Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the BNNRC and also Executive Director of COAST Trust, has received the UN WSIS champion certificate from Houlin Zhao, Secretary-General of UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), at a ceremony at Geneva International Conference Centre in Switzerland on Tuesday as part of the annual UN WSIS Forum 2019, according to a message received here on Wednesday.

The ITU announced 90 champions of the prestigious World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes contest while 18 of them were awarded at the programme.

The two initiatives of the BNNRC are: Climate justice and resilience through Community Radio in coastal areas of the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh supported by the COAST Trust, Bangladesh and Awareness on Right to Information (RTI) through Community Radio supported by Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF).

WSIS Prize is a unique international contest developed in response to requests from the WSIS stakeholders to create an effective mechanism to evaluate and recognise individuals, governments, civil society, local, regional and international agencies, research institutions and private-sector companies for outstanding success in implementing development-oriented strategies that leverage the power of ICTs as an enabler of the development. 

BNNRC is in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) accredited with World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) of the United Nations. 

BNNRC has been chosen for this award for its creative thinking, critical analysis, strong leadership and exceptional innovation of community media sector contributing towards voices of the voiceless people in rural Bangladesh.