Season 2 of digital innovation challenge for women starts

After a successful season one of the technology based 'Digital Innovation Challenge for Women', season 2 of the contest powered by Microsoft Bangladesh in association with The Daily Star, and organised by Women In Digital, has begun.

The objective of this contest is to encourage women to develop new ideas, inspire them to develop new applications, websites and online services that add real value to the communities and can contribute to the development, according to a press release.

New startups led by women are welcomed to participate in the initiative to come up with their innovative solutions to different problems.

Women with innovative ideas have been sending their ideas since August 3. The deadline to apply for the contest is September 7, 2017.

It is expected that the competition will start from September 09, 2017 with an inauguration ceremony at The Daily Star Centre, after the project selection phase of September 8, according to the release.

The opening ceremony will be marked by a brief presentation of the ideas that would manage to qualify the initial selection round. After presenting the ideas, each of the team would get a mentor who would help them to groom their ideas into plans for next one week, according to the release.

Four presentation sessions and a series of mentoring sessions and other crucial phases of the contest will follow the inauguration ceremony where the ideas will be evaluated according to their merit, feasibility, usefulness and other judgement criteria.

The series of presentation and mentoring sessions will ensure that the best ideas have qualified to the final round of October 13, where only a few teams would get the opportunity to present their ideas after being groomed by their mentors.

The contest will end with the award giving ceremony on October 14, 2017. The top three teams will win Tk50,000, Tk30,000 and Tk20,000 respectively. Besides, they will be provided with product development facility. The winners will also get the assistance to protect their ideas through copyright.