Abbreviation WikimediaBD Founded at Dhaka, Bangladesh Legal status Active Founded 3 October 2011 Area served Bangladesh Type of business Nonprofit organization | Founder Wikimedia community Registration no. S-11906 President Ali Haidar Khan Affiliation Wikimedia Foundation Number of volunteers 50 | |
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Formation 3 October 2011 (2011-10-03) Profiles | ||
Wikimedia Bangladesh Foundation (aka Wikimedia Bangladesh or WikimediaBD) is a registered charity established to support volunteers in Bangladesh who work on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. It is a Wikimedia chapter approved by the Wikimedia Foundation which owns and hosts those projects.
Contents
The chapter has several collaborations with educational and other institutions and has organized events for the volunteers aimed at adding content to Foundation projects.
It has a temporary office in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
History
It was approved by Wikimedia Board of trustees at October 3, 2011 and was the 39th local chapter to be approved by the Wikimedia Foundation board. After two and half years letter, it was registered at Joint Stock Companies & Firms – Bangladesh on June 9, 2014 under the Societies Registration Act of Bangladesh and its official name is Wikimedia Bangladesh Foundation.
Board members
As of January 2016, the Board members comprises:
Activities
Wikimedia Bangladesh has organized or supported several volunteer efforts to contribute to Foundation projects. In 2012 it organized a Bangla Wikipedia Unconference is the first ever big-level, conference like outreach event in Chittagong, Bangladesh. This open event was attended by around 300 participants and a good number of schools, colleges, and universities of Chittagong. The event was named after Bangla Wikipedia to promote the biggest Bengali language Wikimedia project, Bengali Wikipedia.
On 13th November 2013, Wikipedia Zero was officially launched in Bangladesh. Carolynne Schloeder, Director of Mobile Programs of Wikimedia Foundation joined press conference. Also, representatives from top three mobile operators of Bangladesh - Grameenphone, Banglalink and Robi were present at the press conference along with Wikimedia Bangladesh board members.
One such effort was the 10th anniversary celebration of Bengali Wikipedia in 2015. Bengali Wikipedia had completed ten years on January 27 in 2014. To celebrate this historic milestone a gala evening was held at Radisson Blu Dhaka Water Garden on 26 February, 2015, which event was organized by Wikimedia Bangladesh and sponsored by Telenor. Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikimedia Foundation presented as a chief guest of the program. This event was attended by around 300 invited participants including Wikimedians and other respected guests from different universities as well as from the government. New Wikimedia contributors from seven divisions of Bangladesh also awarded in this event.
In the 2015, there are another celebration as the Bangla Wikipedia 10th Anniversary Conference 2015 was held on 30th May 2015 at Daffodil International University in Dhaka. About 300 Wikipedians from Bangladesh and West Bengal of India attended the conference. State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak of ICT Division of the People's Republic of Bangladesh was present at the conference. Eminent writer and journalist Anisul Hoque was present during the award giving ceremony.
Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Bangladesh collaboration
In 2014, at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin Stevie met with representatives from Wikimedia Bangladesh to discuss the potential of collaborating on a Bengali language project.