a2i Programme wins ITEX Award

Access to Information (a2i) Programme of Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has won “International Invention Innovation & Technology Exhibition” (ITEX) Award 2018 in three different innovation categories.

For the very first time, a2i participated in the exhibition (ITEX 2018) and won two Gold and one Silver Award. a2i received Gold Award for an innovation project “Centralized Nebulizing System” in the ‘Biotechnology, Health and fitness’ category; and for “Fuel from Plastic” in the ‘Environmental, Renewable Energy’ category. a2i also received one Silver Award in the ‘Special care and Child care’ category for a project called “Portable Infant Incubator” Of 1000+ innovation and technological designs from 23 different countries, only 62 innovations received Gold Award and 73 received Silver Award. a2i Bangladesh is proud to be among the winners.

Every year, ITEX is organized by the Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS) under the patronage of ‘International Federation of Inventors Associations’ (IFIA). This year’s ITEX was held in Kuala Lumpur Convention Center from 10th to 12th May with one main goal in sight: Empowering entrepreneurs to systematically make transition from scientific discovery to commercial application.

a2i’s innovation Lab (iLab) incubates and accelerates innovations to tackle large scale problems of the society by leveraging technology, particularly electro-mechanical devices, Internet of Things and renewable energy. It also provides 360 degree support to individual innovators, students, and start-ups including seed funding, access to a Maker Lab, and mentorship by experts from the industry and academia. The incubation process comes with guidance to the young innovators to turn a prototype into a practical and viable solution. Innovators are further supported through copyright and patent filing to protect intellectual property of the innovation.

Environmental researchers estimate that 9 million plastic items are dumped daily across the country, of which about 10% is dumped into bins. The innovative technology “Fuel from Plastic” can transform waste poly into fuel and help address Bangladesh’s burgeoning waste plastic problem. This can transform raw materials worth only 30 cents into fuel worth US$1.10.

Traditionally, hospitals providing nebulization service had to allocate one whole gas cylinder for every patient who was nebulized. This meant that the hospital had to maintain multiple cylinders to treat its patients, which not only raised their operational costs, but also created chances of theft. The “Centralized Nebulizing System” can be easily set up in rural hospitals and can nebulize multiple patients from a single source of gas supply. This means the system is not mobile and cannot be stolen. Moreover, it runs on solar power and therefore can function in areas with erratic electricity supply.