Prepared by: Altruists International

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source

• Prepared by Altruists International BIOS

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Overview of Bangladesh

• Bangladesh is a Small Country of 150k sqm with
  150M people.
• Economy is Agriculture Based.
• Literacy Rate is Less Than 65
• 80 People Lives in Villages.

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
IT in Bangladesh

• Manpower is Cheap.
• Most Business Sector are small.
• 40 Universities
• 10,000 Computer Graduates
• 50,000 Diploma/Trained Professionals
• 120 Software Industries
• 50 Software Integrator
• 20 Developing Houses
• 25 Corporate Solution Providers

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Internet in Bangladesh

• Local ISPs Connected to Internet Backbone with
  VSAT.
• No Submarine Cable Link.
• Almost All ISPs are Dhaka/City Based.
• No High Speed Internet Link To Major Districts.
• University Students Gets Limited Internet
  Facilities.
• Internet Based Open Source Projects are Costly
  for the Freelance Developers

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Language

• Bangla is One Major Spoken Language With 250M
  People.
• 100 People Speaks in Bangla.
• Literacy Rate is Low, So Difficult to Adopt
  English Interface.
• Necessity of Bangla Software With Affordable
  Price Was Felt.
• Open Source Projects are Best Suited in Similar
  Case.

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Demands from Open Source (a)

• Necessity of Bangla Web Solution.
• Necessity of Bangla Database.
• Necessity of Bangla Spell Checker.
• Necessity of Bangla OCR.
• Necessity of Bangla Speech recognition.

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Demands from Open Source (b)

• Bangla-Enabled Operating System and Office Suite
• Bangla Open Type Fonts for Windows and Linux
  Platforms
• Many Open Source Projects are Working with these
  Solution. For Example Bangla Database by BIOS,
  Bangla OCR and Speech Recognition by BIOS and
  Altruists, Bangla Web Solution by Altruists.
  Bangla Spell Checker by Altruists

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Open Source Milestone in Language

• Desktop Publishing is the First Sector That Used
  Computer in Bangladesh.
• ANSI Font and Several Non-standard 8 bit Encoding
  Served the Industry
• Unicode Provided a Global Standard But it Was Not
  Used Because Special OTF Font Necessary For
  Unicode Support
• Mukta Bangla Font, Initiated by Ankur Project was
  Great Project for Workable Unicode font.
• Bangla OTF is One First Open Source Successful
  Project and Microsoft Also Took Reference From it.

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
General Interest and Age Group

• Demands from Non Developer People or Simple
  Computer Users.
• Students from Computer Science
• Students from other IT Education Sections
• Support from IT Related Software Industries and
  Firms
• Why Major Number is Students?

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Government Involvement for IT

• Ministry of Information Technology
• Internet All Over The Country
• Cutting Taxes from ISP License

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
OSS at Government (a)
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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
OSS at Government (b)

• The following 4 departments/ corporations are
  using MySQL for databases

• The Understanding About OOS at the
  Decision-Making Level is Not Much Strong. Some
  System Admin People Understand the Importance and
  are Pushing for it From Their Own Capacities.

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
Academia

• There are Extensive Good Projects Done in
  Different Universities.
• University Research Works are not Published in
  Internet.
• Unification of Research Work is Necessary
• BIOS has Started to Publish Research Works of
  Different Universities in Collaboration with
  Them.
• University Students are Encouraged and Guided to
  Learn Open Source development.
• Altruists are Also Hosting Open Source Projects
  in Their Site.

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
BIOS Plans for Open Source Programs

• Open Source Project Competition in Bangladesh
• Planned National Open Source Convention early
  2004
• Planned International Open Source Convention mid
  2004
• BIOS has a Plan to Arrange a International Open
  Source Conference in Mid 2004 to Encourage
  Different Sectors.

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Bangla Innovation Through Open Source
At Glance

• Information Source
• BIOS Archive (http//bios.org.bd)
• Ankur Project (http//www.bengalinux.org)
• Bangla ICT (http//groups.yahoo.com/group/bangla_i
  ct/)
• Altruists International (http//altruists.org)
• Bangladesh Computer Council (http//www.bccbd.org)
  

• Presentation co-workers
• Anir Chowdhury, BIOS
• Rahat Ayub, BIOS
• Muhammad Shariqul Islam Azad, Altruists
  International
• Sayeed Rahman, Bangla ICT
• Robin Upton, Altruists International
• Hasin Hayder, Ekushey.Org

Text Released under GNU free documentation.