On February 16, ‘Olik’ a team of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) won the award in the ‘Best Use of Data’ category.
Nasa sent ‘Olik’ members invitation on June 21 and they applied for visas on July 1. The embassy interviewed them and rejected their visa applications on July 11.
A 16-member team, including five members of Olik, was scheduled to visit Kennedy Space Center in Florida from July 21 to 23. Tickets and hotel rooms have already been booked. The Information and Communication Technology Division is bearing the costs.
Visas of eight among the 16 members were rejected although all of them had invitation from Nasa.
Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), the local orgniser of Space Apps Challenge, ICT Division, and Foreign Ministry are contacting the US Embassy in this regard.
Olik’s project was a Lunar VR that allows users to explore the landing site of Apollo 11, orbiting over the moon with LRO satellite, and observing eclipse from the lunar surface.
The team collected 3D model and information from various resources of Nasa.