Blog & News

It was a very interactive session titled 'Bringing More Girls and Women in ICT' on 5th March 2017 at EMK Center. The session was arranged to celebrate the International Women’s Day with country’s leading personnel, women and men. Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) had arranged this session with a vibrant participation from different backgrounds of students, entrepreneurs, would-be entrepreneurs and service holders.

The program was started at 5:30pm and continues for next 2 hours. The aim of the session was to encourage girls and women to increase their active involvement in ICT sectors. It was designed a regular motivational program under #missingdaughter initiative of the organization.

Sharmin Kabir, Research Associate & Program Officer of BdOSN started the seminar with an introductory presentation on #missingdaughter where she shared the reasons of taking such initiative, the events and activities taken, struggles and achievements so far with a plan designed for future. She said that ‘we have been learning every day throughout the last 1.5 year journey of #missingdaughter and shaping the program better for the future.’

Lafifa Jamal, Chairperson of Department of Robotics & Mechatronics Engineering,University of Dhaka-RMEDU moderated the session. She also is the vice-president of BdOSN. Her sharing came out with the struggles she has been experiencing to encourage the girls and women in ICT sector. 

There was a pool of panelists including; Farhana A Rahman, Vice-President of BASIS, Senior Vice-President of BASIS, Munir Hasan, General Secretary of BdOSN, Farhana Nazneen, CEO of Jereve Consultant, Nasima Akter Nisha, Director of Corporate Affairs and Achia Nila, Founder of Women in Digital.

Throughout their discussion, they share their personal, professional and moral stories to inspire the participants to be in the ICT.

The participants did enjoy the session. They also spontaneously were sharing their queries, questions and thoughts and asking for suggestion in different topic. The most interesting part was the young participants' eagerness to continue the session even the time crossed its point.

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN); a non-profit organization is working relentlessly to promote science and technology among the girls in Bangladesh. BdOSN has been organizing seminars, workshops, programming contest, boot camp, code sprint etc. throughout the country to popularize the technology among girls and female and engage them in the field of ICT. This time, they have organized “BdOSN Career Talk-Career in ICT for Women in Bangladesh” at Rajshahi University Central Library in association with Rajshahi University Central Library on February27^th, 2017. A total number of 50 participants spontaneously participated in the seminar. One of the participants named Sadia Kabir Dina shared that 'this session had increased the level of her confidence significantly'. Another participant named Nusrat Jahan Nipa happily shared that 'the whole session was very inspiring. Attending this session motivated her to chase her own dream'.

The objective of the seminar was to inspire the girls in Rajshahi to choose ICT or related sector as their career. Professor ShafiqunnabeeSamadi, Director of Central Library, Rajshahi University inaugurated the event with his introductory speech.Professor Md.  Khademul Islam Molla, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Director of ICT Center, University of Rajshahi attended the seminar as the chief guest and keynote speaker. Among other speakers, Mr.  Zaved Parvez, Vice President, HR, RobiAxiata Limited& Founder President of Dreams for Tomorrow; Shaikh Jannatul Moushumy, Admin & HR Executive, raj IT Solutions Ltd and Mohammad Harun Or Rashid, Lecturer, Department of Humanities, RUET were present in the event.The whole program was coordinated and moderated by Kaniz Fatema, Head of Data & VAS, Rajshahi Circle, Grameenphone Limited and Coordinator, Girls in ICT of BdOSN.

The 3 days long programming camp in Asian University for Women has drawn its curtain successfully yesterday, on 25th Febryary. A total number of 32 female students participated in the camp from different university in Chittagong. The university arranged this program with the coordination of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) and Chittagong Open Source Network (COSN).

The participants shared that the evnet was significant for them. They happily shared that they had got an insight of any programming camp from this arrangement and the topic discussed in these 3 days were very helpful for them. 

The organizers are satisfied with the vibrant participation of the women. They shared that #missingdaughter, the initiative of bringing more girls in ICT has been achieving its goal day by day. The initiative startedin the last year and has already got a huge appreciation from the people around. 

The General Secretary of BdOSN Munir Hasan was present in the closing session and in the certificate giving celermony along with some other distinugushed guests. 

To popularize computer programming among the young students in Bangladesh and enhance their skills and prepare them for a competitive programming contest, Premier University, Chittagong has organized a 2 day-long ‘Programming Bootcamp’ on 23-25 February 2017. A total number of 36 students from 6 universities located in Chittagong are participating in the bootcamp.

The university is also going to organize a day-long workshop for the candidates interested to participate in the coming NCPC on 24^th February.

At the same time, Asian University of Woman has also started ‘Grace Hopper Girls Programming Contest’ on 23^rd of February on their premise. The programming contest will be continued till 25^th of February. 32 female students from different universities in Chittagong have taken part in it. 

The programs are being jointly initiated by Bangladesh Open Source Network and Chittagong Open Source Network (COSN).

Mr. Arafater Rahman, the coordinator of the programs shares, ‘The girls in Chittagong are comparatively lagging behind in computer programming competition. To enhance their skills in programming, we have been organizing this year long program under #missingdaugher.’

Sharmin Kabir, the Program officer of BdOSN says, ‘It is true that the number of female students studying CS related subjects are increasing in our country but their participation in the programming contest are not going with the same pace. To make these students interested in competition and improve their skill, we have taken #missingdaughter initiative in the last year and reaching more and more girls throughout the year long program like Grace Hopper Girls Programming Contest and so on around the country.

National High School Programming Contest 2017 is about to start after the success of 2015 and 2016. It will be bigger in scale this year having Children Programming Festival and National Girls Programming Contest with it. Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) will lead the program and in assistance of the Department of Information and Communication Technology.

On 30 January, ICT Division and Bangladesh Open Source Network signed MoU at the ICT Division conference room. The additional secretary of the ICT Division Mr. Harunur Rashid and BdOSN Vice President and Head of the Department of Dhaka University of Engineering Robotics and Mechatronics Ms. Lafifa Jamal and Mr. Munir Hasan, the Joint Secretary of BdOSN signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organizations.

In addition to 16 universities like the previous years, there will be 3 sub-districts for the regional contest. The winners of national contest will participate at the Bangladesh Informatics Olympiad and be selected for the for The International Informatics Olympiad of Bangladesh.

The President of Bangladesh Informatics Olympiad Committee Professor Muhammad Zafar Iqbal said "As National High School Programming Contest and Informatics Olympiad are linked now, the selection for Informatics Olympiad will be more effective. Besides, students from high school and college will be more interested in computer programming".

Deputy Secretary Begum Mahbuba Panna of the Department of ICT, Md Kamruzzaman, BdOSn General Secretary Munir Hasan and Programme Officer Sharmin Kabir and Achila Nila, Founder of Woman in Digital were present at the MoU signing ceremony.

The dates and venue will be shared with all soon. 

National High School Programming Contest 2017 is going to be started very soon. There was a residential training camp for mentors of NHSPC 2017 this month. The two days-long residential training camp started on 5th of January 2017. Mentors from all over the Bangladesh attended this camp. The motivation of this camp was to train the participants how to set problems for programming contest and teaching them how to train the students participants for NHSPC.

The residential training camp started at 10am in the morning at Daffodil International University, Dhaka. Hasnain Heickal (Jami), lecturer at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Dhaka coordinated Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) to organize the camp. There was a number of 40 mentors attended the camp.

At first, Mr. Jami shared how did they manage NHSPC 2016 and they planned to change the management system for this year. He shared that this year there will be 8 coordinators for setting the contest problem and each coordinator will have 4-6 mentors under him. As planned, he divided the mentors into 8 groups. After that, he explained how to set problems and how harder problems will be in NHSPC.

Md. Shiplu Hawlader, lecturer at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Dhaka discussed how to set hard problems. In the following day, the mentors set some problems and collaboratively turn the curtain of the mentors training camp for NHSPC 2017. 

The ICT division of Bangladesh government is supporting BdOSN in orgization of NHSPC 2017. 

Ada Lovelace Girls Programming Camp is a Programming Training Camp for girls from class 6 to college. It's a  camp where girls from high school and college were trained up for computer programming and get a chance to prepare them to participate in the national and international programming contest.

The two days long Ada Lovelace Girls Programming Camp held in Narayanganj Ideal High School. There was 23 Participate from 3 different schools in the camp. As they are newbie in programming, the course was on the basics of computer programming. There were two mentors maintaining the camp. The girls showed their highest interest in programming and they already decided that they would participate in the National School Programming Contest.

Lafifa Jamal Head of the Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, Dhaka University was present at the first day of the camp. She talked to girls about how computer programming important is and how the world depends on computer programming. She also shared her experience in computer programming. Anwar Hossain, the headmaster of Narayanganj Ideal School was present in the certificate giving ceremony. He handed over certificates to all the students by himself.

#Missingdaughter has triumphed the year 2016 with innumerous achievements throughout Bangladesh that has been wrapped up with the 3 days long workshop at Noakhali Science and Technology University. The duration of the Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp was on the 27^th of December 2016 and ended on the 29^th.

The topics covered in these 3 days camp are below:

1. Introduction to programming
2. Girls in Programming
3. Biography of Grace Hoper
4. Biography of 3/4 female
5. entrepreneurs in software
6. Industry
7. Make some fun with brain
8. storming problems (if possible)
9. Show some statistics regarding
10. Girls participation in programming
11. Collect some points raised by
12. Conduct an interactive session
13. (question and answer)
14. Quick Recap of C
15. Control Structure( ifelse, loop, switch)
16. Function
17. Array (Implementation)
18. String (basic operation)
19. Brainstorming Task
20. Solve at least 2 interesting problems.
21. Sorting Algorithm
22. Implementation of a sorting algorithm
23. Searching Algorithm
24. Implementation of a searching Algorithm
25. STL
26. DP
27. Graph Theory

Along with the trainers there, Dr. Noza Ahmed, Assistant Professor of North South University was on Skype and share valuable knowledge with the participants. 

Let’s welcome the new members joined with BdOSN’s journey from Bangladesh Army International University of Science and Technology. After a very successful 3 days long Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp held at the university on the last October, the participants, organizers and local moderators were interested to be a long term members of our initiatives on ICT, Computer Programming, Coding and relevant contests.

Here is the member list with their taken roles:

Apart from them, there are two moderators named:

1. Khalil Ahmmad, Lecturer, Dept. of CSE, BAIUST

2. Meskat Jahan, Lecturer, Dept. of CSE, BAIUST

The two honorable advisors on the board are:

1. Golam Moktadir Nayeem, Assistant Professor, Dept. of CSE, BAIUST

2. Jahidul Arafat, Assistant Professor, Dept. of CSE , BAIUST

To note, the ITU Girls in ICT Facebook page has also covered the BdOSN’s news on the Comilla training camp on their page congratulating our success in raising girls participation in such events by “"Get inspired by the great results Bangladesh Open Source Network is achieving through the Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp (GHGPTC), a 3-day hands-on programming camp which has trained already hundreds of girls in several districts with the aim of covering soon the whole country. #girlsinict”.

Read news here: http://www.bdosn.org/news/63-grace-hopper-girls-programming-training-camp-held-in-comilla

We believe, together we will be able to make Bangladesh a better ICT hub in the days ahead. Thank you for your cooperation and trust on us.