The Bangladesh phase of the NASA Space Apps Challenge Hackathon competition organized by the US space research agency NASA started together on Friday at the Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB) in the capital and online despite the adverse weather conditions.
210 contestants from Chattogram, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Rangpur, Mymensingh and Comilla were waiting for the results after the 36-hour challenge. Some of them are students of schools, some are college or university students. 50 teams took part in the hackathon with laptops in groups of five in AIUB’s cafeteria. Wearing blue t-shirts with pictures of NASA rockets, they were seen deep in thought. Someone can be seen thinking and biting nails. Someone is walking again. Sometimes mentors step forward to untangle them. The whole atmosphere became a place of innovation and discovery. In such a great atmosphere, children and teenagers designed plans to win the competition. Coding it and making it again made the video in 30 hours. In the next 6 hours, they tried to give their best. Using AR, VR, Augmented Reality devices. In the end, they were seen watching the Bangladesh-Afghanistan match while making the video.
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Regardless of the outcome of the World Cup cricket, the organizers are hopeful that these students will celebrate the hat-trick victory by flying the red-green flag again in the field of technology in 2023. For this reason, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) has organized a wide-scale competition by adding one crore students through social media as well as adding two lakh students directly and in the competition. Mohammad Mahdi-uz-Zaman, advisor of this competition held in collaboration with BASIS Students Forum, said, “this time various ideas have come to the competition. 35 judges, young and old, are analyzing keenly, with a Hope that their chosen project will conquer the world inshallah”.
They have created games, apps, data solutions and hardware solutions from their ideas on the 30 challenges set by NASA. They completed the challenge and made a 30 second video on Saturday afternoon. Contestants submitted it again by 3 pm. Speaking to the judges, most of the submitted projects were games. This has happened to meet the challenge of NASA. However, in many cases, they are advised to think about whether their creativity development will be hindered or not. But even within the norm there are several exceptional and shelved projects, the judges said. But they did not want to reveal it before the announcement of the result.
Last year’s world champion ‘Team Diamonds’ in the ‘Most Inspirational’ category was in the judging panel, which consists of university teachers, industry experts, industry entrepreneurs. Team leaders of this party, Tisha Khandkar, Inzamamul Haque and Muneem Ahmed, were asked how the protestors did, and all expressed great enthusiasm. Among them, system architect Inzamamul Haque Sonnet said, I was a competitor in this place last year. And a Judge today. I feel very honored. The projects I have seen are more technologically updated than our time. They are doing a very good project. So, a hat-trick victory is very likely.
The parents who waited all night with the contestants were now waiting for the results. 27 names including 9 champions from the submitted solutions will be announced in the evening.