Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Bangladesh/2014

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Report of activities: 2014[edit]

Annual Wikigathering on 21st February in front of Ekushey Book Fair, 2014.
Wikimedians at Pre-Wiki meetup to plan about celebrating Bengali Wikipedia's 10th anniversary.

Wiki gathering at Ekushey Book Fair[edit]

On 21st February, the international mother language day, Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD) and Bangladesh open source network arranged a wiki gathering in front of Bangla Academy gate at Ekushey Book Fair 2014. Over 50 participants attended on the gathering.

Wiki gathering at Pohela Boishakh[edit]

April 14, 2014, Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD) and Bangladesh open source network arranged a wiki gathering in front of Bangla Academy gate to celebrate the Bengali new year, Pohela Boishakh. Altogether, over 20 participants attended on the gathering.

Wikipedia:Meetup/Dhaka/Dhaka17

Wiki meetup at BASIS[edit]

Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD), Bangladesh open source network (BDOSN) and Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) jointly arranged a wiki meetup and adda with a computer scientist and Bureaucrat of Bangla Wikipedia Ragib Hasan at BASIS Auditorium, Karwan Bazar, Dhaka on Wednesday, 28 May, 2014. Ragib Hasan currently lives in Alabama, US and he is an Assistant Professor of Computer Security, University of Alabama at Birmingham. At least 25 participants attended on the meetup.

Pre-meetup to celebrate Bengali wikipedia's 10th anniversary[edit]

A pre meeting was held to celebrate Bengali wikipedia's 10th anniversary on Friday, 22 August, 2014. At least 25 participants attended on the meetup.

Bengali Wikipedians at Wikimeetup Chittagong 2

Second Pre-meetup to celebrate Bengali wikipedia's 10th anniversary[edit]

The second pre meeting was held to celebrate Bengali wikipedia's 10th anniversary on Friday, 06 September, 2014. At least 15 participants attended on the meetup.

Wikimeetup Chittagong[edit]

A wikimedian meetup was arranged by members of WMBD at Chittagong Shilpakala Academy on October 10, 2014. At least 15 participants attended on the meetup.

Nobel Prize Edit-a-Thon[edit]

Nobel Prize Edit-a-Thon event was arranged by members of WMBD at Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) office on Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm. Altogether 10 participants attended on the event.

Wikipedia Contributor Day[edit]

Wikipedia Contributor day - Wikimedia Bangladesh and Grameenphone.

On Sunday and Monday, 16/17 February 2014, Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD) and Grameenphone (a Telenor concern) jointly arranged a two-day long event titled ‘Wikipedia Contributor Day’ with i-Genius students.

Grameenphone/Telenor is a Wikipedia Zero partner. We organized two days of workshops on Bengali Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Grameenphone chose the participants from last year’s i-Genius students, which are selected from all over the country through a year-long program conducted by Grameenphone and the daily newspaper Prothom Alo. Usually one i-Genius is selected from every district of Bangladesh.

The goal of the workshops were to introduce Wikipedia (especially Bengali Wikipedia), and show the attendees how to edit the articles and contribute photographs to Wikimedia Commons. Most participants were new to Wikipedia, but at the same time we found several of them were already contributing to Wikipedia. It was very inspiring for us.

Munir Hasan, President of Wikimedia Bangladesh, conducted the introductory session. Nurunnaby Chowdhury, Nasir Khan and Nahid Sultan conducted workshops and helped the attendees to edit and create new articles and so on. Altogether, over 53 participants attended on the two days of the workshop. We planned for 70 participants, but some of the i-Genius students could not join due to the exam schedule. A few of the interested attendees had experimented with editing Wikipedia, and they had started asking questions to the organizers even before the event was launched!

Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Bangladesh collaboration[edit]

At the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Bangladesh representatives discussed the potential of collaborating on a Bengali language project.

Wikipedia Engagement at University of Dhaka[edit]

On Monday, August 25, 2014 Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD) and Dhaka University IT Socity (DUITS) jointly arranged a Wikipedia workshop at TSC of Dhaka University. The goal of the workshops were to introduce Wikipedia (especially Bengali Wikipedia), and show the attendees how to edit the articles and contribute photographs to Wikimedia Commons. Nahid Sultan, Nurunnaby Chowdhury and Aashaa conducted workshops and helped the attendees to edit and create new articles and so on. Altogether, over 30 participants attended on the workshop. The workshop featured by number of national daily.

Bengali Wikipedia Workshop at State University of Bangladesh[edit]

Bengali Wikipedia Workshop at State University of Bangladesh.

On Tuesday, November 11, 2014 Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD) and State University of Bangladesh jointly arranged a Wikipedia workshop at State University's bijoy auditorium. The goal of the workshops were to introduce Wikipedia (especially Bengali Wikipedia), and show the attendees how to edit the articles and contribute photographs to Wikimedia Commons. Nahid Sultan, Ali Haidar Khan, Tanweer and Aashaa conducted workshops and helped the attendees to edit and create new articles and so on. Altogether, over 40 participants attended on the workshop. The workshop was featured in a number of national daily newspapers.

Milestone[edit]

Annual Wikigathering on 21st February in front of Ekushey Book Fair, 2013.

On 10th June 2014, Wikimedia Bangladesh finally completed its local registration. This marked another big step towards the creation of a Wikimedia Chapter in Bangladesh. We submitted our application for local registration with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies & Firms on May of 2012. We knew that the registration might take some time but we never imagined it will be such a long process that would take so long. We had to wait more than two years before finally receiving the certificate of registration on June 10th, 2014.

Wikimedia Bangladesh is registered at Joint Stock Companies & Firms – Bangladesh under the Societies Registration Act of Bangladesh and our official name is Wikimedia Bangladesh Foundation.

10th Anniversary Press Conference[edit]

Marcus Adaktusson, Director of Communications of Grameenphone, delivering inaugural speech.
Newsmen at the press conference.

Wikimedia Bangladesh arranged a press conference at Bishwo Shahitto Kendro in Dhaka to brief the media and announce two months long activity throughout Bangladesh to celebrate 10th anniversary of Bangla Wikipedia. The event was sponsored by Grameenphone. It was announced at the event that WMBD will arrange university workshop and photowalk at 7 divisional cities in the country. It was also announced that three best Wikipedian from 7 divisions of the country would be selected for the Best Wikipedian award. The best three Wikipedian from accross the country will be rewarded at the 10th anniversary conference to be held in February 2015. The event was covered by most of the television channels and newspapers.

Photos of the press conference: 10th Anniversary Press Conference

Press coverage of the event:

Bengali Wikipedia 10th Anniversary-Divisional Workshop activities reports[edit]