NISE — Bangladesh's national AI platform for skills, employment and entrepreneurship

Bangladesh faces a significant youth employment challenge, with over 30 million people aged 15-24 and a rapidly digitising economy that makes it hard to match skills supply with employer demand. In response, the government's Aspire to Innovate (a2i) programme, under the ICT Division and Cabinet Division, partnered with UNDP Bangladesh to launch NISE in 2021 as a national AI platform for skills, employment and entrepreneurship.

NISE aims to align skills training supply with employer demand across all 64 districts of Bangladesh by aggregating real-time labour market data and applying AI-driven job matching and predictive skills forecasting. The platform is structured around four complementary pathways: skills training, formal employment, freelancing, and entrepreneurship.

NISE aggregates real-time labour market data from 32 government departments across 23 ministries and more than 2,000 companies. It applies AI-driven job-matching algorithms and skills forecasting to connect youth with training, employment, freelancing and entrepreneurship opportunities. Over 20,000 government officials have been oriented on the platform to support its rollout.

By mid-2024, NISE had registered over 1 million youths and generated more than 300,000 job opportunities. More than 2,000 individuals with disabilities were placed in employment in Bangladesh and four other countries. The platform received the WSIS Prizes (2020), a UNDP global best practice designation (2021), the UNOSSC South-South award (2022), and the WITSA Global Innovation and Tech Excellence Award (2023).

NISE has been replicated as 'Shaqo Abuur' in Somalia and 'Digi Maharat' in Jordan, with adaptations underway in Ghana and São Tomé and Príncipe, demonstrating cross-country transferability of the model. However, no independent evaluation of employment duration or income outcomes has been published to date.