A team of Bangladeshi high school students has been selected as finalists for the ‘NFTE World Series of Innovation,’ securing a top 10 spot among hundreds of entries from all over the world.
The World Series of Innovation is an annual global competition that invites young people to tackle innovation challenges aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), organised by ‘Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship’ - a global nonprofit organisation based in the USA.
The nine innovation challenges offered in 2021-22 under competition were sponsored by leading global companies including Citi Foundation, Saint-Gobain, Ernst & Young, Maxar, PIMCO and others.
The team consists of four high school students - Abrar Azim Hrittek, Sabit Ibtisam Anan, Rittik Barua and Ishmam Karim.
Their concept competed in the ‘EY Collaborate for Impact Challenge,’ It pushes the SDG 17 agenda of designing a solution to create a more livable future driven by collective actions on sustainability.
Team leader Abrar emphasised on how they’ve been trying to shape their idea into more on the trajectory of a startup and the issues they’ve faced enroute. “The problem and our idea to tackle it, has been recognised in several international events. But our focus has been to pursue it to shape it as a startup to reach people of our country.”
“We have collected data regarding our demographics over the pandemic, and we hope to use existing mechanism to perfect our concept, and realise it within a couple of years,” he concluded.
Sabit Ibtisam Anan, another member of the team, added “It’s exhilarating to see something we believe in get recognised internationally, and this gives us the motivation we need to continue working on our idea..”
abrar.azim14@gmail.com