Wikimedia Bangladesh is a volunteer-driven affiliate of the global Wikimedia movement, working to expand free knowledge in Bangla and make information more accessible to everyone. By supporting contributors, building communities, and collaborating with institutions, the chapter plays a key role in strengthening open knowledge ecosystems across Bangladesh.
The year 2025 stands as one of the most dynamic and meaningful chapters in Wikimedia Bangladesh’s journey. It was not simply a year measured by programmes, statistics, or outputs—it was a year shaped by people. Volunteers who stayed up late to review articles, photographers who documented heritage in the field, community organisers who travelled across districts, and institutional partners who opened access to knowledge that had long remained locked away.
At its core, 2025 was driven by a shared conviction: that free knowledge in Bangla must not only exist but flourish—accessible, inclusive, and reflective of the diverse realities of Bangladesh and the wider Bengali-speaking world.
From nationwide contests and institutional collaborations to grassroots community initiatives and large-scale digitisation efforts, Wikimedia Bangladesh demonstrated how a volunteer-led movement can create impact that is both measurable and deeply human. The year showed that when structured planning meets community passion, the results extend far beyond individual projects and contribute to the long-term sustainability of the Wikimedia movement.
Expanding Free Knowledge: A Year of Tangible Outcomes
In 2025, Wikimedia Bangladesh implemented a wide and carefully coordinated range of activities spanning content development, capacity building, outreach, and institutional engagement. These collective efforts resulted in the creation and improvement of more than 10,000 pages across Wikimedia projects, alongside the upload of over 70,000 photographs and media files to Wikimedia Commons. In parallel, more than 3,000 individuals were directly engaged through workshops, contests, meetups, trainings, edit-a-thons, and public awareness programmes held both online and offline across the country.
What makes these outcomes particularly significant is not only their scale, but their focus. The initiatives were intentionally aligned with strengthening Bangla-language knowledge platforms—an area that continues to require sustained attention in the global open knowledge ecosystem. Contributions expanded across Bangla Wikipedia, Bangla Wikisource, Bangla Wiktionary, Bangla Wikibooks, Bangla Wikiquote, Bangla Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata, ensuring that knowledge in Bangla became more comprehensive, reliable, and accessible to readers, researchers, and learners.
This growth was not merely quantitative. It reflected a gradual improvement in content quality, thematic diversity, and community participation. New contributors entered the ecosystem through contests and workshops, while experienced editors focused on improving existing articles, reviewing quality content, and mentoring newcomers. As a result, the year marked a balanced progression—expansion of knowledge accompanied by stronger editorial standards and community maturity.
Landmark Advocacy: Opening Government Archives to the Public
Among the many milestones of 2025, the collaboration with the Press Information Department (PID) of the Government of Bangladesh stands out as a historic achievement for open knowledge in the country.
Through sustained advocacy, dialogue, and trust-building with government stakeholders, Wikimedia Bangladesh successfully facilitated the release of more than 60,000 official government photographs into the public domain. These images, documenting national events, governance, public programmes, and state activities since 2015, represent one of the largest public domain media releases in Bangladesh’s history.
The significance of this initiative goes far beyond numbers. For years, visual documentation related to Bangladesh’s governance, public institutions, and national life remained underrepresented on Wikimedia platforms due to licensing restrictions. The PID release directly addressed this long-standing gap, enabling educators, journalists, researchers, and the global public to access freely licensed visual materials related to Bangladesh.
To ensure sustainable integration of this massive archive, Wikimedia Bangladesh also expanded its technical capacity by operating a dedicated upload bot that systematically processed and uploaded over 62,000 images with structured metadata. This initiative demonstrated the chapter’s growing technical self-reliance and its ability to manage large-scale digital content workflows while maintaining accuracy, consistency, and policy compliance.
Flagship Contests That Strengthened the Wikimedia Ecosystem
Content development remained a central pillar throughout 2025, driven by a series of thematic contests that mobilised contributors from across Bangladesh and beyond. These initiatives served not only as content generation campaigns but also as entry points for new volunteers and skill development platforms for existing editors.
The Amar Ekushey Article Contest 2025 once again proved to be one of the most effective community engagement programmes, attracting over 400 participants—many of whom were newcomers to Wikipedia. The contest resulted in the creation of hundreds of new articles, significantly expanding Bangla Wikipedia’s topical coverage while nurturing a new generation of contributors.
Similarly, the Bangla Wikiquote Contest, Wikibooks Writing Contest, Wiktionary Entry Contest, Wikivoyage Article Contest, and thematic editing campaigns collectively enriched multiple Wikimedia sister projects. These contests strengthened linguistic resources, educational materials, travel documentation, and structured lexical knowledge in Bangla.
A particularly remarkable outcome was observed in the Wikibooks Writing Contest, which produced 1,385 new books and over 1.1 million words of educational content. This contribution significantly enhanced the availability of open learning resources in Bangla for students, educators, and self-learners.
Beyond the numbers, these contests cultivated editorial discipline, peer learning, and long-term engagement. Participants were not only creating content but also learning sourcing practices, neutrality, formatting standards, and collaborative editing workflows—skills that directly contribute to the sustainability of the Wikimedia ecosystem.
Preserving Culture and Heritage
Cultural and heritage documentation emerged as another defining focus of Wikimedia Bangladesh’s activities in 2025. In a digital era where local knowledge often remains underrepresented, the chapter placed strong emphasis on documenting biodiversity, heritage, and cultural landscapes through freely licensed media.
The second edition of Wiki Loves Bangla, organised in collaboration with West Bengal Wikimedians under the Bangla WikiMoitree initiative, highlighted the shared cultural and ecological heritage of the Bengal region through the theme “Birds of Bengal.” The campaign witnessed strong cross-border participation and resulted in 1,800 image uploads to Wikimedia Commons, including the documentation of 421 bird species from across Bangladesh, West Bengal, and Assam.
This initiative did more than enrich visual repositories—it strengthened regional collaboration, improved documentary photography skills, and contributed to biodiversity awareness through open knowledge. The freely licensed images are now being used to enhance articles across Wikipedia and related platforms, ensuring that regional ecological knowledge reaches a global audience.
In addition, multiple photowalks were conducted across Dhaka, Panchagarh, and heritage sites such as Old Dhaka, which contributed hundreds of freely licensed images documenting architecture, cultural landmarks, museums, and public spaces. These efforts ensured that Bangladesh’s visual and cultural identity is better represented within global knowledge platforms, while also encouraging contributors to actively document their surroundings through an open knowledge lens.
Strengthening Communities and Decentralising the Movement
One of the most transformative developments of 2025 was the continued decentralisation of the Wikimedia movement in Bangladesh. Rather than concentrating activities in a single city, Wikimedia Bangladesh invested in strengthening regional communities and local leadership structures.
The formal recognition of the Dhaka Wikimedia Community and the launch of the PUST WikiClub marked important milestones in expanding structured engagement beyond traditional contributor bases. These initiatives created sustainable platforms for collaboration, training, and outreach at both regional and institutional levels.
Alongside these developments, six active regional communities across the country played a crucial role in grassroots engagement. Regular meetups—both online and offline—were held in cities including Dhaka, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Dinajpur, and Rangpur. These gatherings provided spaces for peer learning, strategic planning, mentorship, and collaborative discussions, engaging around 180 active contributors throughout the year.
The WikiNandini initiative also continued to support women contributors through dedicated meetups and workshops, fostering a more inclusive and supportive editing environment. By encouraging participation from diverse backgrounds and regions, Wikimedia Bangladesh strengthened community ownership and reduced dependency on centralised coordination.
Capacity Building and Leadership Development
Recognising that sustainable growth depends on skilled contributors, Wikimedia Bangladesh placed strong emphasis on training and leadership development in 2025. Throughout the year, workshops were organised on Wikipedia editing, Wiktionary entry creation, Wikibooks writing, copyright awareness, digitisation workflows, and open licensing practices.
Hands-on training sessions in locations such as Kushtia and Chandpur brought Wikimedia engagement to new geographic areas, involving students, teachers, researchers, and local knowledge enthusiasts. These programmes not only improved editing skills but also raised awareness about the broader principles of free knowledge and open culture.
A major highlight was the inaugural Wiki Leaders Training 2025 held in Cox’s Bazar. This two-day intensive programme brought together emerging leaders from multiple regions and focused on leadership development, community health, outreach strategies, and long-term programme sustainability. Through interactive sessions and collaborative planning exercises, participants were equipped to lead local initiatives and strengthen regional Wikimedia communities.
The training established a strong foundation for future leadership within the Bangla Wikimedia movement and reinforced the importance of decentralised, community-led growth.
GLAM Partnerships: Digitising Cultural Memory
GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) initiatives gained notable momentum in 2025, reflecting Wikimedia Bangladesh’s growing engagement with cultural institutions.
Digitisation efforts at the historic Shah Makhdum Institute Public Library preserved rare books, archival documents, and historical materials by making them freely accessible through Wikimedia platforms. These fragile resources, once limited to physical access, are now available to a global audience of researchers, students, and knowledge seekers.
Another significant initiative at the National Archives of Bangladesh enabled participants to scan and upload public domain maps, historical letters, and archival documents. This activity not only enriched Wikimedia Commons with culturally significant materials but also strengthened institutional collaboration and awareness of open licensing practices.
These partnerships demonstrated how community-driven initiatives can contribute to preserving cultural memory while expanding global access to historically valuable knowledge resources.
Celebrating Language, Knowledge, and Community
The year was also marked by meaningful celebrations and strong public engagement, reflecting the cultural and linguistic roots of the Wikimedia movement in Bangladesh. Ekushey WikiGathering was organised across five cities to observe International Mother Language Day, where volunteers directly engaged with the public and encouraged contributions to Bangla-language knowledge on Wikimedia platforms. These gatherings carried profound symbolic significance, linking the legacy of the Language Movement with the contemporary mission of free and open knowledge in Bangla.
Simultaneously, the 21st anniversary of Bangla Wikipedia was celebrated through year-round programmes in multiple regions. These events brought together Wikimedians, students, researchers, and knowledge enthusiasts to reflect on more than two decades of collaborative knowledge production. The celebrations not only acknowledged past milestones but also inspired new contributors and strengthened the collective commitment to preserving and advancing the Bangla language in the digital knowledge space.
Publications
In 2025, Wikimedia Bangladesh continued to prioritise documentation, transparency, and community storytelling by publishing three editions of its official online magazine, WikiBarta. The magazine functioned as more than a publication—it served as a living archive of the community’s journey, capturing major programmes, partnerships, reflections, and volunteer experiences throughout the year.
Each edition helped extend the impact of key initiatives beyond immediate participants by sharing stories, lessons learned, and community insights. By highlighting volunteer contributions and documenting institutional progress, WikiBarta preserved organisational memory while strengthening engagement among contributors from diverse regions. As a public-facing record of activities and impact, the publication reinforced accountability and enhanced the visibility of Wikimedia Bangladesh within both national and global Wikimedia networks.
Impact on the Global Wikimedia Movement
The impact of Wikimedia Bangladesh’s 2025 activities extends well beyond national boundaries. Through the expansion of Bangla-language content, large-scale public domain releases, strengthened regional communities, and institutional partnerships, the chapter contributed meaningfully to the global mission of free and open knowledge.
More importantly, 2025 demonstrated a scalable and sustainable model—one that is decentralised, volunteer-led, and partnership-driven. It showed that impactful growth is not achieved solely through large programmes, but through consistent community investment, inclusive participation, and long-term vision.
Behind every article, photograph, workshop, and meetup were volunteers who chose to contribute their time, skills, and passion to a collective cause. Their efforts not only strengthened Wikimedia projects in Bangladesh but also enhanced the global visibility of the Bangla language, culture, and knowledge.
As the movement moves forward, the achievements of 2025 will remain a strong foundation. They serve as a reminder that when communities collaborate, institutions embrace openness, and volunteers lead with purpose, the advancement of free knowledge becomes not just possible—but truly transformative.
Read the full Annual Activity Report 2025.
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