Make-a-thon 2016 champions announced!

Make-A-Thon 2016, organised by The World Bank and BetterStories Limited in partnership with the ICT Division of the Ministry of Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology and 18 esteemed partners, has brought 100 top talents from the fields of engineering, agriculture, business, fashion technology and design together to solve problems for Bangladesh. HiFi Public was the communications partner of the event. 
Make-A-Thon 2016 received 400 applications for participation, from which the Top 100 participants were filtered. Together, these participants put themselves through 68 hours of grueling training, mentoring and making to build prototypes. In teams and as individuals, they have built 32 prototypes on paper and 3D. The prototypes focus on real-life problems and applications relevant to healthcare, transport and infrastructure, agriculture, biomedical engineering, energy generation, physical challenges, sustainable energy management and more.

The Top 10 projects were QC Pro, a prototype that ensures quality of food and agricultural product; ULTRACANE, a tool to help visually challenged people navigate easily; FLOBUDDY, a prevention tool for fatalities caused from drowning; Smart Card based Public Services, a management system for public transport systems; UAV For Humanity, an aerial solution run on drone technology; W-Bot, a sanitation system for water bodies; Smart Gas Burner, a system that reduces gas usage; Happiness for All, an economically feasible and affordable toy drone; Drivers, Go Safe, a tool that assists drivers; Health Assistant and Harassment Prevention, a wearable medical assistant.

 
Top 10 teams will receive innovation funds from the ICT Division subject to meeting terms, as the Minister has announced and BetterStories will incubate them for a year to help them go to market. Other notable projects were ROBO-NURSE, a robot that can provide basic healthcare services at your beck and call, TRAFFIC AI, a system that helps its users tackle traffic and find easy routes and more.
The Honorable State Minister of ICT,Mr. Zunaid Ahmad Palak attended the closing ceremony as a special guest. In fact, the State Minister also placed an order on-site of 100 drone toys from the Happiness for All project team, who have built a model that allows for the toy to be sold at BDT 350 only.