Frugal Innovation Forum 2019
BRAC, considered one of the world's largest non-governmental organisations, arranges the Frugal Innovation Forum (FIF) every year with a new theme. This year's theme was titled 'Scaling Opportunities for Youth'. It was attended recently by 200 young participants from different countries including, Denmark, Venezuela, UK, Tanzania, Ukraine, Nepal, US and India.
According to the organisers, FIF is a platform for leaders from the Global South, to connect and explore solutions to the world's toughest challenges that feature development practitioners and funders, young change-makers and innovators, in a two-day long conference to collaborate for impact at scale.
The event started off with a day-long field visit to give the participants an exclusive experience of frugal innovations in Bangladesh, followed by intense debates and plenaries on disruptive models and solutions. The programme focused on topics like 21st century skills, impact of technology on youth and youth on the move.
Speaking at the event at BRAC CDM in Savar, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairman of BRAC, emphasised that the youth should be concerned about climate change, as it will heavily impact their future. "Unless we change human behavior in terms of consumption of resources, the future will not be sustainable. I would like to see more youth involvement with issues relating to climate change. Sustainable development is the key," he added.
Radwan Mujib Siddiq, trustee of Centre for Research and Information (CRI); Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, honorary fellow of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD); Deepta Arjun, co- founder of Hackergram, from India, were amongst the many guests who attended FIF this year.
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