The Halda River Initiative was developed by individual effort of Md. Manzoorul Kibria who made a website to create mass awareness, to draw due attention of researchers, academicians,

journalists and government in order to ensure the preservation of the Halda river and its unique resources through the declaration of the river as the “National Natural Fish Spawning Heritage”. The Halda River is considered to be one of the most important rivers in Bangladesh as a natural fisheries breeding ground. However, collection of a variety of fish spawns has decreased greatly in recent times due to man-made crises and the lack of management. In order to create mass awareness about this issue the initiative named Halda River as the “National Natural Fish Spawning Heritage” was launched. The website focuses mainly on the activities towards ensuring the conservation of the heritage of Halda river and creating mass awareness to push the policy makers in declaring the river as the ‘National Natural Fish Spawning Heritage’ of Bangladesh.

The Jury appreciated that this website may be the first website in Bangladesh on a river and also it is a novel way to conserve such a natural heritage in the country using ICT tools. It was also noted that the project received wide attention from many countries and subsequently inspired many joint programmes in the area of river conservation. The Jury noted that the producer of the programme has already been awarded National Digital Innovation Award 2011 in e-culture and heritage category alongside the National Environment Award 2011 in Environmental Conservation category. The Jury appreciated the novelty of the project and opined that it has a distinct natural heritage value.

SPARA is a Power Management System based on Artificial Intelligence for computers. SPARA helps effectively eliminating up to 90% of the power wastage in computers.

It operates by implementing power management profiles for every user. SPARA is a green initiative started by Artin Dynamics Pvt. Ltd. Variations in the user’s behavioural pattern is recorded and interpreted intelligently by Spara. Once deployed, it is self configuring software that saves power as often and as economically as possible. Spara builds unique power management policies for each user and facilitates maximum productivity with minimal power usage and CO2 emissions. Its adaptive nature provides flexibility on eliminating administrator level monitoring and interference. Spara software is client-admin software which works within an intranet and saves power through various features of the software such as Scheduling / Pattern recognition / Power Schemes etc. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, Spara has elevated optimisation of power management with continuous improvement in process and prediction analytics. Once Spara is installed, it continuously learns to systematically reduce energy wastage and excessive carbon emissions.

The Jury appreciated that SPARA uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) software as the core of its solution in an innovative manner, with a capability to learn and evolve itself, creating a near-perfect power management profile. Its AI core algorithm grants interactivity with a simple to use interface and the detailed level of reporting. The Jury noted that the solution addresses an existing gap in energy saving solutions dealing with day-to-day use of computers in which significant energy wastage may be going unnoticed every day.