Since the beginning of this millennium there has been growing recognition around the world that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can play a big role in socio-economic development. For this reason, Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in partnership with World Summit Awards launched the Manthan Awards in October 2004 to supplement this effort to identify, reward and give recognition to significant contributions in the field of ICT interventions for development (ICT4D).

In 2016, Manthan Award enters into its 13th year of successful interventions. BRAC got inspired looking at the values and impact of the award as a partner which made us launch an award focused solely on Bangladesh. It is notable that every year Manthan Award has been receiving many good nominations from Bangladesh. It further fuelled our belief that a separate award was needed for Bangladesh.

Therefore in view of the above points BRAC, in association with Digital Empowerment Foundation, is poised to launch a separate entity called BRAC Manthan Digital Innovation Award (BMDIA) to recognise digital innovations in Bangladesh. The award will focus exclusively for Bangladesh in order to encourage more grassroots ICT innovators to participate and present their innovation and get a chance to be recognised at the national and international level.