BRACU team wins at the Mapathon disaster-response hackathon
On March 30th, the national hackathon ‘Mapathon 2026: Multi-Hazard Early Warning Innovation Challenge’ took place, showcasing innovative risk-mapping and early-warning systems for disaster response and management. BRACU’s Team Nirapotta, hailed as champions for their groundbreaking project on cyclone preparedness, consisting of Ahnaf Bin Zakaria, Mujtahidul Hasan Sami, and Md. Sakib Khandaker (Juniors, CSE).
The hackathon was arranged by Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (RIMES), in collaboration with Save the Children in Bangladesh and the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, looking to find innovative solutions to the acute natural disasters in Bangladesh that cause widespread damage nationwide. Md Saidur Rahman Khan (Secretary, Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief) and Nahid Sultana Mallik (Director, Training and Research Department of Disaster Management) attended the event as the Chief Guest and Special Guest.
Remal, the recent devastating cyclone in Bangladesh, was the source of inspiration for Team Nirapotta to work out an effective response system for cyclones. They noticed two major errors in the way cyclone response systems operate: one in the uneven concentration of volunteers in areas and the other in online-only communication systems.
Their solution to these was constructing an offline IoT-mesh architecture with a data-fed, centralized command panel. “I worked to ensure that the architecture we implemented was properly aligned with the needs of hybrid systems”, said Sakib. Ahnaf Bin Zakaria also added, “Initially we had doubts since we didn’t have the IoT module in our initial plans, however, as soon as we came up with that, we were pretty confident that we could win.”
The initiative reflects the growing role of youth-led technological innovation in strengthening disaster resilience and enhancing anticipatory action efforts across Bangladesh.
