Aniket Doegar, a young innovator from India, through innovative use of technology has designed a new way to reach important messages to the poor and ultra poor communities. The common theme of the messages is that the measures the government has taken to ensure justice for them.
Gautami Raiker, also an Indian, has a different initiative which helps startup businesses in legal matters. Lipi Rahman from Bangladesh has come up with her technological initiative to provide assistance to her clients in land matters. The idea of Cho Chan Myei, a Myanmar citizen, builds on the theme of ensuring women’s safety through using technology.
These innovative ideas were showcased at the Asia region grand finale of ‘Innovative justice challenge’ organised today on Saturday (6 October 2018) in the Dhaka city. The objective of the competition was to facilitate innovations that would help distressed people access justice easily and effectively. BRAC’s Human Rights and Legal Assistance (HRLS) programme and Netherland-based HiiL organised the Asia region’s final round of the competition at the BRAC Centre.
Aniket Doegar, selected winner by the jury panel, will be awarded the honour of ‘Justice Accelerator’ by HiiL and receive a grant of € 20 thousand in four instalments in one year. HiiL will also provide him with entrepreneurship training.
Former adviser to the Caretaker Government and founder of Power and Participation Centre Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman attended the event as the key speaker. Also present were HiiL representative Martain Kind and Nathalie Dijkman and HRLS associate director Sajeda Farisa Kabir.
Jury members lawyer Kanan Amal Dhru, lawyer Junaid Ahmed Chowdhury and BRAC Dairy and Food Project director Md Anisur Rahman were also present at the event.
Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman said, “Innovations are urgently needed to take justice at the doorstep of the ultra poor people. While it is natural that some innovations will win since it is a competition, but that does not at all mean that other innovations are failures. All the innovations are important to promote welfare of the society. So it is very important that everybody will proceed further with their own ideas and initiatives.”
The organisers said every year around one billion people around the world fall victim to injustice. Of these acts 82 per cent are left with no remedy. Around 30 per cent of the victims consider themselves too weak to seek the course of justice. Organisations and activists who work worldwide to promote justice call for an urgent improvement of the process of accessing justice. They also feel that this will need innovative solutions that will be both easily accessible and cost-effective.
HiiL, since 2005, is dedicatedly working to promote innovations to improve access to justice worldwide. Innovative Justice Challenge is one of their initiatives to this end. This year 430 ideas were submitted in the competition.
