BULLETIN BOARD

English Matters
NSU English Club launches annual publication

MUHAMMAD MUHTASIM JAWAD

North South University English Club hosted a series of seminars and launched its annual publication “English Matters” at an event under the same name on November 18 at OAT801, on the university campus.
The seminar part of the event was divided into four sessions. For the session on creative writing, author Sanjana Sadique took to stage and gave the audience tips on how to develop the highly coveted skill. “Write whatever comes to your head. Don't lift your pen. Let the scene play out.” Dr. James Bryan Hileman, Assistant Professor, NSU, placed much importance on academic workshops and interacting with other authors. “Write. Collaborate. Revise. And try to publish!” – he said.
The session on journalism was conducted by Sabrina Fatma Ahmad, Feature Editor at Dhaka Tribune. She emphasised the significance of the general public in the unraveling of important news. She described how journalism is slowly evolving to a new dimension, which is “feature-heavy and converging towards the common people” and invited the students to boldly venture to the arena where non-journalists cannot go.
Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, Managing Director of CureCarePlus Limited, began the session on careers. With an interactive game involving the audience, he demonstrated the power of listening properly. Starting from how to compose a CV to the seven effective ways of communication, he kept the audience wondering about their own competence. Khan Muhammad Saqiful Alam, an NSU lecturer, urged the crowd to choose a job they would love. He spoke on how effective communication in English can unlock new fields in one's life and career.
For the public speaking and presentation session, Maleka Sarwar, Senior Lecturer, NSU, talked about the seven Cs of an effective presentation and the significance of an eloquent speaker. G Sumdany Don, noted motivational speaker, throughout his highly interactive session demonstrated the power of laughter. Being true to the “10 cool rules” he presented, he kept the audience on the edge of their seats. He concluded with a powerful message: “It's not what you say; it's how you say it!”
As the seminars ended, it was time for the book to be launched by the Chief Guest, Professor Amin Sarkar, Vice Chancellor, NSU and the special guest, Karim Waheed, Editor of SHOUT. The faculty advisor of the club, Farzana Mohsin, read out an excerpt from the publication “English Matters”. In a brief speech, Karim Waheed spoke of the heightened passion he found in the submissions from NSU students, highlighting the close association of NSU English Club and SHOUT, since the latter's inception. The VC, while concluding the event, encouraged the NSU students to attend more skill-building seminars, and congratulated English Club on the successful event.

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A Million Dollars to Change the World

MUKIT ANIS

It wasn't just any other day for the top eighteen teams. They had sleepless nights and hours in different slums of Dhaka city. They had a mission; a mission to change the world riding the thrilling waves of creating business. These teams are participating in 'The Daily Star presents Hult Prize at BRAC University 2015'. Hult Prize is the biggest student competition in the world that focuses on solving social problems through developing social business models. Each year, a seed funding of a million dollars is given by the Clinton Global Initiative to the winner of the competition to fund their social business project. The students of BRAC University took their first step towards changing the world and the results were amazing.
The first round of 'The Daily Star presents Hult Prize at BRAC University' took place on November 16 and 17 at the university campus. Eighteen top teams out of 40 applicants made it to the elimination round of presentations. Each team showcased their social business model in a 12-minute presentation which included a Q&A session. The business models revolve around ECE (early childhood education) and aims towards urban slum children (of 0-6 years) of the entire world. The business presentations were delivered in five different panels of heavyweight judges ranging from Professors, NGO experts, entrepreneurs and financial experts. These initial rounds of presentations were a part of the two-month long competition that is being held at BRAC University and the winner will get a wild card entry to the regional finals of Hult Prize 2015. After announcing the winners from each panel, the judges briefed the organisers regarding further refinement of the social business models presented.
Each social business was judged based on its feasibility, scalability and replicability, global impact and so on. Every team had unique insights and implementation plans giving the judges a very hard time to land on a single team from each of the five tracks. Some teams came out happy and confident and a few were somewhat disappointed, but all team members had anticipation in their eyes.
Breaking the common belief of businesses making money at stakeholders' expense, the teams were able to point at ways to do sustainable business while doing good for the community. The teams who qualified for the final round are: Prototype, Roots, Kryptonite, Smallfoot and Synergy. They will work intensely with mentors and go through workshops to fine tune their business models for the finals.
This is just the start of a generation of entrepreneurial students who are driven by a strong cause and want the best for the community they belong to. This generation of entrepreneurs can and will change the world, one step at a time.

Mukit Anis is Director, Marketing, Hult Prize at BRAC University.

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Sailor Socio Camp Season 5 by NSUSSC

“Sailor Socio Camp Season 5” (powered by Durex) is an inter-university social awareness based idea generating competition organised by NSUSSC, where students from all the renowned public and private universities of Bangladesh come up with ideas that are unique and feasible to eradicate the common problems that our society faces.
The competition has three major phases: Workshop and First Round, Second Round and Grand Finale. The event began on November 21 with around 1300 competitors (250 teams). The winners will have their ideas implemented and given prize money worth Tk 1,75,000 in total. The workshop was presided over by the Event Director, Syed G. Dastagir (Brand and Communication Manager, Bikash Ltd.) and NSUSSC Faculty Advisor, Parisa Shakur.