Biggani.org: Science and Technology for All

Biggani.org is an initiative to develop science and technology related content such as articles, essays, tutorials, books, etc. in Bangla. We have found that to minimize the digital divide, we need to develop more content in our own language. Although there are many sites (including online Bangla newspapers) contributing content in Bangla, few sites focus on science and technology areas. We believe that we need more writers who can explain science and technology easily to the young generation (including kids). Biggani.org is our effort to encourage and develop good writers for the future.

Biggani.org is a social initiative to popularize science and technology in Bangladesh. We believe that we need to emphasize science and technology in order to sustain ourselves in the future world. Here is an example: although telecom penetration in Bangladesh is higher than in other under-developed countries, we are not strong in telecom technologies. Our national policy is moving towards the “technology users” group (importing technology and tech goods) rather than developing our own technology. Biggani.org aims to create awareness about shifting towards the “technology creators group” rather than the “technology users group.” We are writing articles and tutorials to help understand science and technology.

Biggani.org is a completely automated site. Here, any writer can submit articles with figures, multimedia, and videos through an online-based submission system and can publish it automatically on the site. A reader can leave comments about the articles, which helps to enrich the content. When any new comment is submitted, a notification email is sent to the writers and later writers can also comment on the readers’ comments. This way, readers can develop very interactive communication with the writers, which helps the writers to improve their articles.

We are mainly a Bangla-based site. We believe that using Bangla for science learning can be greatly enhanced when the curriculum is developed in Bangla and Bangla is again used as the medium of instruction. Since English is an international language and particularly important as the medium of science and technology, we have a section for English articles too.

We are using the Internet as the medium to reach young people. Till now, a total of 189,436 readers have visited our site and a total of 1,865,684 pages have been read by them. On average, every visitor reads 5.48 pages. Among them, 52% are new readers and 48% are regular readers. At biggani.org, there are a total of 5,816 registered members and among them 364 writers are contributing articles. Till today, we have received a total of 2,911 comments from users and a total of 1,329 articles have been published.

(Data as of 5 March 2012)

We are working towards attaining quality education for all and strengthening cooperation in building inclusive knowledge societies and in mobilizing political will for applying the benefits of science and technology to sustainable development. We understand that only Internet-based media can’t help us reach our goal and we are planning to organize science fairs in schools and colleges to reach the young generation.

We started our journey on 6 March 2006.

A video presentation on biggani.org

{youtube}jQcPkRGteLM{/youtube} 

Presentation of biggani.org for Manthan Award 2010