Star Business Desk

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Standard Chartered Bangladesh and Prothom Alo has recently announced the launch of the second edition of Standard Chartered Prothom Alo Inter School and College Programming Contest 2019.

The computer programming competition aims to provide a national platform to the youth, particularly school and college students, to help them into becoming problem-solvers capable of applying skills to real life problems, the bank said in a statement yesterday.

This year there will be a series of school activations and district-level computer programming workshops, culminating in two major regional contests, the winners of which will compete in the finals in Dhaka.

There will also be an online qualification round for the rest of the country.

The winning teams from the final contest will have the opportunity to participate in a three-day programming boot camp, where they will connect with leading ICT practitioners from around the world.

“It was inspiring to see talented youth from across the country and from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, showcasing their coding skills and competing on level footing last year,” said Naser Ezaz Bijoy, chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bangladesh.

“There was even a team that had learned coding without access to computers – we are delighted to note that we will be able to support five schools with a donation of three laptops each,” he added. “Their achievements last year just goes to show the immense potential of our youth, which is what I hope this initiative will continue to nurture.”

Matiur Rahman, editor of Prothom Alo, mentioned that the Bangla daily always tries to help the youth in developing the skills they required for the 21st century.

“Coding skill is a necessary element for today and this contest and workshops will help our young kids be at par with the world,” he said.

In 2018, the initiative reached rural, semi-rural and urban communities through a series of activations and contests, giving talented youths an opportunity to showcase their coding skills.

The initiative included programming workshops at 60 schools around Bangladesh reaching around 15,000 students and eight district level workshops reaching around 3,000 students from rural and semi-rural communities.

There were also one online practice programming contest with 1,157 participants, two preliminary programming contests with 437 teams, a final contest with 122 participating teams and a three-day coding boot camp with 50 top participants.