Blog & News

The Khulna Chapter of BdOSN arranged a meetup for open source enthusiasts in Khulna on the 14th of November.

The event started with Sharmin Kabir from BdOSN discussing the purpose and activities of BdOSN. Abu Ashraf Masnun, a local open source enthusiast talked about the importance of open source in the technological advancement of the country. Shuvro Pal, a student of MSc in Khulna University hosted a brainstorming session to collect ideas and feedback from the audience. These ideas will be incorporated into the future events of the Khulna Chapter, BdOSN.

The event celebrated the recruitment of new volunteers with a joyful ceremony and a beautiful cake. The event was coordinated by Procheta Nag, a student of CSE, Khulna University.

The Bangladesh Chapter of Take Back The Tech (TBTT) has started to build resource throughout the country who will be representing TBTT’s sessions at their own campus. After starting the kicks off event in Dhaka, the team is now in Khulna to build campus ambassadors in Khulna University and North Western University.

BdOSN with support from Internet Society (ISOC) Bangladesh Dhaka Chapter is creating a pool of campus ambassadors both in private and public universities. 14 campus ambassadors from the above universities joined in a discussion session with the BdOSN Team on 15^th November 2017 at Khulna University.

The participants got a clear guideline on their rules and regulations as a campus ambassador. The session focused on the importance of forming a team, resources to enhance their knowledge and ongoing activities to spread the importance of cyber security among the female students.

Sharmin Kabir, the program officer of BdOSN and Jesmine Akter, the treasurer of the organization attended the session.  

While violence against women keeps rising in the cyber world, different nonprofit organizations and community activists are coming forward to raise awareness on the issue and help women be safer online. “Take back the tech: Reclaiming ICTS To End Violence Against Women” is one of such initiatives held in Khulna, on the 14th November. Take Back The Tech, Khulna Chapter - BdOSN and Google’s Women Will Khulna chapter arranged this seminar on online security and discussed the best practices to remain safe online.

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) with the support from Internet Society (ISOC) Bangladesh Dhaka Chapter , has arranged this session at Project Head Office, Khulna. 114 students from different universities attended the session and shared their experiences and stories with unpleasant incidents on online.

Domain experts shared tips on enhancing security while also highlighting the possible actions that can be taken when harassed, threatened or hacked. Sharmin Kabir, Program Officer of BdOSN discussed the purpose of TBTT and the support framework it provides. Abu Ashraf Masnun, a senior software engineer highlighted on the technical aspects of online security. Shuvro Pal, the convenor of Women Techmakers Khulna co-ordinate the event and shared his insights.

Procheta Nag, a student from CSE, Khulna University shared her experience of getting hacked and the ways she followed to get rid of this trouble with the audiences. The audiences were very much participatory and wished to have such more events in Khulna in future. 

15 promising girls from 7 university joined at the University of Asia Pacific, Dhaka on 21st October, 2017 to attend the session titled ‘Ensure a Safe Cyber World for Girls & Women: Capacity Building Workshop for Take Back The Tech’ organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) and supported by Internet Society (ISOC) Dhaka Chapter, Bangladesh.

The purpose of the workshop was to enhance the initiative’s capacity through building campus ambassadors in some of the university located in the capital city of the country. Though it was a rainy day, the participants still joined in time and spontaneously participated at the session.

Throughout the session, the participants learnt about the basic internet things including the use of internet, the techniques & tools to be safe online, strategy to safe their campus girls from being cyber bullying and the roles and responsibilities to be campus an ambassador.

Lafifa Jamal, Chairperson at Department of Robotics & Mechatronics Engineering, University of Dhaka, Ms Shaila Rahman, General Manager, Deployment & Projects, Technology of Grameen Phone, Mohammad Kawsar Uddin, General Secretary, ISOC Bangladesh Chapter, Mr. Munir Hasan, General Secretary, BdOSN and Sharmin Kabir, Program Officer, BdOSN were the speakers at the session.

Some of the participants shared their stories and experiences of being bullied or victim of cyber crime. They found the session very effective and promised to work as ‘Campus Ambassador’ in the days ahead.

Shakila Mahjabin Tonni, Lecturer, Dept. of CSE, East West University, Dhaka attended the session. She shared, ‘I have been motivated after joining the session today. Our women need to know about the cyber issues and I believe, they are capable enough to keep them safe from any unpleasant situation happens on online.’ She also shared that she would introduce and arrange such session at her university to create an awareness among the girls studying there.

Sharmin Kabir, Program Officer of BdOSN quoted that this type of arrangement will be continuing in future outside Dhaka. She also shared that the next program will be held in Khulna and Rajshahi in November 2017. 

The importance and demand of Internet of Things (IoT) has rapidly been increasing around the world. To grab this opportunity to build country’s strength on it, there is no alternate way rather working to hone university students’ skills and inspire the high school students to come forward to this field.  

Maksudul Alam Science Laboratory (MAS Lab) in association of Bangladesh Open Source Netwrok (BdOSN) and Society for the Population of Science, Bangladesh (SPSB) celebrated its first boot camp of IoT Fiesta on 5-7 October at Daffodil International University. After regional workshops at 14 educational institutions, 36 students had participated for the boot camp. In the closing ceremony, the former dean of the Department of Engineering of the university Professor Aminul Korim handed over the certificates to the participants. Besides, the former professor of BUET Mr. Jasimujjaman, the CEO of Computer Services Limited Mr. Momluk Sabir Ahmed, the Director & CEO of Datsoft M. Manjur Mahmud, the head of the Department of CSE of the university Professor Sayd Akhter Hossen and the General Secretary of BdOSN Mr. Munir Hasan graced the stage on the ceremony.

The Director of the camp Redwan Ferdous shared, from the 11 Basic Arduio Camps organized in different 11 institutions, we selected 42 participants where 35 students including 8 female students successfully completed the camp. The first day of the camp was visiting different technology companies where these participants got a hands-on experience to work with IoT. He also shared, ‘the participants had a successful demonstration of making smart phone and some other such small devices using the Rasberry pie at the camp.

The organizers shared that the second boot camp of IoT will be organized after having 5 more workshop around the country. 

Hello World Programming Camp has already been flagged up with positive responses from the hosted schools in the country. To isnpire the young students, BdOSN has been organizing this camp inside and outside Dhaka. 

On October 8th, Mainartak High School in Uttara, Dhaka hosted a Hello World Programming Camp. 200 students in two batches participated at the camp. Some very interesting topics including printing something using C language or calculate something using this language was widely been discussed. 

The participants enjoyed the session and they were curious enough to learn more. Faysal Alam Riyad, one of the trainers of the session shared, ' We got unbelievable responses from the participants. They have got all the potential to flourish with programming. They just need mentoring and training well.'

Sharmin Kabir, the Program Officer of BdOSN said,’ We are working hard to make these accessible for all in Bangladesh. Hopefully, by the end of this year, we will be able to bring more students under this umbrella’.

Software is a collection of instructions that enable the user to interact with a computer, its hardware, or perform tasks. Basically, Software is a soul of a computer system. So what can we do with software? Well, the answer is we can do anything with the software. We just have to give the proper instruction for the work needs to be done. How does software relate to happiness? Everyone wants their life to be easier and every piece of software is to make life easier. When life gets easy you get happy.
Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) organized a BdOSN Career Talk with the title of A Journey Towards "Software" Happiness at 24th September 2017. Jhankal Mahbub moderated the seminar. The seminar was hosted by Daffodil International University and held at Auditorium 71. Jhankar Mahbub shared a lot of ways to get into programming and make themselves worthy of software engineer job.

Here's some instruction is given below:
1. You have to have a target plan. Where you want to see yourself after a specific time.
2. You need to have various types of source for learning. Like you are reading a PDF but it's not too hard to get bored by doing the same thing for hours when you get bored you can also learn by watching videos.
3. You have to hold yourself back when you are learning. When you are using Facebook or any kind of social network along with learning you can give your full concentration on learning.
4. You have to control a limited amount of your learning. It can be one hour or two hours. That moment you shouldn't let technology or anything outside control you.
5. Get help from the student who knows more than you. If they don't help you then do some work for them for growing the bonding between you and him.
6. Create a GitHub account and upload all of your code on GitHub. Almost all the jobs available on the market require Job experience. You might not have job experience at first, but you have your GitHub for showing them that you can do the work.
7. Last but not the least, You have to give yourself a prize for finishing a task.

Approximately 500 students attended the seminar. Munir
Hasan, General Secretary of BdOSN and Syed Maruf Reza, Associate Professor and Head of Faculty of Business & Economics was also present at the seminar.
Syed Maruf Reza said, "BdOSN is doing a fantastic working with organizing this type of seminar that inspires students to push their limits on learning."

Arduino is an open source electronics platform accompanied with a hardware and software to design, develop and test complex electronics prototypes and products. The hardware consists of a microcontroller with other electronic components which can be programmed using the software to do almost any task. A microprocessor, RAM and ROM and all the other elements need to run the system are embedded in an Arduino chip. College and university projects can be done by using Arduino easily. Therefore Arduino is very popular among students.

By the Initiative of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN), Science Popularization Society, Bangladesh (SPSB) and MASLab Basic Arduino Workshop were organized in 2 different universities in Khulna. 22nd September in KUET and 23rd September on North Western University, Khulna. A total number of 78 participants participated in The workshops. There were taught Arduino pin configuration, microcontroller, Basic Electronics, controlling LED lights, use of digital pin, Pulse width modulation (PWI), temperature sensor, sonar sensor, servo motor, push button and potentiometer. 10 popular Arduino project was introduced to students. They were also introduced to Internet of Things (IoT). North Western University Vice-Chancellor Professor Tarapad Bhowmik, Registrar Shahidul Islam, Chief Professor of CSE and Professor Nowsher Ali Morol and many more were present at those workshops. Professor Tarapad Bhowmik at the workshop said: "The use of such technology is very important for the present generation because we have to keep pace with the world." He requested MASLab to expand this initiative.

In the end, 10 real life Arduino project was showed and explained how it works. There was a test before ending. Chief Mentor of IoT Fiesta Redwan Ferdous shared "We are trying to make Microcontroller more popular among students. Cause microcontroller is a great tool to work with then it's come to IoT."

To Organize a Basic Arduino Workshop on your campus please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Arduino is a simple microcontroller board and open source development environment that allows you to make computers that drive both functional and creative projects alike. There's a vast community available for Arduino. Therefore information for Arduino is easy to get. Students are making a lot of new things with it to make life easier.

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN), Society for the Popularization of Science, Bangladesh (SPSB) and MASLab organized Basic Arduino Workshop to make it more popular with students at Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST). A total number of 85 students from MIST participated in the workshop.
The workshop started at 9:30 AM and continued until 5 PM.

Brigadier General Zakir Hossain, Colonel Humayun Kabir, Head of CSE Department, MIST., Lieutenant Colonel Mahboob, Lieutenant Colonel Amir Hossain, Lieutenant Colonel S.M. Anisur Rahman, Major Nazrul Islam and Captain Rejwana Sultana was present at the Workshop. Munir Hasan, General Secretary of BdOSN and Momluk Sabir, CEO of Computer Services was also present at the workshop. Besides researching on robotics students used the Arduino development kit to solve small electronic problems. The students were taught hands-on how to use the Arduino to solve problems.There were taught Arduino pin configuration, microcontroller, Basic Electronics, controlling LED lights, use of digital pin, Pulse width modulation (PWI), temperature sensor, sonar sensor, servo motor, push button and potentiometer. 10 popular Arduino project was introduced to students. They were also introduced to the Internet of Things (IoT).

To Organize a Basic Arduino Workshop on your campus please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.