Ummid Assistant

Jamia Millia launches courses on China, Afghanistan

IGNOU launches value education programme for teachers

Welcome Guest! You are here: Home » Science & Technology

Wikipedia plans various initiatives in India

Friday November 18, 2011 07:08:56 PM, Mauli Buch, IANS

Related Article

Maps on Wikipedia depict people's view: Founder

Addressing the first ever WikiConference in India, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales here Friday said the representation of maps on the free encyclopedia was in accordance with the ideas of its readers and editors   »

Mumbai to host first WikiConference in India

Mumbai: India would be the focus this year for Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the multilingual reference website Wikipedia, with plans for several initiatives to make knowledge more accessible to the country's burgeoning Internet population, co-founder Jimmy Wales Friday said.

With the government's hopes of India having the world's largest Internet population of 600 million by 2016, the Wikimedia Foundation aims to build a base of Indian communities that will regularly contribute to Wikipedia's language reference sites, Wales said at the first-ever WikiConference in Mumbai.

The organisation looks forward to launch initiatives to bring together people socially and culturally, he added.

Elaborating on its initiatives in India, the foundation's chief global development officer Barry Newstead told IANS that the foundation aims to launch several initiatives to improve access to knowledge.

"We are planning to partner with schools and come up with appropriate versions of Wikipedia useful for children," Newstead told IANS.

"In another initiative, we plan to partner with numerous universities throughout India and have student become regular contributors to Wikipedia than just being readers," he said.

Started by Wales, Larry Sanger and others in January 2001, the website now hosts three million-odd articles in 268 languages, and has 450 million readers.

Asked if the foundation is looking to translate the three million odd articles in the English Wikipedia to Indian languages, Newstead said that it would be easier to build an Indian language Wikipedia.

"Translating from English to a local language is not only cumbersome, but it also might not reflect the same flavour. This is true for any local language," he said.

Newstead also spoke of several other initiatives where the foundation intends to partner with museums, state and national libraries and national photo archives for knowledge and information sharing.

"Museums and libraries are the biggest sources of information. Although they follow a traditional approach, we believe tapping them as primary sources will help increase our local knowledge base to a greater extent," he said.

"We are in primary talks with the Prince of Wales Museum (now renamed Chhratapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya) here for sharing of information," he added.

Another project in the offing is referencing works of Wikipedia through oral citations.

Considering India has a huge set of information including folklores and old traditions and stories behind several spots across the country, oral citations might help build a knowledge base.

"There are several tales in India which are the basis of a larger tradition. But these are not documented and hence there are no written references to these interesting facts," Newstead said.

"We are looking forward to the project, where after setting down rules and policies, oral citations can be officially included as references in Wikipedia," he added.

Wikimedia also includes Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikimedia Commons and MediaWiki.

The three-day conference is being hosted at the 154-year-old heritage building of University of Mumbai campus in the Fort area of south Mumbai.

Just as Wikipedia serves as a quick general outline or base, and not the final destination for information, the Wikipedia Foundation hopes to use the Mumbai meeting as a foundation for its India expansion. Of the 100,000 worldwide Wikimedia contributors, only 3,000 are Indian.



(Mauli Buch can be contacted at mauli.b@ians.in)
 


 





 

 

 

 

Bookmark and Share

Home | Top of the Page

Comments

Note: By posting your comments here you agree to the terms and conditions of www.ummid.com

Comments powered by DISQUS

i

i

i

 

 

 

Top Stories

'...five years of inexpressible horror, I hope it was a dream'

"It was five years of horror which I would never like to describe. I want to forget them. Though it would take time before the horrific moments are erased from memory, I hope it was a dream", Dr. Salman Farsi says in a shattered voice even as  »

Malegaon youth greeted by thousands at 'Mushawerat Square'

Strong show of unity by Muslims ahead of Malegaon youth's release

 

  Most Read

PM meets Obama, says N-liability within framework of law

Declaring that there were "no irritants whatsoever" in their relationship, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met US President Barack Obama here Friday but clarified that specific grievances  »

States ignoring PM's anti-graft missive: Apex court

The Supreme Court Thursday expressed concern over states ignoring the prime minister's missive asking them to provide infrastructure and set up special CBI courts for speedy trial of graft cases. The court told the states to do so within eight weeks. The apex court bench of Justice  »

 

  News Pick

140 Rajya Sabha MPs have assets but no financial interests

A total of 140 out of the 241 members of the Rajya Sabha claim that they have no financial interests, despite owning assets running into crores of rupees, said an activist Thursday. Prime  »

'Foreign varsities can make Indian education job-oriented'

As India and Scotland forge new ties in education, Scottish education experts say foreign varsities can not only fill the huge demand-supply gap in this field but also help make education more  »

Strong proof against 13 cops in Sohrabuddin killing: Shah

Former Gujarat minister of state for home Amit Shah Thursday washed his hands off the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh staged shootout case and told the Supreme Court that there was "good evidence" against 13 policemen for their  »

 

Picture of the Day

A day after their release on bail November 16, 2011, Malegaon youth were greeted by thousands of people at Mushwaerat Chowk. Mushawerat Chowk of Malegaon is one of the spots where a bomb had exploded on September 08, in 2006. 

(Photo: ummid.com)

 

 
 
 
 
 

RSS  |  Contact us

 

| Quick links

News

 

Subscribe to

Ummid Assistant

 

National

Religion

RSS

Scholarships

About us

International

Culture

Twitter

Government Schemes

Feedback

Regional

History

Facebook

Education

Register

Politics

Opinion

Newsletter

Contact us

Business

Career

     

Education

     

 

 

Ummid.com: Disclaimer | Terms of Use | Advertise with us | Link Exchange

Ummid.com is part of the Awaz Multimedia & Publications providing World News, News Analysis and Feature Articles on Education, Health. Politics, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Industry etc. The articles or the views displayed on this website are for public information and in no way describe the editorial views. The users are entitled to use this site subject to the terms and conditions mentioned.

© 2010 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.