State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak said the dream of building Digital Bangladesh is constantly becoming true by the enthusiasm of country’s youths.
“Today’s youth are the architects of tomorrow’s Digital Bangladesh.
Current government is always keen to invest in youth. It took initiative like startup to bring out different innovative ideas from them using the digital tools. Our partnership with UNDP in this regard will continue in future,” said Palak.
The state minister said these while addressing concluding ceremony of three-day “Digital Khichuri Challenge-2017” at Bangladesh Computer Council here on Monday evening.
Acting Country Director of UNDP, Kyoko Yokosuka and UNDP, Advisor Political Government, Sheela Tasneem Haq addressed, the function, among others.
“Bangladesh is a young country with a young population. UNDP is keen to bank on the potential of Bangladesh’s enormous youth population by providing them with the right platform and necessary skills, which we believe will help the nation to build the future. All the brilliant ideas, coming from the brightest minds tell us how important it is to create a platform like Digital
Khichuri. This is also important to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions,” UNDP acting country director said.
The Dhaka chapter of the Digital Khichuri Challenge-2017, a specially designed three-day ideas lab, which returned for its second year, concluded on Monday with the selection of three winning ideas.
A special jury announced the winners of the challenge, recognizing the innovative solutions by the youth for upholding the diversity and peace, considering the pluralism in Bangladesh.
Organized by The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Digital Khichuri Challenge 2017 was supported by Facebook, Microsoft and the ICT Division of the Government of Bangladesh.
After three days of ideation, grooming, and troubleshooting, three ideas were selected by online public voting on Digital Khichuri Facebook page, team Bonsai’ was picked as the winner, for their idea of Anu-Bot, an automated online messenger app to listen to the problems of juveniles and offer solutions to manage their anger and stress.
The first runner-up was Jaagoron, for their idea to ensure public safety, and the second runner-up was Shey Tara, for their idea to empower rural women through ICT skills training.
The three winning teams received USD 5,000 to transform their plans into actions, guided by the mentors and coaches.
Addressing the event as the chief guest State Minister for ICT, Zunaid Ahmed Palak extended his ministry’s support by assuring co-working space for the winners at Janata Tower to continue their work on the ideas.
