Bangladesh
Team information
The Creative Commons group in the People's Republic of Bangladesh is affiliated with the Bangladesh Open Source Network. This organization has a long time experience of organizing and conducting the different type of events all over the country. Nasir Khan Saikat is the ‘Public Lead’ of this Creative Commons Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Open Source Network
Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) is a non-profit, voluntary initiative of Bangladesh Fundamental Research Institute (BdFRI). It was launched on 24th October 2005 in Dhaka. The initial idea is to create a broad organization where the Open Source and Open Content volunteers and professionals can exchange their ideas and embark on new initiatives. In the last year after formation BdOSN has matured into an independent organization with partnerships with other Open Source based organization and individuals.
Vision
Governments at all levels are increasingly adopting open data portals, but with a plethora of ad hoc and incompatible licenses. Many of the ministries of Bangladesh like the Education ministry, Health ministry are releasing their data publicly. At the same time, individuals and private organizations are adopting the open source philosophy. Here the Creative Commons Bangladesh can play a big role in guiding and leading this movement. Creative Commons helps us to get access to information easily and in cost effective ways. Our main goal is to raise awareness and encourage people to use Creative Commons licenses. At the same time, we are encouraging reuse of content, photographs and other media files licensed under Creative Commons. We would like to build a community in Bangladesh and be present via online and offline activities. Along with the community, we have a plan to work with the government also.
Community
There are many communities with an interest in Creative Commons, few communities are active in different projects, like the Wikipedia, Open Street Map, Open Knowledge Foundation and so on. The Creative Commons Bangladesh affiliated with Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN). The BdOSN has the one of the largest volunteer community who is working to promote open source philosophy. They lead a good number of events every month on open source/free software and other several topics. CC Bangladesh will engage with the existing community and participate the events hosted by the BdOSN. We are trying to extend our relationship with different partners like the Wikimedia Bangladesh, Mozilla Bangladesh, and every other community who are comfortable to work with CC Bangladesh. We have a plan to participate different events hosted by those communities. At the same time, we are going to host several events where everyone is invited to join us.
Priority Goals
Raising Awareness of the Licenses
Awareness building is one of the most important goals. We will try to reach people as much as possible. It will be helpful to spread the Creative Commons philosophy. Creative Commons Bangladesh website will be the center point of all of these activities and social media profiles will be helpful to inform the large audience.
Localize deeds and other tools
Translating and localizing the creative commons license deeds, license selection tools, and other different related tools are very important to continue the project properly. Though the English version is ready but it is more convincing to the local people is we can make this tools available in local language.
Get involved with the photograph communities
There are a good number of photography communities active in Bangladesh. We will try to get involved with them. We will encourage them to release their work under CC licenses, and especially under CC BY and CC BY-SA licenses which are approved for free cultural works.
Content and Photo Donation
Bangladesh has a glorious history. But we have a lack of available free-licensed images. We will encourage senior photographers to donate their photos. At the same time, we will try to enrich the repositories who are hosting and archiving CC licensed contents like Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
Expand local CC Bangladesh Partners
Creative Commons Bangladesh is going to launch with the Bangladesh Open Source Network. But there are other several communities who are working to promote open source and free licenses. For example Wikimedia Bangladesh, Mozilla Bangladesh, Open Knowledge Foundation Bangladesh and so on. We will also work with those communities to spread the Creative Commons.
Project Outputs
Develop the CC Bangladesh Website and social profiles
Creative Commons Bangladesh website will be the hub of all the activities. At the same time, all the announcements and information will be distributed via all the popular social platforms.
Monthly Meetups
There will be at least one monthly meetup. These meetups will be hosted by CC Bangladesh and sometimes we will join the other community meetups and participate in their activities.
Photo Contest
With the collaboration with Wikimedia Bangladesh, we will host a nationwide photo contest. All of the photos will be released under CC-BY-SA license and uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons.
Photo Donation
We will try to establish partnerships with the local museums and ask them to release the contents under free licenses.
Resources Required
People
Spreading the philosophy of Creative Commons and helping others to adopt it will the main goal. So we will need some leaders who can continue the projects and build a strong CC community. At the same time, we will try to encourage famous persons to join us to promote our activities.
Technology
We have to develop our website and update the social profiles. A web developer is required to assist us in preparing these things.
Materials
We have a plan to arrange a good number of public events. At the same time, workshops and another type of events will be organized for the special group of people. We have a plan to give stickers, badges and other swags to the participants.
Sustainability and Scalability
Creative Commons Bangladesh is affiliated with the Bangladesh Open Source Network. They are working for more than 8 years to promote open source and free software philosophy. We think they will be able to assist us to make our projects successful.
Translation
Bengali is the official language of Bangladesh, it is the mother language of all the Bangladeshi. We will promote our CC jurisdiction in Bengali. At the same time, English versions are available, so those can be used to extend our promotion activities.
Creative Commons would like to thank its former affiliates, Russell John, Hasina Akhtar and the Bangladesh Linux Users Alliance, for all their hard work and commitment to CC.
