Looking back: Bangla WikiConference 2024

When I sat down to write this article for Diff Blog, it had already been half a year since the Bangla WikiConference. But the memories are still fresh in my mind. When the WikiConference ended, I had thought that I would write the article on the Diff Blog half a year after the end of the WikiConference. Today’s article is on the occasion of the half-year anniversary of the Bangla WikiConference.

Before the Bangla WikiConference, I had never participated in any WikiConference. So I was very excited before the WikiConference. When I first came to know in July that the application for the Bangla WikiConference had started, I applied for the scholarship that day. I got the scholarship in the first step. After that, the countdown continued.

November 13, 2024. I finished all the preparations to participate in the conference. I planned to go to the WikiConference together with another Wikimedian, Mohammad Joni Hossain.

November 14, 2024. Pre-conference day. We left Dhaka with some Wikimedians for the conference venue in Gazipur. Our conference was scheduled to be held at Dream Square Resort, Mawna, Sreepur, Gazipur. At 1:30 PM, the minibus left Dhaka with us and left for Gazipur. During the journey in the minibus, we briefly introduced ourselves to everyone in the minibus. (I have to say, I was most surprised to see Khattab Hasan. I was completely amazed!) The entire journey was spent in laughter, chat, stories, discussions about Wiki, etc.
We reached the resort shortly before evening. Upon reaching the resort, I checked in. I was already acquainted with my roommate Hasnat Abdullah. After a brief conversation with him, I entered the room with the room key.

After the evening, a few Wikimedians and I went out to explore the resort together. During this time, I also met some new Wikimedians. We toured the resort and then visited the conference room. At that time, gift items for the next day were being arranged in the conference room. We also got to work at that time. Then we talked about various topics on the ground floor of the conference room building for a while. However, I returned to my room because I felt sick.

At night, almost all the participants of the conference were present during the welcome dinner. At that time, we had a lot of conversations about Wikimedia. After dinner, we went out to explore. We observed the beautiful view of the entire resort from the top of the watch tower. Later, we joined the chat under the watch tower. After finishing the chat, I returned to my room.

The next morning, I was preparing for the first day of the conference. After having breakfast, I joined the conference. After collecting my ID card, I joined the program. I got some important information about the conference in Nahid Sultan’s opening keynote. A representative from the conference venue Dream Square Resort briefed us about the conference venue. Then, Mr. Faizul Latif Chowdhury, former Director General of Bangladesh National Museum and Wikimedian, conducted a very important session. Mr. Chowdhury was the oldest Wikimedian among us, contributing to Wikimedia since 2009. So, I knew that his session would be interesting and exciting. But I could not have imagined that he would have such a beautiful session. I was fascinated listening to Mr. Chowdhury the whole time.

Then, after finishing the panel discussion of the administrators of Bangla Wikipedia, I went for a tea break. But due to my body not supporting me, I did not return to the conference room after the tea break and went straight to my room. Later, when I felt a little better, I offered Friday prayers and had lunch and came to the conference room.

At that time, the session was going on in the Legend Meeting Room, while the hackathon was being held in the Ivory Meeting Room. I had previously completed the registration to participate in the hackathon. We went to the hackathon room and completed some work. We had to suffer a lot because the Wi-Fi connection was unstable. However, since we had data on our phones, we somehow completed the work with data.
After finishing the hackathon, we returned to the Legend Meeting Room and took a group photo. Thus ended the first day of the conference.

On the second day, I woke up a little late because I was unwell the night before. After eating, I quickly reached the conference venue, but I was about an hour and a half late. Assamese Wikipedia contributor Pranamika Adhikari spoke about Assamese Wikipedia. In her session, she briefly discussed Assamese WikiPotrika (Comparable to Signpost), which caught my attention. Later, after participating in some more sessions, we went for a lunch break. Many good photos were taken during the lunch break photo session, one of which is the signature photo of the Bangla Wikimedia Conference 2024.

Then we went for lunch. While eating, I finished some unfinished work of the hackathon, because the hackathon showcase was supposed to be held in the session after the meal. After eating, I quickly went to the Legend meeting room. In the meantime, I finished the unfinished work of the hackathon.

In the hackathon showcase, first Yahya and MdsShakil (both are now Wikimedia stewards! Yahya was already a steward and MdsShakil was elected as a steward this year) displayed their work. Then Khattab Hasan displayed our work through a presentation. This was the first hackathon in Bengali, so there was definitely a possibility of many shortcomings. But we were able to successfully complete the entire hackathon.

After the hackathon showcase, language technology expert Mr. Mamun Rashid gave a session on Bengali language technology. I was amazed by the work of Mr. Rashid and his colleagues. Personally, I am very optimistic about their projects and I think that if Mr. Rashid and his team are able to succeed, it will be an unprecedented milestone for Bengali language technology.

Finally, Shabab Mustafa, President of Wikimedia Bangladesh and a member of the main organizing team of the Bangla WikiConference, gave a short awareness talk on the Wikimedia movement and political philosophy. In his speech, Shabab Mustafa identified the relationship between the Wikimedia movement and political philosophy and discussed how to edit Wikipedia and its sub-projects without bias.

After this session, a cake was cut to mark the 20th anniversary of Bangla Wikipedia. The cake cutting officially concluded the Bangla WikiConference 2024. After cutting the cake, many group photos were taken.
Football and badminton were played at night. I acted as a referee in the badminton game. Moyeenul Islam and Subrata Roy won the badminton tournament. Although a gala dinner and live Bar-B-Q were supposed to be organized at night, a simple dinner was organized. Personally, it was a bit disappointing for me. However, after dinner, we went out for a walk. After wandering around for a long time, I returned to the room.

The next morning, I woke up late. After waking up, Wikimedian Delwar Hossain told me that a journalist from a TV channel had invited me to give an interview for his TV channel. Perhaps the journalist from the TV channel was surprised to know how I had contributed so much to Wikimedia from a young age. So they invited me to give an interview on RTV. (Later, the video of the interview was uploaded to Facebook and YouTube. The video of the interview on Facebook received more than 2 million views, which was a great honor for me. After giving this interview, many of my friends and many other people asked for help to contribute to Wikimedia, and I helped them as much as I could to join Wikimedia. Many of them joined Wikimedia after watching the video, which was very gratifying for me.) I could not refuse the offer, although we had to leave the resort after breakfast and there was only a short time left for check-out. Even though I tried to do it quickly, it took a long time to conduct the interview. Later, I somehow hurriedly packed all the bags and went out to have breakfast. After breakfast, I checked out and left. We left for Dhaka by minibus.
While we had as much fun on the way to the resort by minibus, we did not have as much fun on the way back. One by one, everyone got off the minibus at the stop closest to their destination. I also got off at the stop closest to my house, but by mistake I left a bag in the minibus. Later, I collected the bag again that day, but on the way to collect the bag, I lost my gift bag. (Apart from the gift, the gift bag contained some things given by the resort authorities, my two winter clothes, laptop charger and mobile charger. All of these were lost that day, due to which I had to suffer for many days. This is my only painful memory of the entire WikiConference.)

Finally, I set foot at my home on the night of November 17, 2024 with memories of the WikiConference.
The Bangla WikiConference was the first WikiConference of my life. I learned a lot of new things at this conference. Especially the hackathon was the most interesting part of the WikiConference for me. I met many Wikimedians at this conference, with whom I often communicate. Apart from this, building up a network and participating in new projects are also one of the most interesting aspects of this conference. In this conference, we, along with some Wikipedians, decided to publish a Wikimagazine in Bengali Wikipedia. In addition, many welfare projects were adopted for the Bangla Wiki projects at this conference. In addition, some Wikimedians came up with some great ideas to advance Bangla Wikimedia and the Wikimedia movement, which I am hopeful will bring long-term benefits to Wikimedia.

I hope that Bangla WikiConferences will be organized regularly and that the appropriate authorities take that initiative. I am eagerly waiting for the Bangla WikiConference 2026.

Long live the Bangla WikiConference!