DataBird, a Bangladeshi IT company working on building an internet ecosystem, celebrated the win of six innovative ideas at the grand finale of LaunchPad 2021 Thursday in the capital.
The DataBird LaunchPad is an innovation platform by DataBird to support young innovators solving problems with technology. The ICT Division, LICT Bangladesh, Durbar, The Daily Star and BASIS are its partners.
Remotely, the champion from the professional track, received a grant of Tk15 lakh.
The first runner-up, Edutech, and the second runner-up, Tinkers Technology Limited, received a grant of Tk10 lakh and Tk5 lakh.
From the student track, the winner, Kori, the runner-up, Webel, were awarded two MacBooks and two windows laptops.
The second runner-up, Ku Aspire, was awarded two smartphones.
State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak graced the grand finale as the chief guest.
Dr Sazzad Hossain, a member of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Md Khurshid Alam, executive director of payment systems department at the Bangladesh Bank, Sami Ahmed, policy advisor of LICT, Kashef Rahman, CEO of DataBird, and Sadia Haque, CCO of DataBird, were also present.
Palak said: “We are at a crucial juncture for catching up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To be a prosperous, developed, poverty-free, and equitable nation, the next two decades will require unprecedented innovations by our local talents and at DataBird LaunchPad, professionals and students from all over Bangladesh have showcased how keen they are to help the country.”
Kashef said: “The key idea behind the inception of DataBird LaunchPad 2021 was to identify and incubate ideas that will solve problems for the nation with the help of technology. In the last few months, DataBird nurtured talented individuals who are gifted with unique ideation and business strategies infused with technology.”
As a platform for young innovators to present their digitally-enabled solutions to problems, LaunchPad 2021 by DataBird initiated its journey in July 2021. This chapter of LaunchPad attracted over 350 teams of 1000 innovators from all across Bangladesh, including 23 women entrepreneurs.
The ideas developed by the participants from both tracks represented diverse industries, such as edutech, fintech, healthtech, SaaS, travel, agro, blockchain, marketplace, AR, VR, and IoT.
Source: United News of Bangladesh