Blog & News

To celebrate the CSE Week 2017, BdOSN had organized a session on titled 'Girls Programming Adda: Beyond the Horizon with Bristy Sikder' on 23rd December 2017 at World University of Bangladesh. 32 young femlae students studying at different universities inside and outside Dhaka attended the sesson and engaged in a cheerful discussion.

Brist Sikder, now studying at MIT is an awardee of World Renowned Female Programmer and got chnace at 14 world renowned universities while she was trying for abroad study. This brilliant brain joined today at the session. She discussed with details of doing well in programming, keeping on tract while programming and many things relevant to be a good programmer. 

Tripty, a participant from a private university shared that she enjoyed the session very much and believed that this session would be a great help to her.

CSE week 2017 is jointly been celebrated ISOC. This celebration's Gold Sponsor is ADN group, Silver Sponsor is Leadsoft, Bronze Sponsors are Sure Cash & DohaTech and laptop partner Dell. 

Over the year, the majority of ACM-ICPC world finalists from Bangladesh has been dominated by the male students whereas the female contestants are still hard to put in an equality measure with the male participants. To lessen this huge gap created over the years and bring out more talented female coders , NSU ACM-W SC is proud to take up the initiative to create a platform to patronize the talented female students in programming field of our country.

And for this, the only officially ACM chartered student chapter for female students of the country, NSU ACM-W SC is here to gladly present the first ever “Inter University Girls’ Programming Contest 2018” (NSU-IUGPC’18). The event is co-organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) and Prothom Alo is its associate partner. 

There will be a preliminary contest on 5th January, 2018 on the basis of which the final 70 teams and five teams from NSU will be selected to compete in the final contest on 26th January, 2018. 

Important Dates:

Preliminary Contest (Free):
Registration starts: December 17, 2017
Registration Deadline: December 31, 2017

Registration link: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_Jurz0Sw66FOKzvgmv-34OSopu_5ZWJgY0_MzGL8XC8

Main Contest:
Date : 26th January, 2017
Registration : To be announced 
Venue: North South University, Dhaka
Registration fee : 
BDT 1,500 (non-NSU students)
BDT 1,000 (NSU students)

Team Requirement:
Three Female Members from the same University.

The Program Officer of BdOSN Sharmin Kabir shared that this initiative will take the university students' programming skills to a higher level. The female students will use the best of this platform-she expressed.

To get update, keep in touch with https://www.facebook.com/bdosn/

Youth is the power a country and only youth can bring changes to a country and also can ensure a prosperous future. BdOSN believes in the power of youth and for this purpose they decided to work with them. To make a platform where youth can work together as a team, BdOSN arranged a volunteer orientation on 18 November at their head office.

The event was about gathering some young university students to work as a team for the next projects of BdOSN. 9 promising students from different universities attended the event and got themselves involved as volunteer of BdOSN by promising that they will be working for the projects that BdOSN organizes for the development of Bangladesh. In this volunteer meet up, they discussed about the overall projects of BdOSN and got to find a long list of development projects which BdOSN deals with. To make more progress of these projects, they shared their ideas individually and explained that how it could be formed to be more effective. They also gave ideas about new projects and willing to make those essential projects happen through BdOSN. Different volunteer had different choice of platform to work, so they shared their working platform and vice-versa.

The program officer of BdOSN Ms. Sharmin Kabir welcomed the young volunteers by cutting cake together. They all decided that they will arrange more meet ups and will work throughout the country together.

The second session of Take Back The Tech-Dhaka held on 17 November at the campus of World University to raise awareness among the University students. The campus ambassadors from first session of TBTT and some curious and self-conscious girls of World University attended the event to know more about cyber crime and how to get protected for all cyber activities to stay safe and secured.

The purpose of that event was to raise awareness on the way violence against women is occurring on ICT platforms such as the Internet and mobile phones, and to call for people to use ICT in activism to end violence against women and also for continuing this process to gather more girl to be in a unit for fighting against this issue. In this event the campus ambassadors of 7 University came with their teammates and also brought a survey report, based on the subject of cyber crime to make sure that how many girls in their campus are safe and how many are victims.

To keep girls safe, Sharmin Kabir the program officer of BdOSN shared some information about how to be safe on social media and how it should be form to be protected from stalkers and hackers. She also added some tactics that everybody should follow before every activity on online. For this effective and informative event, World University awarded her and expressed their satisfaction and support for the community.

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.