Introduction
"Emerging technologies" are the group of new digital technologies that are reshaping economies, governments and daily life. In Bangladeshi government job exams (BCS, Bank, IT-officer, and various computer/ICT recruitment tests), four of them appear again and again: Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, and Blockchain. Questions test both definitions and history (who coined a term, which year, which company) and concepts (what a smart contract is, what SaaS means, what latency is). This lesson builds each topic from first principles so you can answer factual MCQs, one-liners, and short written questions with confidence.
Why it matters for the exam: these topics connect to the Government's "Digital Bangladesh" (2008 vision) and "Smart Bangladesh 2041" agenda, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), e-governance, and cyber-security — all frequent exam themes. Knowing them well earns easy, high-yield marks.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson you should be able to:
- Define AI, IoT, Cloud Computing and Blockchain precisely, and state key historical facts (inventor/coiner, year).
- Distinguish AI vs Machine Learning vs Deep Learning, and Narrow vs General vs Super AI.
- Explain the layered architecture of an IoT system and give real examples.
- Compare the cloud service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and deployment models (public, private, hybrid, community).
- Explain how a blockchain works: blocks, hashes, distributed ledger, consensus, and smart contracts.
- Solve simple numeric problems (hashing bits, storage/cost estimates, sensor data rates, block times).
- Avoid the common traps that examiners set on these topics.