Md. Rafid Khan
Md. Rafid Khan is a third-year student at Brac University studying Computer Science and Engineering. When asked about his choice of major, he replied that his interest in programming was sparked as a young boy when he participated in programming contests. He is currently the co-lead of Mongol Tori and one of the founders of ‘Jogajog,’ a communication platform created during the July Revolution.
He was actively part of the movement from the beginning. On the 18th of July, the internet blackout occurred after he came home. Initially, he tried to write a script with his friend so that they could stay in contact. But they decided to make it bigger and take it further. His friend specialized in web development while he focused on networking. Another friend from BUET came on board. After hours of work, ‘Jogajog’ was finally launched on the morning of the 20th. Unfortunately, it stopped working after it hit 100 users. So Rafid and his friends decided to optimize their servers. All the data was lost, but that did not matter anyway. “Our encryption was good and did not trace any IPs to ensure anonymity could be maintained,” he stated. Soon, they relaunched their platform after fixing the bugs.
On the night of the 25th, he received an anonymous email with a screenshot of the BTRC Chairman ordering an IP address to be disconnected. He realized it was his. Initially, he thought it was a spoof. But in 15 minutes, his internet was down. He was scared. Finally, they decided to take their server down for a while. “That was one of the longest nights of my life,” he recalls. On the 5th of August, the fascists finally fled. Soon after, he decided to come forward and posted about his journey behind ‘Jogajog.’ The post went viral and invited him to a seminar in India organized by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), where he interacted with a former developer from the app Signal. The seminar focused on digital rights and invited him to another event called RightsCon next year in Taiwan. He plans to turn his platform into a civic tech using a peer-to-peer model and introduce it globally.
His Facebook post had even reached the eyes of the people at the US Embassy. They invited him, among other Bangladeshi youths, to participate in the 2024 US presidential election watch party. He is also preparing for the upcoming University Rover Challenge next year. When he visited our campus, he recently talked to the Chief of Astronauts at NASA. Rafid shares, “It was exciting to discuss the challenges of the Martian surfaces and the applicable solutions.” Despite making it to the URC finals this year, Mongol Tori could not win it. He hopes their learning can make for an upcoming better performance.
