Blog & News

Official blog of Bangladesh Open Source Network

Open House Day at BRAC IT Services Limited

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."

Successfully Held National Girls Programming Camp in Dhaka

With the certificate distribution among the participants, the National Girls Programming Camp just turned its curtain off on 20th 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.

ICT Career Talk held at Central Women's University

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.

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 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.

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 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.

Congratulations the Winner of NGPC 2017!

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 1st 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. 

National Girls Programming Contest Final Round Held on May 9

The National Girls Programming Contest turns its curtain off on the 9th of May 2017 at Daffodil International University. This year also manifestoes a great success of BdOSN’s regular activities like #missingdaugher, Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp, Girls in ICT events and many more in the participants’ number. 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.

Participants from different part of the country ranging from school to university including polytechnic institutions started their registration at 9.00am at the venue. 102 teams finally participated in the final contest.  48 members from 16 teams were given prizes in different categories. CUET_Diamonds & Rust from Chittagong Science and Technology University became the Champions in the contest while NSU_La La Land and CUET-Girls and Pearls owned the 1st and 2nd runner-up respectively in the competition. RRU School_Polaris got a special prize in the school category.

The closing program started at 3.30pm with the presence of the ICT Minister Mr. Junaid Ahmed Palak, MP,  Deputy Secretary Begum Mahbuba Panna of the Department of ICT, the geneticist and science writer Dr. Abed Choudhury, Dr. M. Kaykobad from BUET, the general secretary of BdOSN Munir Hasan, vice-president of the organization Lafifa Jamal and the vice-chancellor of Daffodil International University Professor Dr. Yousuf Mahbubul Islam.

The ICT minister shared that ‘the government of Bangladesh is leading to a digital Bangladesh by inchmeal. Like any other sectors, the women’s participation in the ICT will be equal by 2030.’ He welcomed the young participants to be ready to lead that future Bangladesh with the ICT knowledge.



Dr. Kaykobad said that ‘we have many talented and brilliant students in Bangladesh who have already proven their potential. They just need a platform to fly from now.’

The program had around 500 people in its closing session. Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) was the implementation partner of the program while Judging partner was CodeMarshal.

National Girls Programming Contest Tomorrow

Even though Programming Contest is becoming a tradition but girls are not attending the contests. Bangladesh Open Source Network is organizing National Girls Programming Contest since  2015 to prevent the situation. The final phase of National Girl Programming Contest 2017 will be held on May 9, 2017 at Daffodil International University in Sobhanbagh, Dhaka on the initiative of Government Information and Communication Technology Department.

Bangladesh Open Source Network shared that the event will have 117 teams from 79 institutes. 117 teams out of 363 teams were selected from an online competition held on 7th Match,2017.

The list of the competitive participant will be available here  http://www.nhspc.org/2017/ngpc/final/. All the participant are requested to be present at Daffodil International University at 9 o'clock on 9th May 2017.  The competition will start in the morning and will end by noon and the price giving ceremony will be held in the auditorium on the afternoon.

State Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Junaid Ayyad Palak, MP will be present as the chief guest at the prize distribution ceremony at 3 pm.

The program will be judged by Online judging platform CodeMashall. 

GHGPTC Held in Gopalganj

Grace Hopper Girls Programming Traininh Camp has been achieving its success in every programs. After being held in more than 20 venues, Gracehopper Girls Programming Tarining Camp has been arranged in Gopalganj at Bangubandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sciene and Technology University (BSMRSTU) on 28th and 29th April 2017.

 

Students from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science & Technology University, Satasiya school and Gopalganj Polytechnic Institute participated in the training camp. The students were very enthusiastic in their participation and actively enjoyed the session. 

 

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) has arranged this session in association with Computer Science and Engineering dept, BSMRSTU.

Successfully Held Girls Innovation Boot Camp at Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC)

ITU celebrate International Girls in ICT Day on 4th Thursday of April and accordingly today is that gala day. The difference is we are celebrating girls in ICT for a month with different programme.

Today, to celebrate the day, we have organized a Girls Innovation Boot Camp from 9.30 am to 4:30 pm in the Conference Room of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), ICT Tower, Agargaon.

 

Mr. Mohammad Mahdee Uz Zaman, Director, Virtue Stream, USA and DELL EMC magically engaged the 52 participants came from different part o Bangladesh in the workshop. The participants were taught about some very basic skills of starting a business and it will gradually proceed with transforming an Idea into a Product.

The Girls Innovation Boot Camp earned its highest success in terms of participants' active interaction, learning and sharing. One of the participants came from Chittagong shared that, though she was a student of MBA, but attending the session did not make any difference for students with non-IT background.

 

These girls will be under a yearlong mentorship so they can continue their activities here.

The participants were handed over certificates at the end of the workshop in presence of General Secretary Mr. Munir Hasan, Abed Chaudhury, the Bangladeshi geneticist and science writer living in Australia, Mr. Ananya Raihan, CEO of Dnet and representatives from Bangladesh Computer Council and ICT Division.  

This workshop under International Girls in ICT has been organized by Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN), Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), BWIT and BRAC IT Services Limited (BiTS) and co-organized by ASUS, Genex and JoomShaper. Chakri dot com is the career partner of the program.

Open House Day Starts on 25th April with JoomShaper Visit

Bangladesh Open source Network (BdOSN) started celebrating International Girls in ICT Day 2017 on 21st April 2017.

Along with other programs to celebrate the occasion, ICT Open House Day (Seeing is Believing) is one of them that aims to help the women to be introduced with the ICT companies and organization.

On 25th April, the first visit was at JoomShaper, one of the leading Software Companies. There were 8 visitors in total visited the place.

The Founder & CEO of JoomShaper Mr. Kawshar Ahmed explained how he started his company with the visitors. He also shared with the girls that he is currently looking for an experienced & skilled worker for his team and he shared the opportunity of women to work in such fields.

Mr. Rayhan the technical writer of JoomShaper gave  a brief about how to be technical writer & all the things.

There were participants from AIUB, BRAC University and national university. Jesira Sultana from AIUB shared her opinion quoting that the visit was very effective for her. She had seen the real environment of a software company that she dreams to build her career in. Umme Hanie Esha from National University was very excited sharing that ‘ I never have visited any IT company but being here today made me very motivational to build my career in the IT field.

Farhana Sharmin Tithi, the coordinator of the visit from BdOSN expects that the visit will have create an effect on the participants’ views and planning of an IT company. Arranging such future session could bring more girls in the ICT fields, she expects. 

Ruby Conference held at Dhaka

On 22nd April RubyConf Bangladesh 2017 was arranged by Ruby Community Bangladesh at University Grant Commission Auditorium, Dhaka. Around 150 developers have participated in this conference. On this daylong program 10 tech talks was presented by expert rubyists. Nascenia & BdREN were gold sponsor of the conference & BDOSN assisted as partner.

 


Experts discussed about different frameworks of Ruby, especially Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Rails is a popular full stack web application development framework, which allows us to launch a web application really fast. Popular products like airbnb.com, slideshare, Github are developed using Ruby on Rails. Biyeta.com, ishkul.com are one of few sites in Bangladesh that are built using this framework.

Judging from the eagerness & enthusiasm of the participants, undoubtedly Ruby on Rails is emerging as a popular framework in Bangladesh. The objective of the program was to develop network among Ruby community & to encourage new programmers.

In future, the organizer RubyBD wants to arrange the program at a larger scale.