activities to prepare information. Data science is a specific field of study that was first proposed in 1974 by Peter Naur, a computer scientist from Denmark. According to the American Bureau of Economic Analysis, the global data science platform market was worth USD 95.30 billion in 2021, and it is expected to reach USD 322.90 billion by 2026. It's worth noting that during the forecast period, the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is 27%. With the diversified branches of computer science such as machine learning, deep learning, big data analytics, cloud computing, knowledge-based engineering, and so on developing at such a rapid pace, it is easy to predict that Data Science will play the most important role in future decision-making as well as 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).

It is the right time to think about the extent to which Bangladesh is prepared to face the challenges of the 4IR. To reap the benefits of the 4IR, we must consider the advancement of data science. In the last two decades, our country's industry and technology have grown by leaps and bounds. Our domestic industry and commerce have developed diversified production capabilities while also creating a multi-dimensional marketplace. Nevertheless, the data support needed to keep this production and market going has not yet been developed. According to data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), there were 2.8 million SMEs in Bangladesh that were owned by female entrepreneurs in 2020, making up roughly 24.6% of all SMEs in the nation. But we don't have a well-structured dataset from which we can forecast which sectors will require specialized training for women in the future or which public and private investments will make these women more profitable and empowered.

The same applies to the remittance income of our 12 million migrant workers whose accumulated earnings are the 2nd highest income sector in Bangladesh. The World Bank reports that Bangladesh received almost $22.1 billion in remittances in 2021, ranking third in South Asia and ranking as the seventh-highest recipient globally. Surprisingly, however, there has been no high-quality research in the computer science field on this topic, mainly due to the insufficiency of reliable datasets. However, if we get a reliable data set related to migrant workers and remittance income, it is very possible to provide the necessary research output such as prediction, classification, regression, clustering, or decision-making to take ourselves to a strong position in the marketplace of the future.

Agricultural databases can play a very helpful role in normalizing and strengthening the production and marketing systems of our agricultural sector. There is no alternative to creating health informatics-based datasets to assess the current situation of our country's health sector, assess the risks and take necessary steps regarding the scope of health services in the future. To secure future convenience for citizens, multi-diverse datasets will be needed for the transportation and residential sectors in both urban and rural areas in our country. Above all, we need to focus on creating well-organised datasets of every subject related to finance with the aim of achieving economic prosperity.

We must focus on professional data science analysts rather than just creating databases or datasets. In this regard, we must expand the capabilities of the computer science and engineering departments of our nation's public and private universities. For data science analytics, our graduates should develop their programming skills in Python, R, or MATLAB. They need to acquire competence in every step of data science such as data accumulation, data understanding, data preprocessing, data exploration, modeling, and optimisation. In this age of artificial intelligence, it does not seem too much of a stretch to claim that without data science, we will struggle to meet the challenges of the 4IR.