a2i won the highest award for innovation
Bangladesh Innovation Fest ended with awarding 49 innovations of the country in recognition of important innovations in life in a total of 21 categories including education, health, commerce and society. Among them, there are 26 Honorable Mention awards.
State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak handed over the prizes to the winners at La Meridian Hotel in the capital on Saturday.
Before this, the fourth session of Bangladesh Business Innovation Summit was held in the morning. More than five hundred professionals and experts participated in the summit. While speaking as the chief guest at the closing ceremony, ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said that after the Prime Minister’s Honorable ICT Advisor made internet accessible, now the importance has been given to skill development. After 10 universities in the country, it has now been decided to set up incubators in district level colleges. And the first one will be in Jhenaidah Cadet College. As a result, this experience can be used in other colleges and schools as well. As innovation is the main theme of our vision 2041. Smart Bangladesh will be Intelligent, Efficient, Knowledge Based and Innovative. In this case we will use technology to bring out innovative solutions. Another of our goals is to set up research and innovation centers on university campuses.
Even though Bangladesh ranked 14th in WIPO’s Global Innovation Index last year, we will be able to move from 102nd position to the top 50 innovative countries by 2030 and to 5th position by 2041 – added Palak. He said, looking at today’s presentation and innovative solutions, I am sure that we can. We can definitely reach our future goals.
At the end of the speech, he recited a poem he had written about Smart Bangladesh using the ChatGPT.
Bangladesh Innovation Conclave founder Shariful Islam presided over the event. Dewan Muhammad Humayun, Project Director of a2i, Sharmin Sultan, Chief People’s Officer of GPH Ispat Limited, Professor AK Enamul Haque, Dean of Faculty of Business and Economics, East West University, Muhammad Majed of AK Khan & Company, Sylhet Innovation Haber Sharif Banna, BASIS former president Fahim Mashroor also spoke among others.
Mobile financial service bKash has won maximum 4 ‘winner’ awards in this year’s event. The company’s ‘bKash Payment Speaker’, ‘Four Savings in One App’, ‘Pioneer’ (Service Export Remittance) and Pioneer to bKash have bagged the highest national awards for innovation in various categories.
However, a2i of ICT Division alone won the maximum 7 awards in the event with 3 winners. The organization’s Multimedia Talking Book, Teachers Portal and Accessible Dictionary Winner and Connect, Teachers Portal, Covid 19 Tele-health Center and SDG Tracker won the Honorable Mention Awards.
We Grow Technologies also received two Winner Awards for Best Financial Inclusion Service in Agriculture. X Ceramics Group also won two Winner Awards.
Similarly, startups such as ShopUper Mokam, Bangladesh Steel Re-Rolling Mills, City Bank, Green Delta Insurance, Nagad, 4A Yarn Dyeing Ltd., Unstoppable Kurigram Akiz Ceramics, ACI Ltd., London Design Studio, Fakhruddin Textile Mills and Urmi Group, Four Bell Academy, Consumers Rights Protection Authority, Account Technologies, and BanglaSchool and Singularity Limited won the Winner Award.
