Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive, building the Bengali Wikipedia

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Photo by Victor Grigas, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Photo by Victor Grigas, CC BY-SA 3.0.

“I love Wikipedia,” Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive says. “It’s the only encyclopedia where I can get information in different languages and add content in my language.”
Hasive has been editing Wikipedia since 2008. In the last nine years, he has tried to add something new to Wikipedia every day, and has visited over 30 universities across his country, Bangladesh, to tell the students about Wikipedia. He has also co-organized many events to encourage people to edit, and published a style guide book about the Bengali Wikipedia. He is constantly driven to search for new ways to support the Wikimedia movement, the community of people who create and maintain the Wikimedia projects, like Wikipedia.
Hasive’s devotion to the idea of free knowledge led him to join Wikimedia Bangladesh (WMBD), an independent chapter supporting Wikimedia in his country. With the chapter, he’s helped to integrate Wikipedia Zero in Bangladesh, a program that gives cell phone users free access to Wikipedia, and organized the first-ever Wiki Loves Monuments in his country. The international contest encourages photographers to share their photos of their country’s monuments with the world, free for anyone to use.
Hasive now serves as a board member of the Bengali chapter, where he helps with communications and supports the community by coordinating large events. His previous experiences with the Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN), an active volunteer group in his country, helped prepare him for the role.
“We held an anniversary program in 2015 to celebrate the Bengali Wikipedia’s tenth birthday,” Hasive recalls. It was three months long and featured two conferences, each with workshops and seminars, and various activities both online and off. With these, they were able to reach into every division of Bangladesh.
Bengali is spoken by nearly 250 million people, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. With nearly 48,000 articles on Wikipedia, representing the Bengali culture on the internet feels like a national duty for Hasive.
“We have recently started work on two new projects in my country,” says Hasive. “The first one is called “Women in Wikipedia,” which aims to engage more Bengali women in editing Wikipedia (rather than just reading). The second has seen us working with a group of medical students who have shown interest in addressing the shortage of medical content on the Bengali Wikipedia.”
And in order to get his message heard by anyone interested in Wikipedia in Bangladesh, he has written a book explaining how Wikipedia works and how to edit it. He has published this book under a free license to let anyone copy and re-publish the book for free.
The time he spends helping other editors does not distract him from editing. Hasive has recently started a 100 Wiki Days challenge, where the participant commits to creating one new Wikipedia article every day for 100 consecutive days.
For his challenge, Hasive is creating and editing articles about soldiers who fought in the Liberation War of 1971, particularly those who received the Bir Sreshtho, Bir Uttom, Bir Bikrom, and Bir Protik medals that were awarded to 767 people for the role they played in the war. But for Hasive, the challenge is not limited to only 100 days. Hasive has a long-term goal of creating and developing articles about each medal recipient.
However, Wikipedia is not the only outlet for Hasive’s writings. He works as a journalist during the day and spends the bulk of his free time thinking about knowledge sharing on Wikipedia.
“My dream is to connect all people from my country with Wikipedia—people who are looking for real content. I try to recruit editors with different professional backgrounds, such as doctors, engineers, etc. They will help build a respected and legitimate encyclopedia.”
Samir Elsharbaty, Digital Content Intern, Wikimedia Foundation

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

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Happy to see him featured on wikinedia blog. He is such an inspiration for the young it makers.
His enthusiasm about wikipedia is pure and he works as a true volunteer for wikipedia. Mostly his contribution about bringing new writer on wikipedia as wikipedian is remarkable.
As a co wikimedian I pray for his good healthful life ahead.

Doubtlessly, Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive is one of the most progressive contributors among many dedicated editors, are working hardly parallel to the global vision of Wikimedia foundation.
Thanks Samir Elsharbaty to featured his likewise showing honor to him as well as the entire Bengali community.
All the very best wishes.

Congratulations hasib vai on ur success. Its an honor for me seeing u featured in wikimedia blog. True inspiration should be like you brother.
May the Almighty keep u safe & sound.
Greetings..

just unbelievable but truth.

Nice to see Hasive vai featured on wikimedia blog! Wish him a happy long life ahead! 🙂

Great news bro,Congratulations, I am also pray for his good healthful life ahead.best of luck.

Congratulations Mr. Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive.

Congratulation Brother. Go ahead.

Hasive Bhai is a really awesome person. We are working together to build a Digital Archive for Bangladeshi Liberation war named “Muktipin”. I must say, He is the only Wikipedian who has enriched the history of Bangladesh Liberation War in Wikipedia.