Huawei awarded the winners of its ICT competition “Women in Tech” at an event on Tuesday at a hotel in Dhaka.
Inspired by the theme "Tech for Her, Tech by Her, Tech with Her", the competition was launched for the first time in Bangladesh last year with UNESCO as the strategic partner, the competition aims to develop local ICT talent and enable knowledge sharing among current female STEM students at universities and those who graduated in the last two years, reads a press release.
From 750 participants, 18 were selected for the final round. At this stage, there were two types of competitions — Individual and Team.
Team-based ideas are selected based on how innovative solutions are possible using ICT and their potential for business success.
The winning teams were selected through a detailed process that included evaluating the rationale of problem statements, innovation in ideas, business case, and assignment scores. Individual winners were chosen based on several interviews, exams, and evaluations during the project.
“Dhara” was selected as the Champion of the competition. “Dhaara” worked with how solar energy and other technologies can be used to ensure a safe water supply for households.
The first runner-up is “Terra Bin”, whose business idea was how to turn waste into resources using solar composters and other technologies. “Solnet” is selected as the second runner-up.
Their team's idea was how to easily and efficiently build and operate solar plants using cloud technology and apps.
The champion, 1st and 2nd runner-up received prize money worth Tk 3 lakh, Tk 2 lakh and Tk 1 lakh, respectively. They can use this money to implement their plans.
Additionally, four participants won at the individual level for their excellent performance. The winners are Kaisari Ferdous, a student of EEE department of Dhaka University, Mahmuda Nayem, a graduate of the Islamic University of Technology, Sumaiya Tarique Labiba, a design verification engineer of sBIT Limited and Safrina Kabir, a student of the EEE department of Islamic University of Technology.
State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak, Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, was the programme's chief guest.
Lawmaker Zara Jabeen Mahbub, Parliamentary Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Yao Wen, Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh and Engineer Md Mohiuddin Ahmed, chairman, of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) were the Special Guests at the event.
Moreover, Dr Susan Vize, Head of Office and UNESCO Representative to Bangladesh, Prof Dr Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, Vice-Chancellor of IUT and Pan Junfeng, President, of Huawei South Asia and CEO, of Huawei Bangladesh, were also present.
State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said, "I am impressed by the main motto of ‘Women in Tech’ — Tech for Her, Tech by Her, Tech with Her. The performance and capacity demonstrated by the women in this program are impressive. I want to request Huawei to keep contributing to the building of Smart Bangladesh through such initiatives."
