June, 2021
Volume V, Issue VI
Summer XXI
OSUN Senior Project Panels 2021 Rusafa Hussain Journalist The Open Society University Network (OSUN) , held a series of webinars in May 2021 where universities globally— including Brac University— had the prestigious opportunity to participate in a number of panel discussions. BracU emerged triumphant in two categories, “Arts and Society” and “Inequalities”, where our students were selected to deliver presentations on their projects in front of an international panel of moderators, guest speakers, viewers and students from across the OSUN campuses. The students who participated in this highly esteemed platform exhibited their projects with considerable talent, adeptness and exuberance— each project was unique, engaging and insightful in their relevant fields of inquiry. The moderator for the “Arts and Society” panel was BracU’s Dr Mahruba Mowtushi, a faculty of the English and Humanities Department who supervised two BracU selections, as well as other international projects for OSUN. Presenting in the “Arts and Society” panel was Puja Sarkar (Senior, ENH) with a project that could only be described as the artistic brainchild born through the creative collaboration of her group that included Halima Hasin ( Junior, ENH), Fabliha Nawar (Senior, ENH), and Islam Nashrif (Senior, ENH). Their work, titled “The Incongruities of Existence: An Exhibit,” incorporated painting, collage, and fiction to critically investigate the topic of utopia/dystopia in arts and literature. The result of their effort was a brilliantly orchestrated collage that used works of fiction with original artwork (body art, painting, sketch) to provide an insightful commentary on the societal pressures to conform to ideologies and dictums. Also partaking in the webinar was Tarannum Mahmud (Senior, ARC), with her thesis “Of Spiritual and Natural: Revitalizing Natural and Religious Tourism through Architecture and Landscape” where she explained the elements of her structural designs that would aid pilgrimage, assimilating the cultures
BRACU Mongol-Tori excels at the University Rover Challenge 2021 Sudipta Nandi Journalist BRACU Mongol-Tori, a rover team from Brac University, finished fourth in the University Rover Challenge 2021, an international competition organised by the Mars Society. The yearly competition, which takes place in the United States, pushes students to design and build the next generation of Mars rovers. As the pandemic prevailed, the organisers cancelled the finals and devised an alternate virtual competition which enabled the participants to compete remotely and build courses in their own campuses as per the rules. The contest consisted of three missions, where each had subtasks and all the teams had two competition days to demonstrate the performance of their rovers. Since the competition needed on-field experiments under controlled circumstances, BracU authority assisted team Mongol-Tori by accommodating them in the Savar RS campus for 9 days. Despite all sorts of hindrances, Mongol-Tori got the highest point for a mission and fourth highest point for the other two thereby securing them fourth place. The numerous facilities provided by the BracU authority along with the guidance of Dr Md. Khalilur Rahman (Associate Professor, CSE) helped the team massively. “From financial support to campus facilities in this pandemic situation, BracU helped us in every possible way”, says the leader of the team, Md. Firoz Wadud (Senior, CSE). He further added that a strong teamwork enabled this group of aspiring roboticists to make a name for themselves in the sphere of robotics globally.
OSUN Senior Projects Panel Picture
of Shaivism and existing heritage of the hillsides into her architectural study. Lastly, under the “Inequalities” panel, Jahin Kaiissar (Senior, ENH), delivered her presentation on “The Intersection of Trauma and Queerness in Pajtim Statovci’s Crossing”. She analysed Statovci’s queer figures by providing a detailed analysis of their sense of selfhood in relation to past trauma and the resulting experiences of disorientation. We are fortunate to have amidst us such brilliant scholars in the making whose achievements are a source of pride.
HSBC Business Case Competition Tanzila Kaokab Journalist HSBC, a renowned multinational bank, has collaborated with Brac Business School to organise a virtual HSBC-BRAC Business School Business Case Competition 2021. This year, the top teams of thirty universities competed against each other. A total of sixty teams were formed and each team consisted of four students. The participants had to go through intensive rounds of competition dealing with local and global cases. Team Voyager, from Brac University, comprising of Sajid Bin Hasnat (Senior, ESS), Shadman Shakid Rummat (Senior, BBS), Ariful Islam Himel (Senior, BBS) and Anisul Islam (Senior, BBS), emerged as the finalists and performed with great diligence. Throughout the competition of three rounds, the students were given cases such as, promoting banking products for international students, making RMG companies affected by COVID-19 profitable again, and implementing AD Net Zero for the UK advertising industry. There were three winners in the Grand Finale. Among them, team Hatti Ma Tim Tim secured the ultimate Gold Award of the competition, while team Barely Managing and team Hardly Knows have won the Silver and Bronze Award respectively, getting awarded with team development funds. Team Hatti Ma Tim Tim will now be representing Bangladesh at the HSBC/HKU Asia Pacific Business Case Competition 2021. The honourable judges for the national round competition were Derek Griffiths, Head of Trade and Investment for International Trade of the British High Commission in Dhaka; Asif Saleh, Executive Director Of Brac; Simeen Rahman, Group CEO of Transcom Group; and Kevin Green, Country Head of Wholesale Banking at HSBC Bangladesh. The competition concluded with a quick quiz challenge among the audience. The fastest three scorers were awarded with attractive gift hampers. Team Voyagers_HSBC-BBS Case Competition Finalist