Blog & News

Starting in 2002, today's FIFO Tech has gone through many ups and downs. Over a course of mistakes, experiences and learning, the company now has created a direct employment for more that 200.

The founder of FIFO Technologies, Mr. Towhid Hossain was describing his stories in such an inspirational way with the visitors of International Girls in ICT, organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN). 

Around 18 women from different universities went to the last visit of Open House Day for this year on 25th of May 2017Last . The participants became remarkably motivated and thanks to the both organizations for such opportunity.

The program officer of BdOSN Sharmin Kabir says, the journey of Open House Day was very experimental and a story of acocmplishment. We are grateful to the companies gave us the opportunity to visit and created a path to go forward with the vision of engaging our young girls in the ICT sectors.

As a part to celebrate International Girls in ICT, an intensive Career Talk was arranged on April 29, 2017 at RUET Auditorium, Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology

A total number of 130 participants actively attended the seminar. The university students from Rajshahi University, RUET, Rajshahi Government College and Varendra University attended the event and squeezed the highest benefit from it.

A pool of relevant professionals presented as speakers and shared their valuable experiences with the audiences. The event was moderated by Professor Md.  Khademul Islam Molla, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Director of ICT Center, University of Rajshahi. Mr. Munir Hasan, Coordinator, Youth Programme at Prothom Alo, General Secretary, Bangladesh Open Source Network – BdOSN was present as Keynote Speaker & Chief Guest in the session. Kaniz Fatema, Head of Data & Device, Rajshahi Circle, Grameenphone Limited and Akhtar Zaman, Chief Executive, raj IT Solutions Ltd were present as speakers.

The 2.5 hour long Career Talk was fruitful enough to inspire the young participants to have an overall view in the ICT Career. The session was effective enough for mutual sharing and learning.

To celebrate the International Girls in ICT Day, a range of events and programs are being celebrated throughout the month. The program includes but not limited to school quiz contest, ICT Career Talks for girls, Open House Day Visit and online programming contest. 

After having school quiz contest in Dinajpur and Dhaka, the event recently covered Comilla on 23rd of May 2017. Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) has been organizing such events all over Bangladesh to make aware the students with the ICT sectors and inspire them to be in the fields. 

Around 120 students from 2 schools participated in the quiz contest. The ICT teacher of Forida Biddayaton Mr. A.K.M Akhtaruzzaman happily shared ' Our students must come forward from the bookish knowledge and know what is going on the world. ICT is one of the best media now to be up-to-date with the world. I personally give thank to BdOSN for this such a wonderful initiative for the school children.'

Sharmin Kabir, the Program Officer of BdOSN replied in a question that ' We are now organizing different types of programs keeping the students' demands and need in mind. We are getting a remarkable response from the students'.

The program coordinator Mr. Mosarraf Hossain Tipu handed over a crest from BdOSN to the Headmistress of the school. The quiz was closed by awarding the 10 best performers of the quiz. 

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) has been celebrating Girls in ICT from the May 20th this year. Among the many other programs, Career Talk in ICT got a huge response from the participants.

The uniqueness of this year’s celebration is expanding the events and program outside Dhaka. Different sessions have been arranged in different areas including Dinajpur, Rajshahi, Chittagong and Rangpur.

However, around 60 female students and 12 faculties from different departments of the Daffodil International University joined this great session organized jointly by BdOSN and Daffodil International University on 22^nd of May 2017 at 2.30pm. The students spontaneously participated in the discussion and shared their thoughts with ICT Career and its prospectus.

The General Secretary of BdOSN Munir Hasan was the Keynote Speaker there and he magically involved the participants in his discussion by also providing t-shirt and book as gift. The Vice-Chancellor, Yousuf Mahbubul Islam also joined the session and inspired the participants to come forward with the ICT sector.

Ms. Bashira, one of the faculties of the CSE department shared that ‘organizing such event is very fruitful to bring our girls in the ICT sectors’. Mahbuba Munmun Mahua came from Mirpur to participate the event and she became highly motivated by listening to the speakers.

Since September 2015, BdOSN has been running several programmes to create awareness among the girls and women to take ICT as a career. The initial goal is to aware the girls and women about the different opportunities in the field of ICT and help them to acquire the required skills through training and workshop.

Some results have been achieved soon from those actions.  In 2015, when we start our initiative, there were only 5 girls teams participated in the ICPC Regional Programming Contest in Bangladesh although 25% of the students in 90 institute which offered ICT courses are female! After one year, in 2016 the number of team raise to 129!

International Girls in ICT Day is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of April. However, BdOSN celebrates this for a month.

In continuation of the effort, BdOSN has taken the following initiatives to celebrate International Girls in ICT.

The programme includes but not limited to

0 Awareness Building

0 Career Talk 

0 Innovation Boot Camp

0 Open House Day, etc

Open House Day is an event under Girls In ICT where girls are packed to visit IT service company, software development company, call center, development etc to make young women more interested in ICT. On 4th April 2017, we visited BRAC Net Limited. There were 12 girls and young women participating the event. Dr. Md Akramul Islam the director of BRAC Net limited was present there. He talked about the importance of ICT and how girls can do ICT jobs. There were a lot of female workers on BRAC Net. All the season was taken by those female workers.

Tahmina Kabir who participated the event said that "I'm not a student of any ICT related subject. Now I know even I can do a job in ICT sector. I really enjoyed here."

Since September 2015, BdOSN has been running several programmes to create awareness among the girls and women to take ICT as a career. The initial goal is to aware the girls and women about the different opportunities in the field of ICT and help them to acquire the required skills through training and workshop.

Some results have been achieved soon from those actions.  In 2015, when we start our initiative, there were only 5 girls teams participated in the ICPC Regional Programming Contest in Bangladesh although 25% of the students in 90 institute which offered ICT courses are female! After one year, in 2016 the number of team raise to 129!

International Girls in ICT Day is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of April. However, BdOSN celebrates this for a month.

In continuation of the effort, BdOSN has taken the following initiatives to celebrate International Girls in ICT.

The programme includes but not limited to

0 Awareness Building

0 Career Talk 

0 Innovation Boot Camp

0 Open House Day, etc

However, as a continuation of Open House Day where girls are taken to visit IT Service Company, software, development Company, call center, development etc to get young women more interested in ICT. On 8th April 2017, we took 12 girls and young women to visit BRAC IT service. Ismat Jahan the senior manager of BRAC IT Service hosted the program. All the senior managers were present there. They shared their stories with the participant. They even invited the girls for an internship on BRAC IT services. The girls were very excited visiting the office.

Asma UL Husna a CSE student said "I'm very glad to Bangladesh Open Source Network for selecting me for this event. I learned a lot from this event."

With the certificate distribution among the participants, the National Girls Programming Camp just turned its curtain off on 20^th May 2017. The ICT division of the government of Bangladesh arranged this 4 days long residential camp in Dhaka for the 42 winners of national girls programming contest. . The General Secretary of BdOSN Munir Hasan and Deputy Secretary Mahbube Panna were present at the closing session. She congratulated the participants for being the winner at the national competition and successfully completed the camp.

Rubaiyat Jalal, a student of class 10 from Rajshahi said this camp will be working as a ground in programming and she will be using the skills and knowledge earned from the camp in the days ahead. ‘Everything in the arrangement was very well organized in the camp’ shared Hasna Hena from Dhaka City College.

Among the others, Mr. B.M.Moinul Hoq, faculty of Dhaka University, the CEO of Dimik Computing School-Tahmid Rafi  and the problem curator of Hacker Rank Mr. Shafayet Ashraf, Labib Roshid; the teacher and problem setter and the CEO of CodeMArshal Mahmudur Rahman conducted the camp.

Its worthy to remark that the ICT Division of the Government of Bangladesh organized an onsite camp on 9th May 2017 at Daffodil University where 16 teams were announced as winners of the contest. Before that, a total number of 384 institutions took part in the online preliminary contest held on 7th March 2017 from where 117 team from 79 institutions were selected based on their performance.

Girls In ICT Day is celebrated to motivate girls and young women to work in ICT sector jobs on 4th Thursday in April all over the world. It's basically a one-day celebration, but here in Bangladesh, we celebrate it over a month. Bangladesh Open Source Network and Bangladesh Computer Council are organizing some event such as Career Fair, Bootcamps, Workshop, Open House Day, Roundtable discussion, online programming competitions, different quiz contest on many high schools to celebrate Girls In ICT Day.

 Bangladesh Open Source Network organized a Career Talk at Central Women's University on 18th May 2017. Shahnaj Parvin, Computer Science Engineering department head of Central Women's University started the seminar with gratings. Munir Hasan, general secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network talked to girls about future available careers. He discussed the skills needed for doing IC sector jobs. In order to get an ICT job, everyone should have 4 skills. These are being updated with the time, critical thinking, problem-solving and teamwork. Tabassum Chowdhury, business development manager and Sarah Kabir, public sector manager of Microsoft were also present there. They shared their experience on Microsoft and what skill require to join Microsoft. Students asked a lot of questions and Tabassum Chowdhury and Sarah Kabir answered all the questions. Sharmin Kabir, BdOSN Program Officer was also present there. She invited all the students to join Open House Day and She promised to organize a Grace Hopper Girls Programing Camp.

 Bangladesh Open Souce Network is organizing many Seminars all over the Bangladesh. It also organizes a lot of programs like Grace Hopper Girls Programming Camp, Ada Lovelace Girls Programming Camp etc. It'll continue organizing camps, seminars, contests etc.

The final round of the National Girls Programming Contest 2017 was held on the 9th of May 2017 at Daffodil International University. A total number of 384 institutions took part in the online preliminary contest held on 7th March 2017 from where 117 teams from 79 institutions were selected for the final contest based on their performance. However, 102 teams finally participated in the final competition.

16 teams from different categories were awarded with medal and achievement certificates.  The top 4 teams and the teams from special categories also earned prize money along with the mentioned above from the contest.

The winners 16 teams are:

Top 13 Team

1. CUET Diamonds And Rust [Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology]

2. NSU_La La Land [North South University]

3.  CUET_Girls Are Pearls [Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology]

4.  BRACU_tsp [BRAC University]

5.  DU_Dreamers [Dhaka University ]

6.  SUST_Joyoti [Shahjalal University of Science and Technology]

7.  SUST_Oporajita [Shahjalal University of Science & Technology]

8.  UIU_Valkyrie [United International University]

9.  CU_Oneiro [University of Chittagong]

10. LU_Dangling_Pointers [Leading University]

11. MBSTU_Starks [Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University]

12. DIU_Heuristic [Daffodil International University]

13. JU_Loosers [Jahangirnagar University]

Special mention from National University

1.      IST_Final_Shoot-out [Institute of Science and Technology]

2.      DCC_Flaming_Girls [Dhaka City College]

Special mention from High School Category

1.      RUSchool_Polaris [Rajshahi University School]

We are glad to mention thatCUET Diamonds And Rust,the Champion of the contest was awarded with BDT 50,000 as prize money while the 1^st runner-up NSU_La La Land [North South University] got BDT 30,000 and CUET_Girls Are Pearls [Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology] got BDT 20,000.