Winners announced for the World Bank - Microsoft Regional Grant competition ‘Coding you opportunity’

The World Bank and the Microsoft held the final round of the annual regional grant competition ‘Coding your opportunity’ for the youth led organizations and NGOs.  The winning organizations received up to US $ 10,000  each to implement innovative ideas that will expand coding knowledge among the youth, helping them to secure and create gainful employment.

Today, four finalist organizations from Bangladesh and three finalist organizations from Nepal presented their proposal to a panel of judges, comprising of leading IT and development experts. Robotics Association from Nepal, and Better Stories Limited from Bangladesh received awards for implementing their innovative proposals. 

“South Asia is home to the world’s largest working age youth population. Learning about Coding and computing has become an essential job-skill in today’s world,” said Christine Kimes, Acting Country Head, World Bank Bangladesh “The competition received many good proposals and we are hopeful that the winning projects would create awareness about coding and help the condition of the participating countries for gainful employment.”

The competition was rolled out in four South Asian countries - Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka. The competition had received over seventy project proposals from Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

 “Through our global YouthSpark program Microsoft is committed to helping young people around the world achieve their employment, education or entrepreneurship dreams.  Through this technology partnership with World Bank we see a huge opportunity for young people in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal to benefit from the work of Better Stories Limited and Robotics Association of Nepal. ” said Clair Deevy, Corporate Social Responsibility Lead for Asia Pacific, Microsoft, who flew in for the event in Bangladesh.

The criteria for judging the winning proposals were: coding knowledge; use of technology in the delivery of services to beneficiaries; if the project provides employment opportunities; its participatory aspect; and use of the team’s organizational strengths and the use of partnerships to leverage maximum usage of resources.  Other factors considered were, the capability of the projects to reach completion within the 12 month period of the disbursement of the grant, the strength of their sustainability plans and if they had the capacity to be replicated beyond the project period. A similar event will be held in Sri Lanka in the same week, where the finalists of Sri Lanka and will compete.

Sarvodaya Fusion, Sri Lanka has joined the World Bank and the Microsoft as the coordinating and implementing partner.