BracU alumni research gains global spotlight at CHI 2026
From April 11th to the 17th, a team of alumni from Brac University attended the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Barcelona, Spain. On the 16th of April, the team exhibited their project, The Digital Democracy Paradox, which was accepted to this A+ ranked, global conference after two rounds of expert peer review.
The research team included Sabbir Bin Abdul Latif (Alumnus, CSE), Susmita Biswas (Alumna, CSE), Sultan Mehedi Masud (Alumnus, CSE), Faiyaz Morshed Khan (Alumnus, CSE), and Shreya Biswas (Alumna, CSE). They studied the usability and literary challenges in the e-governance platforms in Bangladesh. Sabbir clarified, “Why have so many people not been able to use these systems on their own, given the fact that these are designed to enable citizens? We discovered that despite the presence of access, there is still no real independence and participation”.
Photo credit-Collected .
The project began as a one-year undergraduate thesis project in the Computing for Sustainability and Social Good (C2SG) research group. Sabbir expressed his gratitude towards BracU for its research-friendly academic culture. According to him, “Unlike many universities, where a thesis is done individually within a single semester, BracU allows us to work in teams over a full year, divided into 3 phases. This might seem simple, but it actually makes a huge difference”. He believed that his risk-taking mentality allowed him to access a completely different world and fall in love with the art of research.
The team now works as research assistants and hopes that their discoveries will stop millions of taka from being wasted in government projects. Sabbir ended with advice for young research aspirants, saying, “Research starts with curiosity and persistence. You learn most of it while actually doing the work, not before it”.
