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Standing in the current socioeconomic context, women entrepreneurs are working to accelerate Bangladesh's economy. As an entrepreneur, women's access to the economy is creating employment for both female and male workers. Besides, the example of women empowerment is spreading. International Women's Entrepreneurship Day is celebrated worldwide on 19^th November every year to honor all women entrepreneurs around the world and at the same time inspire new entrepreneurs.

In line with the whole world, “Chakri Khujbo na Chakri Debo”, an initiative of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN), celebrate this day every year. In this year, celebration also held with the association of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department of Daffodil International University on 19^th November, 2019. Around 200 female entrepreneurs participated in this celebration with a festive mode.

In this celebration, Ms. Parveen Mahmud, Chairperson of Shasha Denims Ltd., and MIDAS (Micro Industries Development Assistance and Services) presented there to encourage all our female entrepreneur. She hope that women will come forward to become entrepreneurs in the future.

This year, Bangladesh Open Source Network (BDOSN) was assisted the event. Other partners were Shoily, Amber IT and Dhaka FM.

This year's logo board was ornamented by Adarsha, Afrajan, Akhi’s Collection, Baharica, Bangladesh University, BD Assistant, Begum, Bohu Bangladesh, Brianna, Creative IT Institute, Creative Soft Technology, Dhara, Digital Uddokta, Deshi Food, Doll’s House, e-Currier, Ella, EDC, Feminino, MM Plastic Industries Limited, Fusion Fashion House, Garner Stationery, Grihobodhu, Global Emerging Technology Limited, Grassroots, Jahan International School, Kid's Wheel, Kalparaj, Cory.com, Labanna Crafts, Friends, Moner Bondhu, Purfee, Panasia, Rockets Courier, Seasons Boutique, Shabbab Leather, Shajgoj, Shaon Crafts, Shop Queen, Suddho Krishi, Tori Axim, Trina’s Closet, Tripbuddies, University Of South Asia, V Book and Writu.

After a great success of achieving Million Development Goals which incorporates universal access to education by all levels, Bangladesh focuses on introducing the technology-led educational system for our young fellows. In all sphere of society, students are in need of attaining technological skills by which they can thrive in a world of rapid technological advancement. Following this, Bhangura, one of the remote villages of Pabna has experienced “Education and Technology Festival” on October 23, 2019 with the active participation of four hundred students from 19 high schools of the village, Bhangura. This was the very first festivity took place in the history across the entire region.

In the morning of the day of the festival, students and teachers from all the schools attended the festivity with the national anthem and great enthusiasm. The flag was hoisted by the President of Jarina Rahim Girls’ High School, Engineer Dr. Masud Mohammad Zahid Hassan and the head teacher Md Faruq Hossain. Attending the festival, District Education Officer SM Moslem Uddin exclaimed in joy that more and more students would be encouraged by arranging such events for school going students in Vangura. Shortly afterwards, the festival was inaugurated by blowing the balloon.

The festival was designed with the Math Olympiad Competition, Science Quiz Competition, Debate Competition, Exhibition of Robotics, Poster Presentation of science project, Programming Competition and so on. There were a special arrangements for the teachers of those schools. All the teachers of those schools participated in a workshop arranged by the “Education and Technology Festival” committee.  

Math Olympiad Competition: Remove the Fear of Math

Math Olympiad is organized to strengthen the base of mathematics of these school going students which will help to grow an intense interest by removing their fear of math. Md. Hojaifa Islam from Mamtaz Mostafa Ideal School, Arpana Ghosh from Government Bhangra Union High School and College and Sanjida Khatun Simi from Hasina Momin Girls High School won the Secondary category by participating in the Mathematics Olympiad. The winners in the junior category were Al-Arfan of Government Bhangra Union High School and College, Md. Jewel Rana and Md Mehrab Hossain Mithu of Char Bhangura Lower Secondary School.

Robotics has Brightened up the Festivity

The special attraction of this festival was the Exhibition of Robotics by students of Jarina Rahim Girls’ High School for the festival. They showed their line follower robot to everyone by operating this on a specific line and answered various questions from the audience. These students of the school took part in the 2nd Bangladesh Robot Olympiad national event held at Dhaka University on September 5, 2019.

Coding Fun Grabbed the Interest of the students

In the other section of the festival, some of the students participated in a Programming Contest. Adamaria High School's Md. Limon Islam, Md Hojaifa Islam and Md Mamun Ali's team got the championship in the programming competition from the students attending the festival. It is mentioned that they took part in the festival by crossing the beel by boat for about two hours. The leader of the winning team, Md. Limon Islam said, "The main reason for their success is the active participation in the programming camp organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network and also their regular practice”.

The first runner-up in the tournament was the team of  Nusrat Jahan, Halima Khatun and Seema Khatun from Pukurpar Ideal High School. The second runner-up was the team of Bhangura Jorina Rahim Girl's High School consisted with Jaima Jarin, Nausaba Asfin Saba and Jannatun Ferdous Tur.

Note that, Bangladesh Open Source Network arranged a programming camp on 30 September, 2019 with the students from four schools of Bhangura, Pabna. 

Science Quize

Winners of science quiz from secondary category contest are Mamtaz Mostafa Ideal School Utsho Ghosh, Antar Ahmed of Ashtamanisa High School and Nusrat Jahan of Kandi High School.

The winners in the junior category were Sumayia from Moidan Dighi High School, Md. Bahauzzaman and Md. Abdus Sami of Government Bhangra Union High School and College.

Debate Competition

Participating the debate, Nadia Mehzabin, Tasnim and Ms Masuma Jannat of the Government Bhangra Union High School and College got the championships. The best speaker was Jannatul Ferdous Usha of Ashtamnisa High School. Munir Hasan, general secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network, Sajjadur Rahman Chowdhury, Executive Director of Bangladesh Freedom Foundation and Dr. Jasimuzzaman, Country Director of the Volunteer Association for Bangladesh, encouraged the winners to wear the medals and display the certificates.

Workshop for Teachers

In addition, special workshop for teachers were arranged by the mathematics and science teachers from the registered schools of the festival. In this workshop, teachers were trained on how to make any science and math topics interesting to our students and how to involve them in an interactive lecture in the class.   

Poster Presentation of Science Project

At the end, students of Jorina Rahim Girl's High School displayed posters made of science on the school ground and answered various questions on that topic to the audience.

It is mentioned that, on 22 and 23 February 2019, students from Jarina Rahim Girls’ High School participated in the activity of BdOSN titled ‘Kudrat-e-khuda Science Camp’ which was held as the activation of the 6^th Children Science Congeress-2019. This activation aimed to spread the concept of science project and research among the students.

In the afternoon, the open stage of the school announced the results of the winners. Upazila Secondary Education Officer Mr. Md. Saiful Islam, Upazila Secondary Academic Supervisor (Education) Rita Rani Pal, Principal of Government Haji Jamal Uddin Degree College, Mr. Shahiduzzaman were also present at the festival.

The schools participating in the festivals were- Government Bhangra Union High School, Bhangra Junina Rahim Girl High School, Ashtamanisa Union High School, BB School & College, Hasina Momen Girls High School, Patulipara High School, Bheramara Udayan Academy, Par Bhangra Union Lower Secondary School, Char Bhangra Lower Secondary School, Mamataj Mostafa Ideal High School, Choto Vishkhola High School, Rupsi High School, Karatkandi High School, Maidan Gariya High School, Pukurpar Ideal High School, Sultanpur High School, Dohpara High School, Dilpasher High School and Adabaria High School.

Regarding organizing the festival, Dr. Masud Md. Zahid Hasan, president of Jorina Rahim Girls’ High School commented that such programs would be organized regularly from now on to encourage the students of Bhangra.

Note that, this “Education and Technology Festival” is jointly organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network and Internet Society, Bangladesh Chapter. As an association with Kazi IT Limited and Computer Services Limited. The overall cooperation was with Amber IT, Volunteer Association for Bangladesh, Bangladesh Science Popularization Association, Maksudul Alam Science Laboratory, Biggan Baxo and Nagaraik Television.

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) started an initiative with 18 female students from Bhangura Jarina Rahim Girls’ High School aiming to bring rural girls into the spotlight of science and technology and to increase their participations and involvement in this field by visiting the most renowned IT Companies and some of our historical places. This initiative was supported by KAZI IT Center. To expand this interest of science and to hold the continuation of this effort among those students, BdOSN organized a science camp “Kudrat-e-khuda Science Camp” on 22 February, 2019, celebrated a six day long Technology Week on 25 August to 1 September, 2019. After the preliminary preparation through this week, students of this village attended a two day Residential Camp in Dhaka just before the Robot Olympiad, 2019 and participated in the 2^nd National Robot Olympiad on 5^th & 6^th September, 2019.   

With the association of Amber IT and Internet Society Chapter, BdOSN has brought the fiber optic connection to Bhangura Rahim Girls’ High School. With this connection, there held a two days Programming Camp on 30 September and a Competitive Programming Contest on 23 October in which nineteen teams of sixteen schools from this village participated in this programming contest on 23 October. And in recent time BdOSN has started an online live class in Sheikh Rasel Digital Lab in Jarina Rahim Girls’ High School at Bhangura which is conducted from the capital city Dhaka. This live class will continue with the title of ‘Connecting a Village to Digital Education’.

It’s terribly unfortunate that even in this day and age, women have yet to be completely incorporated in the tech world. The territory is still considered male-dominated, with women occupying less than 30% of tech jobs. To bring a change in this scenario, there should be a great contribution from both govt. and non-govt. sector. From this concept, ICT camp was organized specially for women at New Model University College under the initiative of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) on 12^th November, 2019.  A total of 92 undergrad female students of this college participated in this camp. This camp was designed with four sessions throughout the day. The camp was inaugurated by Md. Ruhul Amin, Principal of the college. Also present were Mahmudul Hasan Rizvi, head of the college's computer science and engineering department, and Jasmine Akhter, assistant program officer of BdOSN.

The first session of the camp was "Career Opportunities and Growth at BPO for Women". This session includes the brief discussion about the opportunity for women in the workplace of BPO industry. Sabrina Haque, Process Head of BPO Operations and Quality Control Management of Impel Service and Solutions Limited, a leading BPO company in the country, has conducted this session. Sabrina Haque commented that a woman can work in this field only if she has the mentality of team management, spontaneous attitude, the mentality of proving herself and basic knowledge of information technology. Science or non-science, students of any department can build their position in BPO industry with basic knowledge of information technology.

Achia Nila, the founder of Women in Digital, also conducted the second session of the camp to unveil the huge door that opens the door to women's work in the information technology workplace. This session was entitled with “Opportunities for girls and women in ICT World”. In the current age of information technology, women are now working in equal rhythm with men, using skills such as artificial intelligence, block chains, big data, programming, etc. She encourages students to become entrepreneurs by applying their innovative thinking.
She also cited the example of his own organization as all the workers of her organization is female. She mentioned that there are many jobs being created for women in Bangladesh. All they need is women skills and awareness as well.”

Another session on digital marketing titled “Digital & Social Media Marketing as a Career” was conducted by Ruhul Amin Rony, Head of Digital Communications at SSL Wireless. He has been working with digital marketing for more than 10 years. He gives students a complete idea of ​​how easily product acceptance can be increased through market analysis.

The last session of the camp on graphics design and freelancing was conducted by Emrazina Islam, co-founder of Emrazina Technologies. The session was entitled with “Graphic Design to Freelance Career Design-A path to discover”. She gave students ideas on the topics of graphics design and freelancing. Women are now opting for areas like outsourcing through image editing, logo design, etc. She said that anyone starting with a basic idea can build a career in this industry.

Beside the ICT camp, a three-day long programming camp and a career talk has been organized in this college. Programming Camp named Grace Hopper Girls Programming Camp has been organized with 41 participants where 31 participants are female students on 13, 14 and 16^th November, 2019. Through this camp students acquired knowledge on the programming language, online contest, online platform and online judge. After this camp, students took place in an online programming contest. The winner of this contest were awarded with certificates and crests.

To provide a clear concept about what the current and future profession might look like and the required skill for surviving this new world of technology, a career talk has been organized in the same college on 16^th November. Munir Hassan, head of Youth Program, Daily Prothom Alo and general secretary of BDOSN conducted this event.The prevailing trend of the current job, half of it will disappear within the next few years. There will be new workplaces where there are only opportunities for technical job such as Big Data, Machine Learning, Block Chain, Cyber ​​Security, Data mining or Artificial Intelligence. The market will occupy around 1 crore new jobs in the next 20 years. Munir Hasan said that those who prepared themselves, they would survive in the world of technology. He told the students that in order to survive the next day, you must be a problem solver. If you can find a smart solution to those problems which exist in all around, then there will be entrepreneurs, chip designers, robotics experts, cyber specialists or data scientists.

Public university students have many opportunities to prepare themselves for the current job market, but students of national universities are lagging behind. With that in mind, BdOSN has organized an ICT camp, a three-day long programming camp and a career talk. Under the three years project uner BdOSN aims to promote a pool of skilled women worker who can lead the future economy of our country. 

On 2 November, 2019 Grace Hopper Girls Programming Camp was held at Z. H. Sikder University of Science & Technology in Shariatpur. A total of 36 undergraduate female students of Computer Science and Engineering Department of the University are participating in this camp organized by the Bangladesh Open Source Network (BDOSN).  Due to the lack of practical application of the knowledge acquired by the students in our current textual education system, female students cannot be able to enter the work market. As a result, many female students drop out before entering the workplace. Therefore, if it is possible to empower these women students before entering the workplace, then women workers can contribute immensely to advance Bangladesh in information technology.

From this idea, BDOSN has started a 3-year project where our female students from graduation level are brought to the umbrella of the education of information a communication technology and make them more skilled in IT sector.

In this connection, a two-day camp at the University of Science and Technology in Shariatpur provides a basic knowledge to solve any practical problems through coding to the students. The first day of the camp, students learned about the programming language what they need to understand any problem in programming and the concept of online platform and online judge in which a programming contest is occurred. And all day long they receive the training on how to solve a problem in a contest. The next day of the camp on 3^rd November, they participated in an online programming contest where they had to solve some problems provided by the assigned mentor. On the basis of the performance of the students, first three position holder students were awarded by certificates and crests.

University's computer science and engineering department chairman and assistant professor Mahfuzur Rahman and lecturer Alamgir Hossain were present there. The camp is headed by BDOSN's mentors Humayun Kabir and Masud Parvez.

After the day, a hands on job preparation workshop was held at that university to spread the information of our ICT based workplace among the female students so that they would not be puzzled after their graduation. Around 20 female students participated in this workshop.

A job preparation workshop was held at Northern University Mirpur Road campus located in Dhaka. Beside the workshop, BdOSN’s 15^th birthday has been also celebrated in 24 October, 2019. Assistant Professor and Co-ordinator of the Faculty of Business, Md. Shariful Islam, inaugurated the event. Along with senior lecturer of the university Farzana Chowdhury, lecturers Oli Ullah Chowdhury and Mariyama Muafa were present there. BdOSN’s Chief Coordinator and Northern University Senior Lecturer Mahbuba Moni and Program Coordinator Muntasir Morshed were also present there.

After the inauguration, the job preparation workshop was started for the 53 undergraduate students of the university. This workshop provides a thorough idea of ​​what skills are required before entering the workplace. The number of unemployed is increasing in the country due to lack of necessary skills even after completing studies at university level. Besides, there is limited participation of girls in the workplace. Many women students cannot enter the workplace even if they reach the university through social taboo and obstacles. For this reason, a survey by BdOSN found that these women drop out after the end of the study due to lack of proper guidance and skills. Bangladesh Open Source Network (BDOSN) has been working from the beginning to reduce the number of educated unemployed and degraded women. In its continuation, BDOSN has started the "Missing Daughter" program where various skills development training, job-preparation workshops, career talk, internships or 2-to-3-day job attachments etc. were organized to ensure the female presence in the workplace. Under this "Missing Daughter" program, Bangladesh Open Source Network is running a three-year project to make women skilled. Assistant Professor and Co-ordinator of Northern University Md. Shariful Islam said, "If women can prepare themselves for the workplace before the end of their studies, both women and men can equally contribute to the sustainable development of the country." He appreciated all its activities. The event was conducted by Shakhira Afroz, Asst. program officer of BdOSN. 

Having practical knowledge for a successful professional career is a must in the present context.  In this respect, a Job Exposure Visit can serve the purposes aligned to it by the motto of “Seeing is believing”. The students of City University totaling 20 got this opportunity to visit one of the most renowned BPO Company, Genex Infosys Ltd situated at Nikunja, Dhaka.

ESDG project of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) has recently organized a Job Exposure Visit on 22 October, 2019 as a part of job placement with 20 female students of different levels of CSE department of City University. On the other hand, Genex, part of the IPE Group UK, is the leading outsourcing providers of customer experience management and trusted by world’s leading brands where they achieve results through transforming their clients' businesses with delivering excellence in customer experience. Moreover, they are experts in people interactions which gives them the edge in delivering a superior customer experience in every contact.

Two-day Grace Hopper Girls’ Programming Camp held at Comilla University, Comilla at 16 & 17 October and Pundra Science and Engineering Technology, Bogra at 21 & 22 October, 2019. These camps were organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN).

This camp is organized mainly to improve the skills of programming for undergraduate female students. Now-a-days women students are not entering the workplace due to lack of proper skills while studying at university level with science and information technology. And BDOSN is working towards that goal.