Best 10 startups will receive ‘Bangabandhu Innovation Grant’; The final selection will be on tomorrow

The “Bangabandhu Innovation Grant” will be given to the top 10 Startups of the 2^nd chapter of “Student to Startup” through the “Innovation Design and Entrepreneurship Academy (iDEA) of Bangladesh Computer Council under the ICT Division with the slogan ‘My invention, my dream’.

The pitching session of the final top 10 startup selection will begin on Wednesday, October 16, 2019 with the top 30 startups from the National Startup Camp of the contest. The final pitching session will be held at the Hall of Fame at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in Dhaka on the last day of the “Digital Device and Innovation Expo 2019”. The selection committee of iDEA project with experienced judges will start the final selection program from 10am of tomorrow. Interested Startups and Everyone will have the opportunity to watch the pitching session live by going to the venue. This is the first time such initiatives have been taken and a “Bangabandhu Innovation Grant” is being provided through this program. Each of the top 10 startups will receive grant of Tk 10 lakh as ‘Bangabandhu Innovation Grant’. At the same time, the top 20 startups will have the opportunity to take up Grooming, mentoring and specialized training from the iDEA project as a runnerup. After completion of grooming, if the startup meet the targeted improvement then the matured startups will also be funded.

Project Director (Joint-Secretary) of iDEA Project Syed Mojibul Huq hopes that such an initiative for startups will bring innovations in the ICT sector of the country and contribute to the economy of the country. He invites everyone to the venue on October 16, 2019 to watch the final selection process of the event. He also hopes that this type of activity will provide a new experience for startups. In addition, an Augmented Reality based Product Portfolio of startups has been published at the fair. Special thanks to the popular startup “Parking Koi” and “Truck Lagbe” for supporting to introduce this AR based product booklet. In addition, Oleek of Nextcorp has developed the Augmented Reality based apps for this booklet.

Hon’ble State Minister for ICT Division, Mr. Zunaid Ahmed Palak MP delivered certificates to 75 participants on the last day of the National Startup Camp of “Student to Startup: Chapter 2” at Sheikh Hasina National Youth Development Center in Savar on Saturday night on October 12, 2019. At the same time, the top 30 startups have been selected through pitching at national startup camps. About 2500 Startups submitted their ideas at the contest and then 75 startups has been selected preliminarily from university campus pitching round from 24 venues of 8 Divisions. This time, more than 200 students of 75 startups have been participated in the national camp.

Innovation Design and Entrepreneurship Academy (iDEA) project of Bangladesh Computer Council under the Information and Communication Technology Division (ICTD) is organising this initiative in association with the leading youth platform ‘Young Bangla’ under ‘Centre for Research and Information (CRI) for the second time.

Details of iDEA project will be available into Startup Bangladesh website as follows-  www.startupbangladesh.gov.bd .

List of Top 30 Startups-

BITS, Blackboard, Cognition.Ai, Creafit, Cross Road Initiative, Dgtong, Eco-solution, EduBot,

Electric Skatable And Walkable Shoes, Eshara, Hamba, Health Friend, Hello, Linescape, Lub Dub, Messbook.xyz, Obosor, Oporajita, O-Zone, Road Warden, SantarHut, Shirostran, Socialica, Shaheen Academy, The Horsemen, Tigrow, Vision IT, Wedmate.xyz, World Example, Xupri.com