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Bangla Wiki

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is now the largest encyclopedia in the world. The Bangla version of the wikipedia is evolving slowly since its inception in January 2006. BdOSN take this open content based encyclopedia to build the Bangla Encyclopedia. In Bangladesh, the main thrust sector in Open Content Development has been the development of the Bangla Wikipedia and the thrust was Bangla Wiki. The project aims at developing a free, open access encyclopedia in Bangla language.

The Bangla Wiki project is loosely organized using Internet based mailing lists and informal "Wiki Adda" at BdOSN office. Most of the participants are students in Bangladesh and West Bengal, or expatriates living in North America, Europe, and Japan. We are actively promoting Wikipedia and open content development activities in Bangladesh. Bangla Wiki has conducted several workshops to familiarize the new users with techniques and skills related to the project. To promote public awareness, Bangla Wiki organized rallies during the Bangla New Year, and also observed August 2006 as the "Bangla Wiki Month".

Bangla Wiki will set up an office in conjunction with BDOSN for people with limited Internet connectivity. Also, people from other regions of the country can send articles via postal mail, which is later added to Bangla Wikipedia by Bangla Wiki volunteers.

Besides articles, Bangla Wiki has also focused on creating a free repository of images and other multimedia content. As of October, 2006, more than 400 images on various topics have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons or GNU Free Documentation licenses.

Since its launch in late March, 2006, the Bangla Wiki project has been extremely successful. Although the Bangla Wikipedia was initiated in 2004, it only had 540 articles till March 2006, with very little actual content. Initially, a target of 10,000 articles in one year was set. The project has been able to attract a large number of editors. As of October, 2005, the total registered editor count is 865. The number of articles in the Bangla Wikipedia has grown initially at a rate of 800 articles per month, with occasional burst of activity raising the rate beyond that. As a result of these activities, the Bangla language Wikipedia crossed the 10,000 article mark in September 2006, becoming the 50th Wikipedia, and the 2nd language from South Asia to achieve this.

The project has also gained a lot of media coverage. Bangla language newspapers such as the Daily Prothom-Alo, Ittefaq, and Jai Jai Din have published articles focusing on the Bangla Wikipedia. BBC Bangla World Service broadcasted an interview of one of the organizers of the Bangla Wiki project on May 2. Yahoo! news and many other news organizations covered the 10,000 article milestone of Bangla Wikipedia.

Related Links

• Have a look at Bangla Wikipedia
• Tutorial for editing in Bangla wikipedia
• To join Bangla Wiki Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bangla_wiki/

Other Affairs

First BdOSN Code Sprint concluded with much appreciation and success

Four teams of students, led by professional software engineers from the industry, developed four Open Source Software in First BdOSN CodeSprint 2008 held in Sylhet from 15th to 17th August. The concluding ceremony was held on 17th August with the demonstration of the projects. The concluding ceremony was attended by the students, teachers as well as the participabts. Ms. Anika Mahmud, Lecturer of the department of CSE attended the same as the guest of honor. BdOSN arranged this event for the first time in Bangladesh with the support of SUST Open Source Network and CSE Society.

The SPIDER team, led by Tamim Shahriar Subeen, developed a tool which will allow the user to know the stock price on real time from cell phone. The team used Python as their programming language. Zakaria Chowdhury, along with his team - HOTCAKE, developed a rapid website development tool using PHP. Team GITTU, led by Mizanur Rahman Bipul, developed a social networking tool in Bangla and Omar Shehab, leading his team SHIAL MAMA, developed a Mozilla FireFox toolbar extension which will allow the user to type in Bangla in web page forms even if there is no Bangla support in the system.

Sylhet, August 17, 2008 READMORE

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First CodeSprint in Bangladesh begin

Students of Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology , Sylhet and few professionals start the first Code Sprint organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network. Professionals from Tiger It Ltd, Nilavo Software, Webcraft Bd Ltd, Arena Mobile and D.Net Bangladesh are also participating in the sprint. Supported by the CSE Society and OSN of SUST, the 3 days event begins with much enthusiasm. The programmer attending the Sprint will focus on 4 projects- A visual tool for quick website development, mobile tool for stock price searching, Development of a Bangla social networking site and a simple Bangla Input plug-in for Firefox.

The Sprint was inaugurated by Khandaker Tavir , Lecturer of CSE Department SUST and also addressed by the General Secretary of BdOSN.

SUST, Sylhet, August 15, 2008 READMORE

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UGC Chairman appreciated the members of NSTU OSN

Professor Dr Nazrul Islam Khan, the Chairman of the University Grant Commission appreciated the creative activities of the members of Open Source Network of the NSTU. In his recent visit to the university, he inaugurated the website of the CSTE Department of the University developed by NSTU OSN. On this occasion, a simple ceremony titled "Interactive Software as an Emerging Technology", was organized at the CSTE Department. Mr M.Mushfiq-E Mahabub presented the OS Philosophy and the necessity of using open source software in the country. He explained that the cost is not the only the reason, but to dominate in the field of technology, Bangladesh don't have any alternative other than using the open source software.

Noakhali, Bangladesh, August 09, 2008 READMORE

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Talk on Zen Cart held

The monthly talk of BdOSN for the month of July 2008 held at FREPD auditorium on 26th July 2008. Mr Suhreed Sarker presented the keynote talk on the topic “e-commerce site development using Zen card”. ( Zen Cart) an open source shopping cert software is now gaining popularity among the e-commerce site developer. Mr Sarker explained that the popularity was because of its user friendly environment and new features. Some of the features included but not limited to multiple customer modes, unlimited category depth , multiple sales and discounts , XHTML template system , multiple shipping options , multiple payment options, provision for gift voucher etc. Besides the programme allowed to write and uses third party plug-ins in a comfortable manner. He showed the different aspect of the programme to the audience.

Dhaka, July 26, 2008 READMORE