The four-day long Smart Children’s Carnival ended on Saturday night by spreading endless joy to children and teenagers in the simultaneous arrangement of nature and technology. The festival organized by the Information and Communication Technology Division at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Auditorium in the capital and was attended by specially-able and disabled children too. Organizers announced that the carnival will be arranged on regular basis in the last week of September from next year for future smart citizens.
Last evening, at the end of the carnival, the chief guest of the event, Education Minister Dr. Deepu Moni expressed her optimism that, such an event will play an important role in creating smart leadership in inclusive smart Bangladesh. She further said that, our smart children will be the smart citizens of the future and added that they should be honest, tolerant, innovative, problem solvers and possess humane qualities. Our students will be champions of the state. They will move forward with self-empowerment.
While speaking as the special guest, State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said, ‘the way we develop the children of today, the smart Bangladesh of the future will be developed in the same way. We want to educate the children and teenagers of the present generation with moral education, values and love for the country and make them environmentally friendly thinking, innovative citizens.’
He also said, this time for the first time the large presence of children and teenagers impressed us. Smart Children Carnival will be organized in the last week of September every year. The event will be organized at division, district and Upazila levels.
Director General of Information and Communication Technology Department Md. Mustafa Kamal presided over the ceremony while the Secretary, ICT Division Md. Shamsul Arefin and the Dean of Faculty of Engineering and Technology of Dhaka University Dr. Hafiz Muhammad Hasan Babu were present as special guests in the closing and award distribution ceremony.
At this time, Dhaka University’s robotics and mechatronics engineering department chairperson Dr. Senjuti Rahman; General Secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network Munir Hasan and President of Bangladesh Robot Olympiad Professor Dr. Lafifa Jamal delivered their speeches.
Bangladesh Computer Council Executive Director Ranjit Kumar and Samdani Foundation President Nadia Samdani also spoke at the event.
In the event, the invited guests handed over prizes to 42 students who won in 5 categories of the Olympiad. The categories were: Creative Category, Robot in Movie, Physical Computing, Drone Maze and Robotics Quiz. The main theme this year was ‘The Olympics’. Competitors build robots based on this theme. Based on the performance of the winners of the national phase, the Bangladesh team will be formed through the residential camp, which will participate in the 25th International Robot Olympiad in January 2024 in Athens, Greece.
It is to be noted that this national round was held with students selected from the online selection rounds of all the Olympiad categories. Before this, out of 300 Sheikh Russell School of Future Labs located in 300 parliamentary constituencies across Bangladesh, robotics workshops were held directly in 65 labs and through online platforms in the remaining 235 labs.