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Taleb Al-Tel, director of the Research Institute for Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Sharjah, UAE, is making major strides in seeking new treatments against bacterial species resistant to most commonly used antibiotics. Resistant bacteria, including MRSA, resistant to pencillin and other antibiotics, are among the 10 most common causes of mortality, globally killing 700,000 lives annually.

Meanwhile, Nabeel Siddiqui, CEO and co-founder of startup company ModulusTech from Pakistan, is bringing innovative ideas to the groundbreaking business in the three hour construction small house segment. Today, more than 1.6 billion people worldwide are not adequately housing.

In our country

Al-Tel and Siddiqui are examples of innovators and scientists whose ideas have been recognized through the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Transformers Roadshow competition as a noble efforts to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals and as such are supported and honored by the IsDB in order to help communities build a more prosperous and healthy future.

This year, IsDB, which is also the majority shareholder of Bosna Bank International, decided to give the opportunity and reward such ideas to the best innovators and entrepreneurs from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the countries of the region.

Transformers Roadshow, a platform to support the work of innovators and entrepreneurs worldwide, launched by IsDB under the $ 500 million Innovation and Technology Fund, is now coming to our country. The best ideas will be presented to a jury of experts on September 28, 2019 in Sarajevo, as part of the third day of the Sarajevo Halal Fair (SHF) 2019. The top three projects will be awarded $ 3,000 each and given an opportunity to present themselves at the World the Senegal Innovation Competition.

Sustainable development

In addition to concrete financial assistance, the goal of IsDB is to connect entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists with those who can impart them a knowledge, financial and any other support, and provide them with new business options and strategic advice. Al-Tel and Siddiqui made the most of these opportunities.

Predictions say that more than 300,000 million deaths by 2050 will be caused by bacteria resistant to routine antibiotics and the global burden of such an increase in mortality could be $ 100 trillion, with the combination of fragile health care and poverty becoming a "breeding ground" for dangerous infections. Al-Tel's work is focused on exploring possible treatments with high potential to provide safe therapeutic effects in treating infections caused by resistant bacteria and developing new therapies to fight cancer and infectious diseases. Al-Tel's efforts, essentially promoting health and education as two of the UN's 17 global goals, have resulted in new molecular compounds synthesized at the University of Sharjah that promise a high antibiotic effect in the fight against resistant, deadly bacteria. Financial support from IsDB will help the antibiotic activities of these compounds to be advanced laboratory tested, and for this purpose IsDB will also allow Al-Tal to connect with a partner company.

On the other hand, Siddiqui's innovative three-hour home-construction system and $ 3,000 promotes the vision of building energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, extremely low carbon, and natural-resistant homes. These homes are autonomous and completely self-sustaining to be environmentally friendly.

All interested citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the countries of the region that need support for their ideas and projects should register with the IsdB Engage platform www.isdb-engage.org and submit their ideas online at https://www.isdb-engage.org/en/challenge/transformers-roadshow.  The application deadline is September 10^th, 2019.

More information on how to apply the idea, innovation, project can be found at the websites www.bbi.ba  and www.isdb-engage.org.