BASIS to organise NASA's space apps competition

Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) will organise the world's largest hackathon competition—NASA Space Apps Challenge 2016—in April this year.

BASIS will hold the event in Bangladesh as the local host of US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and it will be held at over 100 other cities around the world. The three-day event will be organised in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet, BASIS officials said at a press meet at their office in the capital yesterday.

Total six teams, two from each city, will be selected to compete at the final challenge at NASA, and BASIS will award selected participants with certificates.

To create awareness on the competition, BASIS Students' Forum will organise seminars in 100 universities in the country, and all participants will have special mentoring, said Ariful Hasan Opu, BASIS director and convener of the competition.

This year Space Apps participants will create solutions to mission-related challenges defined under six categories: aeronautics, international space station, solar system and beyond, information technology, earth and the journey to Mars.

BASIS President Shameem Ahsan said they are delighted to be organising the global competition for the second year in a row.

“We hope to get solutions to global challenges involving information technology and science through this challenge. It will create scope of employment and engagement in NASA and other international agencies for Bangladeshis. Participants need to register online, individually or in teams at studentsforum.basis.org by March 20.

Pbazaar.com and Bagdoom.com will be the sponsors of the event while Rajshahi University, Independent University of Bangladesh and Chittagong Independent University are the academic partners.