BRAC University has signed a new agreement for a year with the Open Society University Network (OSUN) and Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, Austria, to expand the OSUN Science Shop at BRACU campus. OSUN Science Shop is currently a two-year pilot program supported by OSUN and hosted by CEU’s Community Engagement Office in cooperation with the European Humanities University (EHU) in Lithuania and BRAC University in Bangladesh. The project focuses on stimulating engaged and experiential learning through student projects embedded in course curricula. A matchmaking platform for students, faculties, and NGOS, it seeks to meaningfully connect students with communities so that these communities can present their struggles to the learners and can subsequently benefit from student inputs through course content and research projects.
To facilitate the Science Shop operations, BRAC University has received a one-year grant of approximately 32k USD (33 lakh BDT) from the Open Society University Network. This fund will be used towards a number of goals, including project development, curricular development, transportation, communication, and student awards. The program will be supported by the School of General Education, headed by its Dean Dr. Samia Huq, and the affiliated Civic Engagement Steering Committee. The program coordinator is Turzo Nicholas Mondal, Lecturer at the School of General Education, while the program manager’s role will be filled by Meem Arafat Manab, Lecturer at the School of Data and Sciences. Faculties who want to collaborate with Science Shop in their courses and their research works should contact Turzo or Meem at turzo.nicholas[at]bracu.ac[dot]bd or meem.arafat[at]bracu.ac[dot]bd