In a world increasingly shaped by digitalisation, the need for meaningful, real-world connections has become more apparent, particularly among young minds searching for a sense of belonging beyond university classrooms, professional commitments, and online communities.

It was this gap that inspired the creation of Atrai, a Dhaka-based community that brings together people who share a common desire to make, create, and explore.

Talking about the idea of Atrai and how it started, Qareeb said, “Dhaka is such a big city, and there must be so many cool people around. They wanted to meet them. Yet for a city this size there’s so little to do, and a lot of people feel lonely and don’t have a sense of belonging, especially in a hyper-online world. That’s what started Atrai.”

Abrar Fiaz, the initial founder of Atrai, came across a blog post on building real-world communities by Joss Murphy, one of the founders of Socratica, a University of Waterloo-founded global community hosting focused co-working and demo sessions for builders and makers, and felt this should exist in Dhaka. He sent it to his friend Sayhan Nasar Audri, another initial founder, and the two of them cold-emailed Joss and got on a call with her. Then they pulled together a few friends and started Atrai, the Dhaka node of Socratica.

About the name Atrai, Qareeb shared that they wanted to name the community after a river, because a community is really a minor sort, a flow of people. There was no deeper reason than that. We shortlisted a few river names, and then our friend Suha suggested Atrai and we went with it.

Atrai started with a core group of six. Over time, many more people joined and many left, and today a completely new team of eight runs Atrai. The original team has moved on. That was always the idea. Atrai is a vehicle: people join, play their part and move on, and new people take it forward.

The main objective of Atrai is to create a place where people can celebrate making things. Atrai is an open collective of makers, artists, engineers, researchers, designers, writers, poets and everything in between. The main activity is a bi-weekly session where people come to work on passion projects, which can be literally anything, i.e. something to code, design, read, write or build with their own hands. The only condition is that it’s something they are genuinely excited about, outside of university societies and degree work.

“We feel it’s important to gather to do things, so Atrai aims to help people do two things: gather and create.”

Anyone who has a passion project to work on is the main targeted audience of Atrai.

One does not need to consider oneself a creator, and one is welcome even if one isn’t sure yet what they will be working on.

Each session gives people two protected hours in a room full of others working on things they care about, which makes it easier to stop procrastinating on their own project. It’s also a low-stakes way to make friends who share their interests.

According to Qareeb, two things make Atrai different from other communities or co-working platforms.

First, it’s multidisciplinary by design. Other maker communities exist, but they are built around a specific niche, like robotics, a programming language or design. Atrai is a meta makerspace of engineers, artists, researchers, writers and designers working in the same room, on completely different things.

Second, it’s co-working with a rule about what one works on.

“You have the whole week for your main things, like your job, your startup or your degree. These two hours are only for the one thing you wish you’d started, the project you can’t wait to make progress on or share with people, the one you’re truly excited about.”

Finding a space, staying consistent and keeping people involved were some of the challenges for Atrai initially.

Costs are minimal by design, since all that Atrai needs is a space to sit and work.

“We’ve been lucky that a lot of people have been very generous with us, and a big shoutout to Impact Hub, Attention Network and Moar. On top of that, the hosts chip in for whatever else is needed.”

Moreover, Atrai is free to attend, and there are no membership fees for any session. They have already started talking to companies for sponsorships.

About the team management and working environment, they try to keep it simple. A small group of hosts, with Qareeb leading, runs each session, and they post about it on Instagram so people know when the next one is. Engagement mostly takes care of itself. If the sessions are fun and people leave having made progress on something they love, they come back and bring their friends.

Atrai started as a group chat of five people and has grown into a community of over 400 members that’s been through close to 40 sessions.

The real Atrai were the friends they made along the way.

In terms of measuring the platform’s impact and determining whether it is achieving its objectives, Qareeb said they don’t really measure it.

“It’s latent, and you can feel it when you see it: a room full of people absorbed in things they’re excited about, and the same faces coming back with someone new. If people leave a session having made progress on something they love, it’s working.”

Qareeb at this point just really wants Atrai to be the coolest event in Dhaka.

“We want to run big-scale events like showcases and multidisciplinary hackathons, because making things deserves a grand celebration.”

Regular sessions will stay free, supported by a venue partner. Bigger events will be funded by sponsors. That includes tech companies and startups that want to meet the city’s best builders, and big consumer brands that want to be part of Dhaka’s creative youth culture.

“The goal is a room full of the most interesting, awesome people in the city, all doing work they care deeply about,” concluded Qareeb.