NASA Space Apps Challenge Begins in Nine Bangladeshi Cities With 4,657 Participants
The Bangladesh round of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2026 began on Friday (13 November). The two-day event will run until tomorrow, 14 November.
This year's competition is being held simultaneously in nine cities: Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Khulna, Cumilla, Mymensingh and Barishal. Each city's event is being run separately under local leads.
The title sponsor of the local events is the American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB).
According to the organisers, 4,657 participants have so far registered on the official NASA Space Apps Challenge platform. They have formed more than 600 teams.
This year's theme is 'The Next Frontier.' Competing teams will use open data and resources from NASA and its partner space agencies to find solutions to problems related to Earth and space.
Teams will build projects on topics including space science, Earth observation, climate change, environmental conservation, artificial intelligence and data analysis. Over the two days they will also prepare prototypes of their projects alongside research, planning and technology development.
At the end of the local events, judges in each city will evaluate the submitted projects. Projects selected and qualifying at the local level will later be considered for the global judging round.
In the global round, experts from NASA and partner space agencies will evaluate projects from different countries and select the global winners.
Bangladeshi teams have been global winners in the NASA Space Apps Challenge four times before, including three years in a row from 2021 to 2023.
In 2018, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology's 'Team Olik,' taking part from the Sylhet event, became a global winner in the 'Best Use of Data' category for its 'Lunar VR' project. Khulna's 'Team Mohakash' won in 2021, Cumilla's 'Team Diamonds' in 2022 and Rajshahi's 'Team Voyagers' in 2023.
In addition, Mymensingh's 'Team Ecorangers' placed among the 40 global finalist teams in the world in 2024.
