Zareen Tasneem Sharif, student of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), has become the 'Global Winner 2022' of the Global Undergraduate Awards in the category of Architecture and Design for her undergraduate thesis titled as "Waste in the City: Agglomerating Local Economy of Matuail Landfill". She is the first Bangladeshi to have achieved this accolade, which is often referred to as the 'Junior Nobel Prize'.

The Global Undergraduate Awards is one of the world's most prestigious academic awards. It accepts submissions in 25 disciplines worldwide. The submissions are accepted through a completely anonymous online submission platform and are evaluated by a group of professional academics. The UA Program is split into seven regions: Africa and Middle East, Asia, Europe, Island of Ireland, Latin America, Oceania, the US & Canada. Under the patronage of Ireland's president Micheal D. Higgins, the submissions are awarded in three levels per category: Highly Commended Entrants, Regional Winners and finally the Global Winners.

While Bangladeshi students have achieved awards of 'Highly Commended Entrants' and 'Regional Winner' before, this year – among the 2812 submissions from 73 countries – Zareen's work was the first in the history of Bangladesh to be crowned as one of the 25 Global winners. Her project was a brilliant envisioning of an active landfill as an energy efficient industrial ecology, that integrates the culture and lives of the people of Dhaka and brings back the lost agricultural traditions of Matuail.

The author is a student of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and can be reached out at 01shreshtha7@gmail.com