CrossRoads Initiative is a platform that connects Bangladeshi university students both at home and abroad, with high-school students to build peer-to-peer mentorships. Founded by Sadid Hasan in 2019, the organisation intends to help prospective university applicants with proper resources and guidance. The mentors provide students with online and offline support for preparation in SAT and IELTS tests, as well as university admission in general.

Sadid is currently pursuing a double major in Data Science and Business at Minerva University.

As a high-school student, he was actively involved with extracurricular activities, which connected him with senior students who were going abroad. Their advice helped him through his personal journey and inspired him to create a platform that would benefit students for generations to come.

"Every year, more than 130,000 Bangladeshi high-school students do not get the opportunity to receive university education. Consequently, most of them remain unemployed. This does not happen due to their lack of talent or potential, but because we have inadequate seats in universities to teach them," Sadid noted. Since their inception, they have organised over 18 seminars to mentor around 1800 people. They have also created digital content, online videos and webinars on their social media platforms which have reached more than 100,000 people.

CrossRoads Inititative regularly generates educational content on their Facebook group. Through their Facebook page, they share blogs and host live shows, where they bring individuals to share their stories of success. In 2019, CrossRoads Initiative won the Bangabandhu Innovation Grant and received a funding of BDT 10 lakh. They are supported by StartUp Bangladesh and are a portfolio startup of iDEA Project under the ICT Ministry. Sadid also won the Diana Award 2021 for his efforts towards empowering young people.

All of their online content can be accessed for free of cost. "Since we cannot solely rely on our free content to prepare the students for studying abroad, we initiated the RB fellowship. RB stands for the initials of my late grandmother Razia Begum," Sadid shared. The fellowship is their flagship month-wise training campaign, during which they host discussion classes, workshops, co-working sessions, and office hours with students. It intends to provide the most comprehensive regular decision application training and has helped students receive over 70 scholarships.

The main challenges Sadid faced included the difficulty in balancing his academics with his work. "I would like to thank my cooperative team for managing everything so smoothly as this journey would have been incomplete without their continuous support," he asserted. In the future, he plan to expand CrossRoads Initiative's services to international students and bring in international mentors to provide training to Bangladeshi students.

The author is a medical student who likes reading, planning, and scribbling. Email: mislammonamee@gmail.com.