Centre for Internet and Society

Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-11-14T10:17:23Z

Kannada Wikipedia has completed 10 years. The Kannada Wikipedia community will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of Kannada Wikpedia on Nov 17, 2013 from 9.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. at H N Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore. CIS-A2K is a co-sponsor for the program.

The guests of honour will be Dr. U R Ananthamurthy, Prof. G. Venkatasubbiah and Ravi Hegde. There will be speeches by the chief guests from 10.00 a.m. to 11.00 a.m. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja. This will be followed by a talk by some Kannada Wikipedians. At the end there will be a edit-a-thon where Wikipedians will add some articles to Kannada Wikipedia.

Register for the event here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/tenth-anniversary-of-kannada-wikipedia

IDEX Impact Assessment Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-14T05:48:51Z

The Centre for Internet and Society is hosting a workshop organised by IDEX at its office in Bangalore on Saturday, November 16, 2013 from 11.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.

The IDEX Impact Assessment Workshop will provide a comprehensive and interactive intro and overview of all facets of Impact Assessment, with a specific focus on the Social Enterprise sector. The workshop will be conducted by Andy Bhanot of WeStat (bio below) and will be divided into two portions:

11.30 - 14.30: Impact Assessment Crash Course (Intro to IA, Types of IA, Designing IA, etc)

15.30 - 18.30: Interactive Group Projects + Presentations (Applying IA to Specific Sectors / Projects)*

*The focus of this group work will be based upon projects that the IDEX fellows have been working on over the past few months, across various sectors (Water, Livelihoods, Youth, etc)

Andy Bhanot, MBA

Andy Bhanot is a communications and marketing research expert with extensive experience in both the private and development sectors. Mr. Bhanot's areas of expertise include market research analysis and strategy formulation, business development, and leadership and team management.

Mr. Bhanot is an expert in conducting knowledge, attitude, and practice surveys, formative research, pretesting studies, and monitoring and impact evaluation studies. These studies have ranged from HIV/AIDS prevention and care, condom promotion, maternal and child health and governance to gender empowerment, water and environmental sanitation, education, and disaster risk reduction.

He is well versed in both quantitative and qualitative research methods having directed large national surveys, telephonic interviews, rapid feedback studies, focus group discussions, in-depth and key informant interviews, observations, participatory rural appraisals, and ethnographic immersions with urban and rural audiences. Studies included many difficult-to-reach populations: commercial sex workers, men having sex with men, hijras/ transgenders, injecting drug users, truck drivers, migrant workers, gate keepers in the commercial sex trade, employers of bonded labourers, and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Bhanot has conducted numerous usage and attitude studies, brand health trackers, and concept and new product tests. He also has expertise in segmentation and positioning studies, advertising and media studies, customer satisfaction studies, and distribution studies for a wide range of clients (Pfizer, Colgate, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Barclays Bank, Shell, BAT, Wrigley's, Glaxo Smithkline, Cadburys, Nestle, Delmonte, East Africa Breweries, and Tetra Pac).

Mr. Bhanot has worked and travelled extensively across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somaliland, and South Africa. He has presented and published research papers, and has contributed marketing research case studies to books by prominent authors.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/idex-impact-assessment-workshop

Social media promotions can backfire, too

praskrishna — 2013-11-14T05:24:44Z

Social media is a highly effective marketing tool for companies but its very ubiquity and the speed with which messaging goes viral has meant that it can hurt them badly as well, especially since platforms are not always moderated and can be hacked or misused.

The article by Ratna Bhushan and Varuni Khosla was published in the Times of India on November 11, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

It's not just bad language and racially or socially insensitive messages seemingly originating from official Twitter handles, some companies are guilty of poorly judged promotions resulting in consumer backlash.

On the eve of the country's largest broadcaster Star India rebranding its sport channels last week, the Star Sports Twitter handle posted abusive language. Star India said the account had had been hacked, but by then the tweet had gone viral.

Just before that, the Board of Control for Cricket in India Twitter handle had cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar's digital autograph along with bad language on the eve of his retirement from the sports.

Two days before Diwali, beverage and snacks maker PepsiCo ran a contest on Twitter asking contestants to tweet their version of the Ramayana. That caused outrage on social media, led by writer Chetan Bhagat.

PepsiCo quickly apologised and removed the promotion but not before it got flooded by tweets from those who were upset by the move. While Star and BCCI blamed hackers and PepsiCo's scored an own goal, social media experts say companies need to be more responsible.

"Our intent was to involve young Indians in one of India's most loved festivals. We took immediate action and withdrew the contest," the beverage maker's spokesperson said.

AStar Sports spokesperson also said the firm had apologised for the offensive tweet. "We have investigated the issue. A thirdparty vendor had abused his privileged access to the account. We are in the process of taking necessary action and will ensure that no such event recurs."

But ensuring third-party quality control may be easier said than done. "Many companies are unable to handle their social media operations because they usually outsource these to companies that don't get paid well enough (say Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 per month).

Hence the people handling the accounts could be anyone from an untrained 22-year-old fresh out of college or someone who has no skill set in the social media space," said Gaba.

Sometimes humour can turn offensive too. In the middle of last year, when Sachin Tendulkar made his eagerly awaited 100th international century, a tweet from insurance services firm Bajaj Allianz went: Congrats to Sachin for his long awaited 100th ton. Now don't delay your retirement planning. #RetireRich #JiyoBefikar.

That caused much offence to Tendulkar's fans. Or take the case of Fortis, which sought to promote breast feeding week last year with the hashtag AgarMaKaDudhPia-HaiTo. Predictably, this one too ran into trouble.

"Social media by definition, unlike broadcast media, cannot be controlled. Therefore, even if you take all conceivable precautions there can be unintended consequences. But India is culturally as complicated as a continent — therefore, it requires a very sophisticated understanding and nuance to pull off humour that is universally appealing and does not offend anyone," said Abraham. Last week, the seven-year-old Twitter's stock rose 73% on its debut, with a market value of $31 billion, making it one of the most successful IPOs of the year and beating even its own expectations. Globally, examples abound of companies or institutions making on Twitter bloopers.

"Companies shouldn't always come up with the excuse that their account was hacked... they need to be accountable. A senior member of the team should always oversee tweets before they're sent out," said Ankita Gaba, co-founder of socialsamosa.com, an Indian social media knowledge storehouse.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a non-profit research organisation that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression and privacy, said, "The BCCI disaster is because they have taken automation too far. Automation of social media interactions can be useful but without careful human oversight, it can very easily be gamed by rogue elements online."

A PepsiCo India spokesman said the firm's #Ramayana140 Twitter contest "unintentionally caused some concern to consumers".

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-november-11-2013-ratna-bhushan-varuni-khosla-social-media-promotions-can-backfire-too

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students of Christ University

praskrishna — 2013-11-14T05:16:07Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team will organize an Orientation Workshop entitled on Wikipedia for the undergraduate language students of the Christ University, Bangalore on November 16, 2013.

Trainers

T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Syed Muzammiluddin, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Dr Pavanaja,Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Interested Participants

The three days of the orientation programme will cover 1200 second language students of the Christ University, Bangalore.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-orientation-programme-for-second-language-students

Indian Govt to Build Machine Translation System for 22 Indic Languages

praskrishna — 2013-12-11T07:14:35Z

National Translation Mission is preparing a Machine Translation System (MTS) to instantly translate texts from vernacular Indian languages to English, reports New Indian Express.

Brindaalakshmi's article was published by Medianaama on November 14, 2013. CIS memorandum of understanding with Goa University is mentioned.

The report states that scientific and technical terminologies are being developed in 69 disciplines of study in 22 languages as part of this project. Apparently, 25,000 to 30,000 lexicons have been identified in each subject to create the MTS.

Speaking at a media event, Prof V Saratchandran Nair, Director of National Translation Mission said that the project is being initiated to help students who have done their schooling in vernacular languages but have to study in English during college. He also added that only Tamil currently has translated materials in all 69 disciplines, while Oriya has it in 49 disciplines. In contrast, there is no science material available in Santhali, Manipuri and Konkani languages.

National Translation Mission is a Government of India initiative that intends to establish translation as an industry and facilitate higher education by making available translated study material for students. The program also trains translators in different languages. Interestingly, the website states that it will not replicate the efforts of other organisations like C-DAC, TDIL that are also involved in creating indic support for computers and services. However, it seeks to build technology to directly translate a sentence typed in English into an Indian language. When we checked, we noticed that the website also offers dictionaries and other resources for translators.

Other efforts to provide indic support: In September 2013, the Goa university had entered into a three year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building the Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University will be uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia. This could be a good start to building a repository of translated works for science in Konkani.

In July 2013, Technology Development for Indian Languages Programme (TDIL) of DeitY (Department of Electronics and IT) had developed Urdu language fonts and keyboard drivers for Windows and Android.

In June 2013, DeitY had also created a repository of fonts for all 22 constitutionally recognized languages through TDIL. These fonts are available as a CD that can be procured from TDIL or the entire suite can also be downloaded from the TDIL website.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/medianama-november-14-2013-brindaalakshmi-indian-govt-to-build-machine-translation-system-for-22-indic-languages

Puducherry (Govt.) Schemes

praskrishna — 2013-11-13T09:06:04Z

Details of the Scheme in respect of differently-abled division of Social Welfare Department, Puducherry can be viewed below.

Grant of Incentive for marriage between differently-abled persons and normal person
Grant of incentive for marriage between differently-abled persons
Grant of Fuel Subsidy to differently-abled person persons who are owning motorized vehicles
Grant of Financial assistance to differently-abled person
Award of Scholarship to differently-abled person students
Incentive for Eye Donors
Reimbursement of maintenance cost of Tricycles
Supply of sarees and dhotis to differently-abled person persons
State Award for the Welfare of the Handicapped
Supply of Prosthetic Appliances to Differently-abled persons
Issue of free Bus pass to differently-abled person
Annual Tour for differently-abled persons
International day for the differently-abled person
Group Insurance for differently-abled person government employees
Insurance Scheme for person with disabilities other than the employees of Govt. of Pondicherry 2004
The Perunthalaivar Karmaveerar Kamaraj scheme for financial assistance towards funeral expenses of the differently- abled persons
Supply on invalid carriages (motorized tricycles) to the persons with disabilities
Supply of Musical/Sports items to PH welfare associations
Issue of Identity cards to differently-abled persons
Grant of Transport Allowance to Differently-abled persons
Supply of Radio to the Blind Person

Click to download the file received from the Government of Puducherry

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/puducherry-govt-schemes

Puducherry (Govt.) Schemes

praskrishna — 2013-11-13T09:03:44Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/puducherry-govt-schemes.pdf

eAccessibility Workshop 2013

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T10:47:22Z

Directorate of Information Technology (DIT), in association with Mahaonline Limited (MoL) and NIXI has organized a workshop on eAccessibility on November 19-20, 2013 at Mumbai and Pune. The Centre for Internet and Society is one of the trainer organisations for the event.

See the original published by the Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra. Link to the event page.

For this workshop, DIT is inviting developer communities and Software companies primarily working on Government of Maharashtra websites (which are citizen-centric, high-traffic, high impact and important ones), to teach them about accessibility and try to make their websites/application compliant to WCAG 2.0 Level A. It may be noted that Maharashtra’s egovernance policy 2011 specifies that websites/applications should be WCAG 2.0 Level A compliant.

The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of these web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites. The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical (Hands-on) sessions on their own websites.

Topics for workshop:

Sensitization, what is accessible computing, how disabled interact with computer/web, WCAG, Basic principles of web accessibility, assistive tools/products

Implementation methods : HTML Markup validation, Treatment of Links, Page structure/Content, Menu, Images, Forms, Colour, Table, CSS, Keyboard, PDF, etc.

Managing and maintaining accessibility, Access policy design etc.

Targeted Audience for the Hands-On Training:

The participants would be experience technical professionals already involved in developing high traffic/high impact important web sites for Mahatrashtra government clients, with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc. The sessions would give hands-on training to the participants, to make the applications / websites they are working on, “Accessible”.Participants can be:

Web designers, Software Developers, Business Analyst & System Analysts working on Government of Maharashtra Projects

Developers nominated by NIC DIOs for District specific sites

About Trainer Organisations

he trainers will be specialists in web accessibility. We have coordinated with Three Front-Runner organizations in India working on Accessibility, namely The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Barrierbreak and Advanced Blind Student LearningCentre, Univ. Of Pune, to participate in this workshop as CO- TRAINERS.

Please read more about these three organizations.

Workshop Schedule

The schedule of the workshop (to be conducted simultaneously in Mumbai and Pune Locations:

Workshop	Schedule	Highlights
Main Workshop	19-20 Nov 2013	Theory and Hands-on sessions by trainers
Follow up workshop	Second week of December 2013 (Date to be finalized during main workshop)	Review of compliance work done by participating companies and certification of websites for e-Accessibility, followed by Concluding session.

Parallel Tracks and Participant Groups

This workshop will be conducted jointly in Mumbai & Pune and would be achieved by associating with co-trainer organizations with participant-grouping as described below:

Co-Trainer	Group to be alloted	Seat Capacity
The Centre for Internet and Society	Mumbai: Group A	20
Barrierbreak Ltd.	Mumbai: Group B	20
Advanced Technology Blind Student's Learning Centre, University of Pune	Pune: Group C	20

Group A and B: Participants from Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur etc.
Group C : Participants from Pune and adjoining cities.

Location preference of the participants shall be asked at the time of registrations. It will be confirmed depending upon seat-availability, on first-come-first-serve basis.

Follow-up Workshop / Concluding session

There will be a followup workshop (1 day), which shall be important milestone for the entire initiative. During this, First half shall be devoted for compliance-check and actual certification of Websites by Trainer/faculty members. In second half of the day, DIT and MoL would invite larger group of stake-holders, namely concerned Secretaries / HoD of client Organizations.

Expected Outcome of the workshop

At the end of the workshop, as tangible output, it is expected that the sites taken up during the workshop shall be made more accessible, to have larger compliance factor for WCAG 2.0 level A. As part of one of the outcome of the workshop, it is expected that 25 to 30 inaccessible government web sites shall be retrofitting with accessibility features, to make them compliance to WCAG 2.0 Level A.

Cost of participation

Registered participants can attend this workshop free-of-cost.

All Other Costs (Travelling, Lodging, Boarding etc.) are to be borne by the participants/attendees.

Venue Details

Location	Groups	Seat Capacity
Mumbai : Mahaonline Sion Office	A and B	40 (20+20)
Pune: Mahaonline Training Academy Premises	Group C	20

Registrations

The companies working for govt. clients have to register their staff (who are working on a set of websites) for this workshop using following link:

URL: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/eAccessibility_workshop

Maximum 4 staff member can be nominated by a company. For a website, maximum 2 persons can be nominated. The decision of DIT/MoL about selection of a website/participant for this workshop shall be final and binding.

Contact Details

Email: payal.bulani@mahaonline.gov.in
Phone: (022) 6707 7000 Ext 103
Fax: (022) 2402 0507

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/e-accessibility-workshop-2013

The Evolving Cyber Threat and How to Address It

praskrishna — 2013-11-18T10:49:15Z

Larry Clinton, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Security Alliance will give a talk on cyber threat and how to address the same. The talk will be held at the office of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore on November 22, 2.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m.

The talk will broadly cover the following:

Using Public-Private Partnerships to Enhance Cyber Security
Ongoing Threat of Cyber-attacks Must be Fought on Both a Technical and Economic Basis
Targeted Education's Critical Role in Cyber security
Combating the Persistent Cyber Security Threat in the Manufacturing Industry / Cyber Security Threats to the Supply Chain
Economics of Cyber Security

Larry Clinton

Larry Clinton is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Security Alliance (ISA). ISA is a multi-sector trade association with membership from virtually every one of the designated critical industry sectors. The mission of the ISA is to combine advanced technology with economics and public policy to create a sustainable system of cyber security.

Mr. Clinton is regularly called upon to testify before both the U.S. House and Senate. In 2008, ISA published its Cyber Security “Social Contract,” which is both the first and last source cited in the Executive Summary of President Obama’s “Cyberspace Policy Review” (click here for report). This report also cited more than a dozen of ISA’s white papers – far more than any other source. Recently, these ISA documents were also the inspiration for many of the recommendations in the House Republican Cyber Security Task Force Report (click here for report).

Mr. Clinton is known for his ability to take the complicated issues in this space and explain them clearly to a wide range of audiences: professional, policy makers and the general public. He has been featured in mass media such as USA Today, the PBS News Hour, the Morning Show on CBS, Fox News, CNN’s Situation Room, C-SPAN, and CNBC. He has also authored numerous professional journal articles on cyber security. This year he has published articles in the Cutter IT Journal, the Journal of Strategic Security and the Journal of Software Technology (click here for a full list of articles and other ISA news appearances).

The ISA’s pro-market, incentives-based approach to cyber security, rather than regulation, is outlined in its numerous publications, including the ISA Cyber Security Social Contract and Financial Management of Cyber Security series, which were written by the ISA Board of Directors and edited by Mr. Clinton (click here for the full list of ISA Publications).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/evolving-cyber-threat-and-how-to-address-it

Odia Wikipedia Workshop @ IIMC

praskrishna — 2013-11-12T05:13:04Z

The CIS-A2K team is organizing an Odia Wikipedia workshop at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Odisha on November 18 and 19, 2013 from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

ଏଥିରେ କଣ କଣ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ମିଳିବ?

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ଉନ୍ନ‌ତ ଅପସନସମୂହ: ବୋଲ୍ଡ, ତେରଛା ଅକ୍ଷର (Italics), ଆଧାର (Reference) ଯୋଗ, ଶିରୋନାମ (Heading) ଯୋଗ ଆଦି
ଆଗାମୀ କର୍ମଶାଳା ଯାଏଁ ପ୍ରତ୍ୟେକ ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କ ନିମନ୍ତେ କାମ ବିତରଣ
ଛାତ୍ରମାନେ କିପରି ଅଭିଜ୍ଞ ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କଠାରୁ ଅନଲାଇନରେ ତ‌ଥା ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ସ‌ହ‌ଯୋଗ ଲୋଡ଼ିବେ

Please find the full details on the Wiki meta-page here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/odia-wiki-workshop-iimc-nov-18-19-2013

Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-12T04:20:37Z

On November 14, the CIS-A2K team is organizing a one day orientation workshop on 'Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution' at the Kalinga Institute of Social Studies (KISS), Bhubaneswar from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ରୁ

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରସ୍ଥିତ ଆଦିବାସୀ ଆବାସିକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ଷ୍ଟଡିଜ)ଠାରେ ଏଠାକାର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନେ ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜନ‌ଜୀବନ ବାବଦରେ ଅନେକ ଗବେଷଣାଭିତ୍ତିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଏକାଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖିବାର ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଛି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟାୟରେ ଏହି ନ‌ଥିକରଣ ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷାରେ (ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ହିନ୍ଦୀ)ରେ କରାଯାଇ KISS ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସମୂହ ଜ୍ଞାନ‌କୋଷ ପରିସରରେ ଥିବାରୁ ଏସବୁକୁ ଉଇକିକରଣ କରି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହି ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ନ‌ଭେମ୍ବର ୧୪ (ଗୁରବାର‌) ଦିନ ସକାଳ ୧୧:୦୦ ରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହେବାକୁ ଥିବା ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ୧୨ ଜଣ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ୩୨ ଜଣ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଯୋଗଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ଓ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ବାବଦରେ ତାଲିମ ଗ୍ରହଣ କରିବେ ।

Click to read the full details published on the Wiki meta page here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/documentation-and-wikipedia-contribution

Wikimedia Diversity Conference

praskrishna — 2013-12-02T06:40:02Z

T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the conference organized by the German Wikipedia community in Berlin (GLS Campus) on November 9 and 10, 2013. He presented on So Many Languages- Challenges and Opportunities for the Wikimedia Movement in India and also led a Round-up session on Geographic diversity and Language pluralism on Wikimedia.

This was published on the meta page of Wikipedia.

Vishnu's presentation can be accessed here.
A brief discussion of the round-up session can be seen here.
All the videos can be watched here.

Video

Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2013: Interview - T Vishnu Vardhan from Wikimedia Deutschland on Vimeo.

Why a Diversity Conference?

Representing the world's knowledge is the mission of the global Wikimedia movement. But we are still in our infancy. Many languages and cultures are not adequately represented in the different Wikimedia projects, many people shy away from participating in our projects and sharing their knowledge with the world. Particularly striking is the low proportion of women. To gain this knowledge and commitment, both to increase the pool of knowledge in the Wikimedia projects and to enable a heterogeneous, colourful, diverse community, is the goal of our work.

Wikimedia Deutschland is planning to make "Diversity" the topic of an international conference in Berlin. Here we will gather to exchange findings, methods, and approaches for incorporating more gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, and for considering gender diversity within the wider context of diversity in general (language, culture, projects, etc).

New technological innovations such as VisualEditor can have an impact on the formation and composition of authorship, and community projects like Teahouse or WikiWomen's Collaborative have been successfully aimed at supporting diverse contributors. Let's gather to share information about what's working and what's not in current initiatives, consider the impact of technical and community developments, and connect in order to turn ideas into action.

Goals of the Conference

Establish a sustainable dialogue with collaborators in Wikimedia Chapters, the Wikimedia Foundation and the international communities to frame the issue of diversity in the context of Wikimedia.

We aim to build a shared understanding of what diversity means for Wikimedia projects and why it is important.
Connect, multiply and create successful initiatives for increasing gender and other types of diversity in Wikimedia.

We aim to turn ideas into action.

Focus of the conference

We are very happy to see all your ideas and it seems that many Wikipedians, Wikimedians and interested people are highly engaged in thinking about many aspects concerning diversity in Wikipedia. This is great!

To help us organize sessions and accomplish our goals of developing a shared understanding and set of actions for improving diversity, we intend to focus this first conference on two aspects of diversity:

Gender diversity - the gender gap, LGBT initiatives
Geographic diversity - the global south, linguistic and economic diversity

We hope that future events will be organized to focus more specifically on other important diversity aspects like age, education, and disabilities.

Timeline

application for scholarships/submission of proposals August 20 - September 20, 2013
official registration August 20 - October 20, 2013
note of acceptance: by October 4, 2013
agenda finalized: end of October 2013
conference: November 9 - November 10, 2013

Background Information

In 2013, Wikimedia Deutschland initiated a research and development project "Diversity for Wikipedia" that develops possible courses of action towards more gender diversity. Within the project, gender diversity guidelines, gender diversity action plans and designs are developed. It will implement specific actions aimed at enhancing a welcoming culture, diversity awareness among Wikipedians and participation of female editors. In a co-operation with Beuth University, digital web-based educational material with a focus on gender topics will be developed.

Within the framework of developing a diversity concept about what diversity in Wikipedia really means, we will organise this conference to further develop our existing approaches and to elaborate on new ideas. By the end of this year, the project will be in an advanced state and we are looking forward to discuss the different worldwide initiatives with the international communities, Wikimedia Chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Contact

Julia Kloppenburg. You can reach Julia via her user page or via e-mail. For general enquiries and questions concerning scholarships you can contact the organising team at: diversity@wikimedia.de Feel free to get in touch!

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference

Human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet

praskrishna — 2013-11-09T03:38:59Z

This session will offer a multistakeholder overview of the current status of human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet. Pranesh Prakash was a speaker at this event.

Click to read the details posted on IGF website here.

The interactive discussion will touch upon many of the key issues that will be discussed in related workshops prior to the session and will give all stakeholders an equal platform to address issues related to human rights and the Internet to find points of consensus, points of convergence and points of further action/research/referral to other institutions or actors if appropriate.

Policy related questions that this session will address include:

What are/have been the main themes at the nexus of the Internet and human rights in 2013? What have been the policy responses? What are the key strategies and actions for responding to these themes?
What is working well to promote human rights, freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet? What are areas for concern?
What HR standards can be applied in the digital environment?
The HRC adopted a milestone resolution in 2012, in which governments agreed that the same HR apply online as offline (Res 20/8). Do all stakeholders agree with this core concept? What is the relevance of this resolution to Internet public policy making? What has been the impact of the revelations of wide-spread mass surveillance been on taking the implications of this resolution forward?
How can all stakeholders, taking their different roles and responsibilities into account, respect, protect and promote human rights on the Internet nationally, regionally and globally?

Speakers:

Host Country Chair: Prof. Dr. Harkristuti Harkrisnowo (Director General of Human Right, Ministry of Law and Human Right)
Moderators: Anja Kovacs, Internet Democracy Project, New Delhi and Johan Hallenborg, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stockholm, supported by Anriette Esterhuysen, APC, Johannesburg.
Remote Moderator: TBC
Rapporteur: Joy Liddicoat, APC, Wellington (The rapporteur will summarise the session at the end and report into 'Taking Stock')

PART 1: Regional perspectives on human rights on the Internet [45 minutes]

To get the discussion going, the moderators will ask the following people to respond, from a regional perspective, to the question: What are/have been the main themes at the nexus of the Internet and human rights in 2013 in your region?

Eduardo Bertoni, CELE, University of Palermo, Buenos Aires
Fadlah Adams, South African Human Rights Commission, Cape Town
Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Executive Director, Southeast Asian Press Alliance, Bangkok
Jochai Ben-Avie, Access, New York
Moez Chakchouk, ATI, Tunis
Lee Hibbard, Council of Europe, Strasbourg

PART 2: Delving into specific issues [45 minutes]

What is working well to promote human rights, freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet? What are areas for concern? What HR standards can be applied in the digital environment?
Potential Speakers from the Audience:

Freedom of expression: Guy Berger, UNESCO, Paris; Cynthia Wong, Human Rights Watch, Washington DC; Beryl Aidi, Kenyan Human Rights Commission, Nairobi; Ramiro Alvarez Ugarte, Association for Civil Rights, Buenos Aires.
Internet intermediary liability: Gbenga Sesan, Paradigm Initiative, Lagos; Zahid Jamil, Barrister-at-law, Karachi; Malcolm Hutty, LINX, London.
Sexual rights (rights of LGBT communities): Bishakha Datta, Point of View, New Delhi; Nadine Mouawad, EROTICS, Beirut.
Free flow of information, access to knowledge and IP issues: Stuart Hamilton, International Federation of Library Associations, The Hague; Nick Aston Hart, International Digital Economy Alliance (IDEA), Geneva; Pranesh Prakash, CIS, Bangalore; Claudio Ruiz, Derechos Digitales, Santiago.

Network neutrality (in terms of free flow of information): Lisl Brunner, GNI, US/Europe; Luca Belli, Dynamic Coalition on Net Neutrality, Tech and academic community, Europe; Paul Mitchell, Microsoft, US.

Surveillance and transborder access to data: global and national dimensions: Nicolas Seidler, ISOC, Geneva, Ross LaJeunesse, Global Head of Free Expression and International Relations, Google, Mountain View; Seth Bouvier, US Dept. of State, Government, Washington DC; Meryem Merzouki, EDRI (European Digital Rights), Paris.

PART 3: Input from IGF workshops, dynamic coalitions, open forums and other focus sessions [45 minutes]

Organisers of workshops etc. related to Human Rights will be asked to respond to further questions from the moderators, from the perspective of the outcome of their workshop/event.

How can all stakeholders, taking their different roles and responsibilities into account, respect, protect and promote human rights in Internet related public policy making nationally, regionally and globally?

What are some points of consensus; points of convergence; points of further action/research/referral to other institutions or actors that emerged from their sessions?

PART 4: Discussion and going forward [45 minutes]

The following questions will be addressed:

The Human Rights Council adopted a milestone resolution in which governments agreed that the same HR apply online as offline. Do all stakeholders agree with this core concept? What is the relevance of this resolution to Internet public policy making? What has been the impact of the revelations of wide-spread mass surveillance been on taking the implications of this resolution forward?

What do you think we should do next and what is the role of the IGF?

The rapporteur will be given 6 minutes at the end to summarise.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/igf-2013-october-24-human-rights-freedom-of-expression-free-flow-of-information-on-internet

Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness

praskrishna — 2013-11-08T09:50:03Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/pondering-copyright-and-recasting-openness

Conference on eGovernance for India: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Alternatives

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T06:09:27Z

The OECD Korea Policy Centre in partnership with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad is organising an international conference on ‘eGovernance for India: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Alternatives’ at Hyderabad during November 6-7, 2013.

Sunil Abraham is a panelist in the session on OECD Principles on eGovernment and their applicability to the developing world and India. See the event report published by the Centre for Good Governance here.

Click to download the agenda here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/conference-on-e-governance-for-india

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Human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet

Speakers:

PART 1: Regional perspectives on human rights on the Internet [45 minutes]

PART 2: Delving into specific issues [45 minutes]

Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness

Conference on eGovernance for India: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Alternatives