Two community radio related initiatives of Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) have been recognized as Champions in UN World Summit on the Information Society (UN WSIS) Prizes 2017.

The projects are: Community Broadcasting Library (CBL) for Access to Information and Knowledge in Bangladesh, supported by Free Press Unlimited & European Union; and English Language through Community Radio in Rural Bangladesh, supported by American Centre, Dhaka. 

UN WSIS Prizes honour outstanding projects that leverage the power of information and communication technology (ICT) to accelerate socio-economic development.

Besides the highlighted relevance of the project to the respective WSIS Action Line as referenced in the Geneva Plan of Action, the selection process was based on the project's impact on the community and linkages with the sustainable development.

Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Chairperson of Board of Trustees of BNNRC received the award from Houlin Zhao, Secretary-General of UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on June 13 at a ceremony at Geneva International Conference Centre, Switzerland as part of the annual UN WSIS Forum.

ITU announced 90 Champions of the prestigious WSIS Prizes contest out of which 18 winners were announced.

72 WSIS Prize 2017 Champions (first four runner-up projects in each category) were also recognized and received special certificates of achievement.

345 ICT success stories from around the world were nominated for the online voting following a comprehensive review of 467 projects by a panel of experts.

Based on the results, which saw over 1.1 million votes cast by WSIS stakeholders, a selection of winning projects was made.

Currently, there are 17 community radio stations broadcasting in Bangladesh with around 6.18 million listeners.