Two students of Dhaka Residential Model College (DRMC) have won the top honour at the 16th e-ICON World Contest 2026 in Seoul, South Korea.

Md Shafiul Alam Siddiqee Shrestha and Aranya Abeer Khan Prapya, representing DRMC, were part of the four-member team Arup-Bit, which received the Minister of Education of the Republic of Korea Award, the highest honour at the international competition.

The team, led by Shrestha, also included Yoonkyu Lee and Junmo Kim of Seongjae Middle School, South Korea.

The contest attracted 252 teams comprising around 756 students and teachers from 16 countries. Ten teams from eight countries advanced to the final round, held in Seoul from 3 to 7 August. Arup-Bit emerged as the winner, with the award presented at the closing ceremony at Stanford Hotel Seoul on 7 August.

The contest is hosted by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and organised by the Korea Digital Education Frontiers Association (KEFA).

For the competition, the team developed “Lighthouse”, an AI-powered wellness web app aimed at supporting teenagers, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 on Good Health and Well-Being.

A key feature of the platform is “Lumi”, an AI companion that can communicate in Bangla, English and Korean. The team also developed the “Lighthouse Beacon”, a screen-free hardware device designed to help teenagers take breaks from their smartphones.

The project was supervised by Sayed Mahbub Hasan Amiri of DRMC and Sunyoung Yoon of Seongjae Middle School.

The team’s achievement was also reported by Korean media.