The shortage of safe and healthy food and water is evident in Dhaka city. Wasar water is unfit for drinking. The townspeople were forced to boil water and drink it. It wastes gas. And those who can afford it, they buy filters from the market and use them to purify the water and drink it. It costs a lot of money. Also, this method is not permanent.

Five university students have given a permanent solution to such problems of city dwellers. By installing solar panels on the roof of the house, they invented a method of providing safe and healthy food and water and gave business ideas. These five students fought with that. Their team ‘Team Empower’ won the ‘Women in Tech’ competition. He received three lakhs as a reward.

State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Junaid Ahmed Palak announced the winners of the competition at a function organized at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the capital on Tuesday (June 4) night.

For the first time in Bangladesh, ‘Women in Tech’ competition is organized. 750 contestants participated in it. 18 of them were selected for the final round. In the final stage, individual and team competitions are held.

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Team ideas are selected based on how innovative solutions are possible using ICT and business success. The winner is decided by evaluating rationality assessment, novelty of business plan, business case, assignment score.

Team Empower won the competition with a project called ‘Dhara’. The team leader is Mahmuda Naeem. She is a student of Business and Technology Management (BTM) department at Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Gazipur.

The other four members of the champion team are – Pushpita Khan, a student of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) Department, Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Prima Sarkar, Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department, BRAC University, Bushra, Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) Department, East West University. Hasan, Sumaiya Labiba Tariq, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE), BRAC University.

Pushpita Khan, a student of the EEE department of IUT, one of the members of the champion team, told Jago News after the event, ‘We have worked on how to easily provide drinking water to people at an affordable cost. That is, by installing solar panels on the roofs of residential buildings, the water will be made safe and healthy and suitable for food. After that it will be provided to all the families living in that building.’

When asked what will be the cost of their invented method, he said, ‘It will save electricity and gas. Although the initial one-time cost of installing solar panels is high, it will last for a long time. As a result, electricity and gas will not be required for boiling water. It will cost two lakh taka to install this one-time project in any building. If there are 10 units in a five-storey building, we will collect a utility charge of Rs 400 from each unit. Four thousand rupees will come up every month. That is, it will be possible to remove the cost of setting up the project within four years. After that, as long as this project continues, there will be profit from it.

Two more teams were awarded in the competition. The first runner up is ‘Team Terra Bin’. The team’s business idea was how to turn waste into resources using solar composters and other technologies. They received two lakh rupees as a reward.

The second runner up is ‘Team Solnet’. The team came up with ideas on how to easily and cost-effectively build and operate solar plants using cloud technology and apps. They were given a prize money of one lakh taka.

Apart from this, four people were declared winners by evaluating individual achievements. They are – Kaysari Ferdous, student of EEE department of Dhaka University, Mahmuda Naeem, student of IUT, Sumaiya Tariq Labib, design verification engineer of SBIT Limited and Safrina Kabir of EEE department of IUT. The four winners will get a free trip to China to learn about the startup ecosystem there.

Member of Parliament Zara Jabin Mahbub, Ambassador of China to Dhaka Yao Wen, Chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Engineer Mohiuddin Ahmed, Head of UNESCO Bangladesh Office were special guests in the event. Suzan Diez, Islamic University of Technology (IUT) Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr. Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, President of Huawei South Asia and Pan Junfeng, CEO of Bangladesh.

AAH/EA

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