Happy 10th birthday, Local Guides! And happy 20th birthday in advance, Google Maps!
Hi, I’m Biswajit Chakraborty. Many of you already know that I am a Graphic Designer by profession. That is why my ID is Designer_Biswajit 
I have worked in the rotogravure printing sector since 1999. I love to travel, food, cricket etc. And obviously love to contribute to Google Maps.
Anyway, on this auspicious occasion of Local Guides 10th anniversary, I would like to share the story of my journey with Local Guides!
Joining this program
The time was in mid-2017. Suddenly one day, out of curiosity, I found my village on Google Maps. And I noticed that although there were pictures of other villages on the map, there was no picture of my village! I had a picture of my village taken with a DSLR on my computer. I added that picture to the map right away. After a month, I received an email from Google. After reading the email, I came to know that the picture I had added to the map had almost 10 thousand views. This increased my enthusiasm and I kept adding pictures of different places in my area to the map. A few days later, I received another email from Google, asking if I was interested in joining the Local Guide program or not. Basically, my journey as a local guide began from then on.
Journey with BDLG
In early 2018, I joined the Facebook group of Bangladesh Local Guides community. And my first meet-up with BDLG was the 95th meet-up. Since then, I have attended about 30 meet-ups of BDLG. Since the first meet-up I attended, I have developed a good friendship with @MahabubMunna. We have been exchanging experiences with each other often since then. To be honest, I learned a lot from him in the beginning. I personally think that by attending BDLG meet-ups, you can learn a lot more than just Local Guides.
I was responsible for designing the logo for the 100th meet-up of Bangladesh Local Guides. At that time, the logo I made was highly appreciated by everyone in the community. Since then, I have been providing design support for the mega events of the community. I was the first to design sublimation printed T-shirts in the community. Interestingly, I was the host of the first meet-up where supplement printed T-shirts were made. It was the community’s 6th year celebration meet-up. In continuation of this, I recently designed a logo for the community on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Local Guides, which has already been appreciated by many and many have already posted on Connect using it. It is worth noting that I was given a special honor by the community during the community’s 10th anniversary meet-up held last March for my significant contribution in the field of design at community events. The host of that meet-up was @SoniaK Gratitude to all the senior members of BDLG including Sonia Apu for that.
Contribution to the Maps
So far I have added about 2k images and videos to the map and reviewed about 1.2k establishments. Added about 300 new places. Also, so far I have added 18k+ Roads to the map.
Joining TRAC team
At that time, the number of roads I had added to the map was about 350. One day, I suddenly came across a post about TRAC by @SholaIB on Connect. After reading the post, I liked their initiative and was encouraged to join their team. I got many helpful tips for adding roads to the map by discussing with the senior members in the Telegram group of this team, which greatly increased the speed of adding my roads. For this, I am grateful to all the members of the TRAC team. Especially to the captain SholaIB.
Achievements
My photos, videos and reviews on Google Maps have so far received about 37M views. I am happy to think that I have been able to help at least some people through my contribution. During this long journey, I have received 3 gifts from Google. These basically give me oxygen to contribute more. Thanks to the Google team for giving me these beautiful gifts.
Meet-up hosting
So far, I have hosted about eight meet-ups. This includes a mega meet-up, it was 6th Years of Bangladesh Local Guides, 152 local guides participating in this meetup.
List of meetup I have hosted
- [In-Person] Bangladesh, December 06, Photo Walk & Map Editing @Dhanmondi
- [RECAP] Connect Turns 8’ Celebration Meetup!
- [RECAP] A Delightful Evening with Local Guide Friends and Delicious Coffee!
- [RECAP] LGC Birthday Meetup; Accessible Dhaka (Part # 01)
- [RECAP] Let’s take a challenge to update Google Maps world wide [Motijheel, Dhaka]
- [RECAP] Durga Puja Photowalk in Manikganj
- [RECAP] 6 Years of Bangladesh Local Guides!
- (Recap) Durga Puja Photo Walk @Narayanganj
- Recap: Local Guides course 101
Finally, I hope that with the contributions of our local guides, Google Maps will become more useful for everyone. Of course, for this we need to contribute according to the right rules. Thank you all for reading my post and for dedicating some of your time to this great initiative.
Happy Guiding~
und weiterhin viel Erfolg 
well done 
