The Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), with the support of its student wing BASIS Students’ Forum, is going to organize the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2018 in Bangladesh this month, making the country a part of the global hackathon fourth time in a row.
Nine cities from the country – Dhaka, Sylhet, Chittagong, Barisal, Rangpur, Mymensingh, Khulna, Rajshahi and Comilla – will be among 250 cities across the world that will take place in the 48-hour competition, to be held on October 19-20, said a press statement issued by BASIS on Tuesday.
This year, BASIS is aiming to have around 100,000 students to physically participate in the hackathon, and around five million students to join in online.
“The NASA Space Apps Challenge, an international mass collaboration focuses on space exploration that takes part over 48 hours in 250 cities in the world,” said BASIS President Syed Almas Kabir in the statement.
Last year, 50 teams were selected to participate in the global hackathon from 850 projects submitted to BASIS under five cluster categories, said Didarul Alam, convener of the NASA Space Apps Challenge in Bangladesh.
“It is a great honour for us that at the people’s choice awards, among 220 cities across the world, Bangladesh obtained the third and the fifth place,” Didar said in the statement. “We are hopeful to do better this time.”
This year, NASA, the national space agency of the US, has announced six categories comprising 20 sub-categories and, besides space, will cover issues such as weather, volcanoes, the planet Mars and many more, said Ariful Hasan Opu, joint convener of the competition in the country.
The registration for the hackathon is currently in progress and can be done here.
Sunday, June 14, 2026
