Innovative ideas go to Oslo

Grameenphone announced the winners of the Bangladesh chapter of telecom giant Telenor's global competition, 'Telenor Youth Summit 2014', at a grand ceremony held on November 7 at the Radisson Blu Water Garden Hotel in Dhaka.

The competition stages began in August. As different rounds were held in each university, winners emerged and 4 finalists qualified for the grand finale. The contestants for the 2014 finals were Nowshin Mehzabin Chowdhury of North South University, Ashraful Haq Sifat of BUET and Parashar Saha and Ahmed Istehad Shoumik, representing Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Dhaka University.

The event on November 7 began with the finalists pitching their ideas to the judges followed by a rigorous Q/A session. Erlend Prestgard, Chief Strategy Officer of Grameenphone; Russell T. Ahmed, CEO of Champs21 and Mridul Chowdhury, CEO and Founder of mPower Social Enterprises served as the judges. Secretary, Ministry of Education, N.I. Khan was present as the Chief Guest along with Grameenphone CEO, Vivek Sood, and Chief Human Resources Officer, Quazi Mohammad Shahed.

The competition invited students to present ideas that could be used to bring about social change with the support of digital communication and technology. This year's finalists provided an array of plans that deal with issues like hygiene, women's empowerment, child safety and many more.

Before the winners were announced, a video featuring the experiences and opinions of last year's winners was shown. Safa Tasneem and Sami Tahsin of IBA, DU won the local contest in 2013 and were present at the event. They took to the stage and spoke about their own idea, visit to Oslo and emphasised on how motivating and engaging the whole experience was.

CEO of Grameenphone, Vivek Sood, labeled the contest as a celebration of ideas and social entrepreneurship in his speech. Chief Guest N.I. Khan mentioned how ideas drive money and that organisations should come forward for the students.

“I urge institutions to step up and cultivate these ideas. I will personally work to promote these ideas among my ministry and throughout the country,” he promised.

Chief Strategy Officer of Grameenphone, Erlend Prestgard, said that Grameenphone was looking for ideas based on how big yet feasible they were and how easily could they be implemented on a large scale. He requested all the participants, winners or not, to keep working on their plans.

Soon after, Ashraful Haq Sifat of BUET and Nowshin Mehzabin Chowdhury of NSU were crowned winners of Telenor Youth Summit 2014. They will fly to Oslo, the capital of Norway, to share their innovative ideas and also get to attend the Nobel Prize giving ceremony.

Sifat's idea titled “Digital Maduli: Keeping kids safe near water” focuses on drowning prevention for children. Based on a geographical information system and a low-cost wearable monitoring device with SIM card integration, signal will be sent to the parents and local rescuers with directions to the victim's location. The idea also preaches to convince capable parents to buy one for them and sponsor one child in a village.

Nowshin's idea, “First Lady: Ensuring a safe society for women” combats domestic and outdoor violence against women. This service requires women to register with their personal data through which there will be a dialog project between the user and the local authority on a monthly basis. Failure would result in the helpline service calling the user to get assurance of her current situation. Apart from that the app will have specific function through which a distress signal can be sent to the relevant authority.

“I'm looking forward to meeting people from international organisations in Oslo who can provide a bigger platform for my dreams,” said an ecstatic Nowshin.

The event concluded with a musical performance by Shunno.

Telenor Youth Summit is a flagship project of Telenor Group (the majority shareholder of Grameenphone), which harnesses education and development for the youth. The competition has garnered much attention and praise in the last two years of its operation.