Centre for Internet and Society

Odia Wikipedia Brings 14 Copyright Free Odia Books and a Free Odia Font

praskrishna — 2014-04-06T06:18:22Z

Odia Wikimedia community has celebrated "Odisha Day" today at Jayadev Bhawan.

Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society read the annual report and shared the vision of the Wikimedia movement.

Read the complete story published by Odishabarta on March 29, 2014 here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/odishabarta-march-29-2014-odia-wikipedia-brings-14-copyright-free-odia-books-and-free-odia-font

‘Digitisation only way to preserve valuable literature for posterity’

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T12:40:33Z

Digitization is the only way to ensure preservation of valuable Odia books and old palm-leaf manuscripts for posterity, said eminent linguist Padmashri Dr Debiprasanna Pattanayak while inaugurating the two-day Odisha Day celebration organized by the Odia Wikimedia Community at Jayadev Bhawan here today.

The article was published in Odisha Sun Times on March 29, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

“Collaborative effort and open access to knowledge repositories can help enrich our language and culture”, Dr. Pattanayak said while taking part in the deliberations. He lamented the fact that the majority of current Odia publications are not available on the net.

Among others, Prof Udayanath Sahu, the editor of Odisha Review Lenin Mohanty, editor, Odisha Bhaskar, Pradosh Pattnaik, language researcher, Subrat Prusty from Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS) and principal Dr Madan Mohan Sahu, Allhadmohini Mohanty, chairman, Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa along with the Trust’s secretary Brajamohan Patnaik, senior members Sarojkanta Choudhury and Shisira Ranjan Dash took part in the deliberations.

11 volumes of eminent Odia writer Dr Jagannath Mohanty were released in free Creative Commons licenses. Besides, a DVD containing a new Odia Unicode free font designed by www.OdiaLanguage.com a new Odia input tool, free software and offline Wikipedia were also released on the occasion.

KISS will digitize these books by training its students, the organisers said.

Odia Wikipedia admin Mrutyunjaya Kar gave the inaugural speech while Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society read out the annual report and the vision of Odia Wikipedia.

It was announced that the Odia WikiSource project will be activated soon.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/odishasuntimes-march-29-2014-digitisation-only-way-to-preserve-valuable-literature-for-posterity

Odisha Day 2014

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T04:39:56Z

CIS-A2K in collaboration with the Odia Wikipedia community is organizing this event on March 29, 2014 at Jayadev Bhawan, Bhubaneswar.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/odisha-day-2014

Digitize any Book in the Public Domain

subha — 2014-04-03T08:41:18Z

The article is about a mass scale digitization project for Kannada WikiSource by two Wikipedians.

This was originally published in Opensource.com on March 27, 2014.

A form of poetry in India called Vachana sahitya is part of the popular Indian language, Kannada. It evolved in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th as part of the religious Lingayatha movement. Since that time, more than 259 Vachana writers, called Vachanakaru, have compiled over 11,000 Vachanas (verses).

21,000 of these verses were digitally published into 15 volumes, called Samagra Vachana Samputa, by the government of Karnataka. These volumes were then turned into a standalone project called Vachana Sanchaya; this project was taken on by two Kannada Wikimedians, a Kannada linguist, and the author O. L. Nagabhushana Swamy—to enrich the Kannada WikiSource. This team used Unicode, a standard of consistency for converting text (and code) into a new format.

Swamy was trying to access these poems, and was having trouble because it was in ISCII, an Indian character encoding standard. We began writing scripts to make the Vachanas (poems) searchable by an index. But, in order to do that well, we had to build a platform for everyone to use: the linguistic researchers, students, and the public at large who are interested in reaching this literature.

Omshivaprakash, a Kannada Wikimedian, worked on the architecture of the platform, decided the infrastructure requirements, and chose the open source software tools to use. I was involved in providing critical hacks for digitization and valuable inputs through suggestions, feedback, and quality assurance.

At present, our repository, Vachana Sanchaya, has around 200,000 unique words that were derived from these poems. The public has been using our repository and accessing Vahanas (poems) from our Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ profiles. There are thousands of people now who read a Vahana as part of their daily routine. Vachana Sanchaya is not just meant for reading the poems, it is also meant for research. So, we have added a way for researchers to help us review the content and will be adding references from various research papers.


Above: A screenshot of the Vachana sahitya page

The most commonly searched words are:

ಕರ್ಮ(Karma: English: work/deed)
ಸತ್ಯ(SathyaEnglish: truthfulness )
ನದಿ(Nadī: English:river)

ಆಂಗೀರಸ, ಪುಲಸ್ತ್ಯ, ಪುಲಹ, ಶಾಂತ,
ದಕ್ಷ, ವಸಿಷ್ಠ, ವಾಮದೇವ, ನವಬ್ರಹ್ಮ, ಕೌಶಿಕ, ಶೌನಕ, ಸ್ವಯಂಭು, ಸ್ವಾರೋಚಿಷ, ಉತ್ತಮ, ತಾಮಸ, ರೈವತ,
ಚಾಕ್ಷಷ, ವೈವಸ್ವತ, ಸೂರ್ಯಸಾವರ್ಣಿ,ಚಂದ್ರಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಬ್ರಹ್ಮಸಾವರ್ಣಿ,
ಇಂದ್ರ ಸಾವರ್ಣಿ ಇವರು ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತು ಮಂದಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ನಿರ್ಮಾಣ ಸಹಾಯ[ದ]ವರು. ಹತ್ತೊಂಬತ್ತು ಎಂದರೆ ಪುಣ್ಯನದಿಗಳು.
ಅದು ಎಂತೆಂದಡೆ: ಗ್ರಂಥ

All of the content is currently available to the public through the OpenData API, and once the reviewing the work is complete, it will be distributed in the public domain through WikiSource. This will open up the system for students, developers, researchers, and anyone interested in building linguistic tools for Kannada and other Indic languages. Users will be able to use our code to digitize any book available in the public domain. Early literature in any language is well-respected, so making it available via an open platform allows for reuse of the content for research, publication, and other documentation work.

We encourage other projects of this kind to follow our method and use any part of our process that is helpful.

Going foward, we would like to:

Initiate Natural Language Processing (NLP) projects if more researches help to tag words and grow the glossary
Continue work on subsequent, similar projects for Sarvagnana Vachanagalu and Dāsa Sanchaya (work has begun) and Vyasa and Muddann (work not yet started)
Extend this platform to other the contemporary literature works available in the public domain.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/opensource-march-27-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-digitize-any-book-in-public-domain

Sessions on Kannada Wikipedia at Tumkur University

praskrishna — 2014-04-06T04:50:42Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted a session on Kannada Wikipedia for students of M.Sc. Library and Information Sciences followed by an advanced Kannada Wikipedia session for students of M.A. Literature on March 27, 2014. The event was organized by Tumkur University.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/sessions-on-kannada-wikipedia-tumkur-university

Odia Wikipedia to digitize 14 books

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T10:40:56Z

On the occasion of the 79th Odisha Day, the Odia Wikipedia has decided to take up a new project for the digitization of 11 books of the eminent Odia author Dr Jagannath Mohanty.

The article was published in the Odisha Sun Times Bureau on March 27, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

On the occasion of the 79th Odisha Day, the Odia Wikipedia has decided to take up a new project for the digitization of 11 books of the eminent Odia author Dr Jagannath Mohanty.

In a release, programme officer (Access to Knowledge) of Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru Subhashish Panigrahi said the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) would take up the digitization project where KISS students would type them on WikiSource, a sister project of Wikipedia.

These books include children’s literature, travelogues and biographical essays penned by Dr Mohanty.

Digitization of three more books: two in Odia-”Jati, Jagruti O Pragati” (book on people and culture of Odisha), “Bhasa O Jatiyata in Odia” ( a book based on research on Odia language) and an English book on the literary heritage of Odia, “Classical Odia” will be also be inaugurated on this day.

All these digitised books will be made available on the Internet with open access through free licenses. More than 5000 pages will be digitized in these two projects, Panigrahi said.

He said several public and private organizations have started taking the effort seriously after Odia got classical status recently.

Stating that the Odia language is lagging behind since it is not being accessed and used by the people due to the relatively inadequate and low content, Panigrahi said there is a great need for making content available in regional languages for a better sharing of knowledge with the new generations.

With a view to discussing the need for many new tools and technological advancement, a seminar would be held at Jayadev Bhawan in the city here on March 29.

Prof Udayanath Sahu, writer Asit Mohanty, litterateur Dr Lenin Mohanty would participate and discuss about spell check for Odia, use of Odia language in the media and tools for typing in Odia.

It may be mentioned that the Odia Wikipedia has become a useful tool to access vast amount of knowledge in Odia.

Available for free at https://or.wikipedia.org , it is an online encyclopedia that has about 5000 articles. Unlike conventional encyclopedias anyone can create and edit Wikipedia articles by abiding few basic guidelines.

About 20 Wikipedians are contributing articles on diverse topics. Wikipedia has a self correcting mechanism of experienced editors guiding new ones to proofread and correct language and add citations.

So far, about 25 outreach programs have been organized in over 10 educational and community organizations to educate people \with two Wikipedia education programmes running for 3-4 months.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/odisha-sun-times-odia-wikipedia-digitize-14-books

ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଦିବସ: ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଭିତ୍ତିରେ ରାଜ୍ୟ ଗଠନର ୭୯ ବର୍ଷ

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T08:30:47Z

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ସମ୍ପାଦକମାନଙ୍କ ତରଫରୁ ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରଠାରେ ଏହି ୨୯ ତାରିଖରେ “ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଦିବସ ୨୦୧୪” ପାଳନ କରାଯାଉଛି ।

Click to read the original published in Odishan.com on March 27, 2014.

ଏହି ଦିନ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିଶୁ ସାହିତ୍ୟିକ ଡଃ ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ ମହାନ୍ତିଙ୍କ ୧୧ ଖଣ୍ଡ ପୁସ୍ତକର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ରୂପ ପ୍ରସ୍ତୁତ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପର ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯିବ । ପାଖାପାଖି ୩୦୦୦ ପୃଷ୍ଠା ଡିଜିଟାଇଜ ହେବାକୁ ଥିବା ଏହି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚ୍ୟୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇନ୍ସେସ (କିସ) ତରଫରୁ ସ୍କୁଲ ପିଲାଙ୍କ ଦ୍ୱାରା ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କ ଦ୍ୱାରା ଆଗାମୀ କିଛି ମାସ ଭିତରେ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ବ‌ହିଗୁଡ଼ିକ ମଧ୍ୟରେ ରହିଛି କିଛି ଶିଶୁସାହିତ୍ୟ ବହି, ଡଃ ମହାନ୍ତିଙ୍କ ଆମୋଦଦାୟକ ଅନେକ ଭ୍ରମଣ କାହାଣୀ ଓ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିଶୁସାହିତ୍ୟର ଇତିହାସ । ଏହି ଦିନ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅଧ୍ୟୟନ ଓ ଗବେଷଣା ସଂସ୍ଥା ଦ୍ୱାରା ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଓ ଜନଜୀବନର ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଇତିହାସ ସଂକଳିତ ତିନୋଟି ବହି-”ଜାତି, ଜାଗୃତି ଓ ପ୍ରଗତି”, “ଭାଷା ଓ ଜାତୀୟତା” ଓ ଏକ ଇଂରାଜୀ ବହି “Classical Odia”କୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଆଉ ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପର ଶୁଭାରମ୍ଭ କରାଯିବ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ଅନେକ ପୁସ୍ତକ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ନ ଥିବା ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ତଥ୍ୟ ଖୋଜିବା ଓ ଜ୍ଞାନ ଆହରଣ ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବିଶାଳ ପ୍ରତିବନ୍ଧକ ବୋଲି ବିଶିଷ୍ଠ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାବିଦ ପଦ୍ମଶ୍ରୀ ଡଃ ଦେବୀପ୍ରସାଦ ପଟ୍ଟନାୟକ କହିଛନ୍ତି । ଆଗରୁ ସୃଜନିକା ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ତରଫରୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପାଖାପାଖି ୭୪୦ ଖଣ୍ଡ ପୁରାତନ ପୁସ୍ତକର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ସଂସ୍କରଣ ପ୍ରସ୍ତୁତ କରାଯାଇଥିଲେ ମଧ୍ୟ କେବଳ ସ୍କାନ କରାଯାଇଥିବା ଏହି ସମସ୍ତ ପୁସ୍ତକର ଲେଖାସବୁ ଖୋଜିବା ସମ୍ଭବ ନୁହେଁ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ତରଫରୁ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କୁ ନେଇ କର୍ମଶାଳା ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଏହି ଉପାଦେୟ ବହିକୁ ପୁନଃ-ଟାଇପ କରି ମାଗଣାରେ ବିନା କପିରାଇଟରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ରଖାଯିବ । ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଏଥିନିମନ୍ତେ ଉଇକି-ପାଠାଗାର ନାମକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରାଯିବ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ଭାଷାର ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇବା ପରେ ସରକାର ଓ ଅନେକ ସଙ୍ଗଠନମାନଙ୍କ ତରଫରୁ ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଅନେକ ନୂଆ ନୂଆ ଯୋଜନା ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଛି । ତେବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ଲେଖାମାନ ଏବେ ମଧ୍ୟ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଅନେକ ପରିମାଣରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଯାହା ବିଶ୍ୱଦରବାରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆର ସ୍ଥିତିକୁ ଯଥେଷ୍ଟ ଦୁର୍ବଳ କରିରଖିଛି । ବର୍ତ୍ତମାନର ଅନେକ ଶିଶୁ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରୁ ଶିଖିବା ପସନ୍ଦ କଲେଣି ଯାହା ଭାଷା ଶିକ୍ଷଣର ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ବିରାଟ ପରିବର୍ତ୍ତନର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତାକୁ ଦୃଢ଼ୀଭୂତ କରିଛି । ଏହି ସମସ୍ତ ବିଷୟକୁ ଆଖିରେ ରଖି ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ବନାନ ସୁଧାରିବା, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଗଣମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଓ ଅନ୍ୟନ୍ୟ ମାଧ୍ୟମ ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶରେ କି କି ପଦଃକ୍ଷେପ ନେଇପାରିବେ ସେ ବାବଦରେ ପ୍ରଫେସର ଉଦୟନାଥ ସାହୁ, ବରିଷ୍ଠ ସାମ୍ବାଦିକ ସମ୍ପଦ ମହାପାତ୍ର, ଓଡ଼ିଶା ରିଭିଉ ପତ୍ରିକାର ସମ୍ପାଦକ ଓ ସାହିତ୍ୟିକ ଡଃ ଲେନିନ ମହାନ୍ତି ପ୍ରମୁଖ ଆଲୋଚନା କରିବେ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ or.wikipedia.org ଠାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଏକ ଅନଲାଇନ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ । ଏଥିରେ ଅନ୍ୟ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ ଭଳି କିଛି ହାତଗଣତି ସମ୍ପାଦକ ନଥାଏ ଏଥିରେ ସମସ୍ତଙ୍କୁ ସମ୍ପାଦନାର ସୁବିଧା ଦିଆଯାଇଥାଏ । ତେବେ କେତେକ ନୀତିନିୟମ ଦ୍ୱାରା ଏଥିରେ ଅଦରକାରୀ ଲେଖା ସବୁକୁ ଅଭିଜ୍ଞ ସମ୍ପାଦକମାନେ ସୁଧାରିଥାନ୍ତି । ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଅଧୁନା ୨୦ ଜଣ ସମ୍ପାଦକ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ଭାଷା, କଳା, ଲୋକସଂସ୍କୃତି ଓ ଜଗତର ବାକି ଅନେକ ବିଷୟରେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାରେ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରୁଛନ୍ତି । ୫୦୦୦ ଗୋଟି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ ପ୍ରଥମ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଭାବେ ବାକି ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷା-ଅସମୀୟା, ପଞ୍ଜାବୀ ଓ ମାଲାୟାଲାମ ସହ ୨୦୦୨ରେ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଥିଲା । ତେବେ ୯ରୁ ଅଧିକ ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ଏହା ସମ୍ପାଦକଙ୍କ ଅଭାବରୁ ସ୍ଥାଣୂ ହୋଇ ରହିଥିଲା । ୨୦୧୧ରେ କିଛି ଯୁବା ଏହାକୁ ଆଉଥରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ କରିଥିଲେ । ତା’ପରଠାରୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ୧୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ଓ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ସହରରେ ୨୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ କର୍ମଶାଳାମାନ କରିସାରିଛି । ଏହି କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମର ଦ୍ୱିତୀୟ ଅଧିବେଶନରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିବାକୁ ଆଗ୍ରହୀ ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିମାନଙ୍କ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏକ କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ ମଧ୍ୟ କରାଯାଇଛି ।

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/odishan-march-27-2014-odisha-day-2014

Wikipedia taps students for Kannada content

praskrishna — 2014-04-03T10:01:27Z

Conducts workshops in Ujire, Moodbidri for training in vernacular editing.

The article by Renuka Phadnis was published in the Hindu on March 24, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.

Wikipedia is tapping college students in tier II and III cities in India to increase vernacular content on the web-based encyclopaedia.

U.B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer – Indian Language, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Studies (CIS), Bangalore, says there is adequate content on Kannada, Kannadiga, Karnataka on Kannada Wikipedia but on science and technology, the content is a little less.

To fill this gap, he is conducting workshops to teach students to turn volunteers for Wikipedia in far-flung places like Ujire and Moodbidri.

On Sunday, 47 students attended a workshop at Shri Dharmasthala Manunatheshwara (SDM) College in Ujire. And most of them immediately donned the volunteer’s cap. “More people who write Kannada should contribute to Wikipedia in Kannada,” says Shalini, a student of M.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism (MCJ) at SDM College, after the workshop.

Murali Krishna, also a journalism student of SDM College, says typing in the language was “a bit difficult” but some practice will make it simpler. “I had no idea about (editing) Kannada Wikipedia,” he says.

On Saturday Mr. Pavanaja — who has been editing the Kannada Wikipedia for the past 10 years — conducted a similar workshop for 30 students at Alva’s College, Moodbidri.

Mr. Pavanaja says contributions peaked in between 2006 and 2008, then declined “due to many reasons” and “picked up last year”. There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.

He says Kannada Wikipedia has very few women editors. Of the 557 editors of Kannada Wikipedia, who have contributed 16,670 articles till now, 226 are active editors and, of them, five men and three women editors are “very active”.

Bhaskar Hegde, Head of the Department, MCJ, SDM College, said he got the workshops organised at the college after hearing about them from friend Niranjan Vanalli (Chairman, Department of MCJ, Mysore University). He said, “This is the second workshop here. The students are enthusiastic and it sharpens their writing skills.”

Mangalore will host a workshop to get people to contribute to Tulu Wikipedia. U.B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer – Indian Language, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Studies (CIS), Bangalore, said a workshop will be held in Theosophical College, Balmatta, on April 6.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-march-24-2014-wikipedia-taps-students-for-kannada-content

Vachana Sanchaya: 11th century Kannada literature to enrich Wikisource

subha — 2014-03-20T11:13:22Z

Kannada Wikipedian Omshivaprakash, Pavithra and I co-authored this article on digitizing Vachana Sahitya, a 11th century Kannada literature on WikiSource.

Pavithra Hanchagaiah and Omshivaprakash HI, Wikimedians from India are co-authors with Subhashish Panigrahi in this article. This was originally posted on Wikimedia blog and published by GlobalVoices on March 18, 2014.

In the poetry of Kannada (an Indic language), Vachana sahitya is a form of rhythmic writing that evolved in the 11th Century C.E. and flourished in the 12th century, as part of the “Lingayatha” movement. More than 259 Vachanakaras (Vachana writers) have compiled over 11,000 vachanas. 21,000 of these verses which were published in a 15 volume “Samagra Vachana Samputa” by the government of Karnataka have been digitized. Two Wikimedians along with a Kannada linguist and author O. L. Nagabhushana Swamy are involved in the Unicode conversions, corrections and writing preface for these verses. The entire work is now available as a standalone project called “Vachana Sanchaya” and ready to enrich Kannada Wikisource.

This project was started a year ago when Kannada Wikimedian Omshivaprakash was trying to help Professor O.L. Naghabhushana Swamy and Kannada author and publisher Vasudhendra access the vachana (verses) of Vachana Sanchaya. Swamy had trouble using publicly available content on Vachanas since the data was in ASCII standard and searching text was a huge problem. I (Pavithra Hanchagaiah) started to help gather information about vachanas and document it in Unicode by writing scripts for open source software. Further discussions were had to get thousands of vachanas in the form of a database, so that they could be easily searchable with an index. This demanded us to build a platform supporting all these activities, which would help the linguistic researchers, students and members of the general public who have an interest in reading and studying Vachana literature. With this idea, Omshivaprakash started designing the model, and his colleague Devaraju started building it. In the meantime I was running various scripts to fix errors in conversion of ASCII text to Unicode, confirming that the data was ready to consume by the modules developed for concordance. We spent weekends & holidays executing this project from home. With the constant feedback and guidance from Mr. Swamy and Vasudendra, we learned how concordance of text is used by researchers and what would make it easier for them to research on Vachana Sahitya. Omshivaprakash worked on the architecture of the platform, decided the infrastructure requirements – free and open source software technologies were used to keep the platform active while managing the entire project. I provided critical hacks for digitization and gave feedback through suggestions.

Working System Currently, the system has around 200,000 unique words in its repository. Vachana Sanchaya is meant for research rather than just a repository of text on the web. While you search the words on our system, you can see who has used the word in all Vachanas. To make the research more readable, we highlight the text searched in each Vachana that would be displayed. To repeat the search for a specific Vachanakara (poet) you just need to click on his name on the graph on the results page. We have used MediaWiki’s jquery-ime input tool architecture that helped us provide a feature to directly enter Kannada text in Unicode for searches. So just type, and get results!	Vachana Sanchaya Website Screenshot

Working System

Currently, the system has around 200,000 unique words in its repository. Vachana Sanchaya is meant for research rather than just a repository of text on the web. While you search the words on our system, you can see who has used the word in all Vachanas. To make the research more readable, we highlight the text searched in each Vachana that would be displayed. To repeat the search for a specific Vachanakara (poet) you just need to click on his name on the graph on the results page. We have used MediaWiki’s jquery-ime input tool architecture that helped us provide a feature to directly enter Kannada text in Unicode for searches. So just type, and get results!

Vachana Sanchaya Website Screenshot

Public Response

We are glad to see people accessing vachanas from our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ channels. There have been approximately 500,000 pageviews to our site in the first few months of our platform’s public launch. Interestingly, commonly searched Kannada words like “ಕರ್ಮ”(Karma en:Work/Deed) , “ಸತ್ಯ” (Sathya -en:Truthfulness ) and “ನದಿ” (River) have resulted in quick and easy results.

Plans for the future

ಆಂಗೀರಸ, ಪುಲಸ್ತ್ಯ, ಪುಲಹ, ಶಾಂತ,ದಕ್ಷ, ವಸಿಷ್ಠ, ವಾಮದೇವ, ನವಬ್ರಹ್ಮ, ಕೌಶಿಕ, ಶೌನಕ, ಸ್ವಯಂಭು, ಸ್ವಾರೋಚಿಷ, ಉತ್ತಮ, ತಾಮಸ, ರೈವತ, ಚಾಕ್ಷಷ, ವೈವಸ್ವತ, ಸೂರ್ಯಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಚಂದ್ರಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಬ್ರಹ್ಮಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಇಂದ್ರ ಸಾವರ್ಣಿ ಇವರು ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತು ಮಂದಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ನಿರ್ಮಾಣ ಸಹಾಯ[ದ]ವರು. ಹತ್ತೊಂಬತ್ತು ಎಂದರೆ ಪುಣ್ಯನದಿಗಳು. ಅದು ಎಂತೆಂದಡೆ: ಗ್ರಂಥ

Our system is extensible with respect to adding new feature – we have a review desk for researchers to help us with the review of content. Later we will also be adding required references to Vachanas from various research works that have been done around this literature. The content is available to the public through OpenData API and will be distributed as public domain through Wikisource once the review work is complete. This will open up the system for students, developers, researchers and anyone interested in working around building linguistic tools for Kannada and other Indic languages. This system is meant to evolves around other works rather than having to change and re-invent the wheel for more such projects. Vachana Sahitya will further help us to initiate Natural Language Processing (NLP) projects if more researchers get together to tag the words, glossary etc in the coming days. We can also fulfill the need of various language tools like spelling and grammar checker for users through crowd-sourcing the development. The next projects under the “Kannada Sanchaya” are Sarvagnana Vachanagalu and Dāsa Sanchaya which are in the pipeline with initial phases of work underway. Our idea is to extend this platform from Vyasa to Muddanna and possibly the contemporary literature work available in the public domain.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/vachana-sanchaya-11th-century-kannada-literature-to-enrich-wikisource

Open Source Project Brings 11th Century Kannada Verses Online

subha — 2014-04-06T06:00:47Z

The post was co-authored by Pavithra Hanchagaiah, Omshivaprakash H L and Subhashish Panigrahi and published in the March issue of Foss Force.

Click to read the original published on the website of Foss Force here.

Vachana sahitya is a form of rhythmic writing in Kannada poetry that evolved in the 11th century C.E. and flourished in the 12th century as a part of the Lingayatha movement. More than 259 Vachanakaras (Vachana writers) have compiled over 11,000 vachanas. 21,000 of these verses which were published in a 15 volume set, “Samagra Vachana Samputa,” by the Government of Karnataka, a state in South West India, have been digitized. Two Wikimedians along with Kannada linguist and author O. L. Nagabhushana Swamy are involved in the Unicode conversions, corrections and writing the preface for these verses. The entire work is now available as a standalone project called Vachana Sanchaya and ready to enrich Kannada WikiSource.


Palm leaf of 11th and 12th Century with Vachana poems in Kannada language

This project was started a year ago when Kannada Wikimedian Omshivaprakash was trying to help Professor O. L. Naghabhushana Swamy and Kannada author and publisher Vasudhendra to easily access the vachana (verses) of Vachana Sanchaya. Swamy had challenges in using publicly available content on Vachanas since the data was in ASCII and searching text was a huge problem. Pavithra Hanchagaiah started helping to collect information about about vachanas and document them into Unicode by writing scripts to customize open source software to convert the Kannada fonts from ASCII into Unicode.

After further discussions, it was decided to get thousands of vachanas into a database, making them easily searchable with an index. This required us to build a platform on which this could be done. The fruits of our labors will help linguistic researchers and students as well as the public at large, anybody who’s interested in reading and studying Vachana literature. With this idea, Omshivaprakash started designing the model and his colleague Devaraju started building it. In the meantime, Pavithra was running various scripts to fix errors in the conversion of the ASCII text to Unicode, confirming that the data was ready to be consumed by the modules developed for the concordance. We spent weekends and holidays executing this project from home and would sync up once in a while online.	Pavithra Hanchagaiah and Omshivaprakash H L

After further discussions, it was decided to get thousands of vachanas into a database, making them easily searchable with an index. This required us to build a platform on which this could be done. The fruits of our labors will help linguistic researchers and students as well as the public at large, anybody who’s interested in reading and studying Vachana literature.

With this idea, Omshivaprakash started designing the model and his colleague Devaraju started building it. In the meantime, Pavithra was running various scripts to fix errors in the conversion of the ASCII text to Unicode, confirming that the data was ready to be consumed by the modules developed for the concordance. We spent weekends and holidays executing this project from home and would sync up once in a while online.

Pavithra Hanchagaiah and Omshivaprakash H L

With constant feedback and guidance from Mr. Swamy and Vasudendra, we learned how a concordance of text is used by researchers and what would make it easier for them to do their research. Omshivaprakash worked on the architecture of the platform, decided the infrastructure requirements and managed the entire project. Free and open source software technologies were used for keeping the platform active. Pavithra was involved in providing critical hacks for digitization and offered valuable input through suggestions, feedback and Q&A.

Working system

At present, the system has around 200,000 unique words in the repository. It was an extensive learning process, as we used our free time to solve real time issues. Moreover, it was a work of the Kannada language that needed quick attention. Vachana Sanchaya is meant to be more than just a repository of the text online; it’s meant to be a tool for researchers.

For example, as a user searches the words on our system, he or she can see who has used the word in which Vachanas. To improve readability, the searched text string is highlighted in each Vachana that is displayed. To repeat the search for a specific Vachanakaara, the user needs only to click on his or her name on the graph provided on the result page. We have used the MediaWiki jquery-ime input tool architecture that helps us provide the user with the ability to directly enter Kannada text in Unicode for a search.

Public response

We are glad to see people accessing vachanas from our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ channels. Thousands read them every day and it has become a part of many people’s daily routine. There have been more than 50,000 page views on social networks and 500,000 page views on our site in the first few months after our platform’s public launch. Some of the most commonly searched Kannada words are “ಕರ್ಮ”(Karma en: Work/Deed), “ಸತ್ಯ” (Sathya en: Truthfulness) and “ನದಿ” (River).

ಆಂಗೀರಸ, ಪುಲಸ್ತ್ಯ, ಪುಲಹ, ಶಾಂತ,
ದಕ್ಷ, ವಸಿಷ್ಠ, ವಾಮದೇವ, ನವಬ್ರಹ್ಮ, ಕೌಶಿಕ, ಶೌನಕ, ಸ್ವಯಂಭು, ಸ್ವಾರೋಚಿಷ, ಉತ್ತಮ, ತಾಮಸ, ರೈವತ, ಚಾಕ್ಷಷ, ವೈವಸ್ವತ, ಸೂರ್ಯಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಚಂದ್ರಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಬ್ರಹ್ಮಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಇಂದ್ರ ಸಾವರ್ಣಿ ಇವರು ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತು ಮಂದಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ನಿರ್ಮಾಣ ಸಹಾಯ[ದ]ವರು. ಹತ್ತೊಂಬತ್ತು ಎಂದರೆ ಪುಣ್ಯನದಿಗಳು. ಅದು ಎಂತೆಂದಡೆ: ಗ್ರಂಥ

– An example of a vachana from the Vachana Sanchaya project.

Plans for the future

Our system is extensible with respect to adding new features. We have a review desk for researchers to help with the review of content. Later we will be adding required references to Vachanas from various research works on this literature. The content is available for the public through OpenData API and will be distributed in the public domain through WikiSource once the review work is complete. This will open up the system for students, developers, researchers and anyone interested in working to build linguistic tools for Kannada and other Indic languages.

This system will evolve so it can be used for other literature projects. Vachana Sahitya will further help us to initiate Natural Language Processing (NLP) projects if more researches get together to tag the words, glossary, etc. We can also add various language tools such as a spell checker and grammar checker through crowd-sourcing development. The forthcoming project under the “Kannada Sanchaya” are Sarvagnana Vachanagalu and Dāsa Sanchaya which are already in the pipeline. Our idea is to extend this platform to include works from antiquity (Vyasa, for example) to the early 20th century (e.g., Muddanna) and possibly even include contemporary literature that’s available in the public domain.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/foss-force-open-source-project-brings-11th-century-kannada-verses-online

Design!Public

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T11:14:52Z

Centre for Knowledge Societies is organizing this event in partnership with Grameen Foundation India, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNDP, et.al. Sunil Abraham is a speaker at this event to be held in New Delhi on March 14, 2014.

Design Public is a high-level conversation among a select group of thinkers, decision-makers and opinion-leaders who seek to transform India into an innovation society. It brings together influential actors from all sectors of society to deliberate the best ways in which innovation can serve the public interest. The larger goal of the Conclave is to serve as an enabling platform for building the necessary partnerships and consortia that will bring this agenda to practical realization.

Schedule

8.30	Registration and Coffee Background Track: Hamsa Dhwani
9.00	Breakfast Dialogue: Three Perspectives to Citizen-Centricity by Shazia Ilmi Somnath Bharti Namrata Mehta Aditya Dev Sood and Sunil Abraham Three distinct approaches to Governance Innovation are seen in India today: citizen activism, the open data and open governance agenda, and the integration of design and innovation into government processes. Representatives from each of these spaces begin the day with an open and friendly public dialogue.
10.20	Word of Welcome
10.30	Session One: The Elements of Governance Innovation by Sumandro Chattapadhyay Raman Jit Singh Chima Arndt Husar Esko Kilpi Chakshu Roy Divya Datta Namrata Mehta How are people thinking about Governance Innovation around the world in terms of process, data and systems change? What is the success of various Lab models and how do they exactly work? What is the relevance of these approaches to the Indian scenario?
12.00	Session Two: Social Innovation through Partnership with Private Sector by Nehal Sanghavi Daniel Radcliffe Louise Pulford Chandni Ohri Ada Wong Aditya Dev Sood How can we promote social innovation through new partnerships between the social and private sectors? How can we take advantage of the new Companies Act to develop new alliances and partnerships across sectors that will actually drive innovation? How does the concept of social innovation fit into these needs?
01.00	Networking Lunch Talk and connect with people outside your comfort zone!
02.00	Convene for Working Group Breakouts
02.30	Working Group One: Design a Social Innovation Exchange for India by Mike Knowles Nehal Sanghavi Daniel Radcliffe Louise Pulford Chandni Ohri Abhimanyu Nowhar Ada Wong Aditya Dev Sood The Social Innovation Exchange is a global organization with several regional hubs, such as SIX Asian in Hong Kong. What if there were to be a SIX India? What would be its mandate? What activities and goals should it pursue?
02.30	Working Group Two: Building an Action Plan for a Civic Innovation Lab The assembled group of thought leaders at this Design Public Conclave have the potential to reorganize as a new non-partisan community dedicated to achieving governance innovation. For this to be possible, however, they must first breakout into articulating challenges and goals in each of the three areas identified below.
03.30	WGII Breakout Two Alpha: A New Agenda for Citizen-centric Innovation by Sumandro Chattapadhyay Soaib Grewal Ambrish Arora Usha Alexander Ishan Khosla MP Ranjan Sunil Abraham How can design and innovation methods benefit the citizenry? How can mobile networks and different kinds of data be used to create better urban experiences? How can India’s new urban activism better align with design and data approaches?
03.30	WGII Breakout Two Beta: Institutionalizing a Civic Innovation Network by Lysander Menezes Suhas Mhaskar Rajesh Khati Shweta Banerjee Arndt Husar Jatin Modi Esko Kilpi Rajesh Sawhney Chakshu Roy How do we bring together the natural allies of Civic Innovation into a larger network? Which government agencies, startups, and social development organizations need to work together towards this goal? How could Civic Innovation be operationalized? What institutions, individuals and networks might support Civic Innovation?
04.30	Coffee Jam with Music
05.00	Public Presentations from Each Breakout by Prashant Bhushan Balasubramanian Munuswamy Harsh Shrivastava Anant Shah MP Ranjan Sukumar Ranganthan Thought leaders and decision makers critique and review public presentations made by each of the breakout sessions. An open dialogue ensues.
05.30	Dialogue: Framing Conclusions and Charting Next Steps An open dialogue to articulate possible next steps, possible coalitions, alliances, research programs and funding prospects for these areas of work.
07.00	Cocktails, Dancing and Dinner After a heavy day at the office, you deserve to twist that spine.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/design-public-2014

Open Education Week: Interview with Subhashish Panigrahi

noopur — 2014-04-04T09:20:49Z

Noopur Raval interviewed Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team about sharing information resources and attribution in academia.

Subhashish Panigrahi works as a Programme Officer for Community and Program Support, Access To Knowledge (A2K) for Centre for Internet and Society. Supported by a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, the Access to Knowledge program promotes participation in Indian language Wikipedia projects. As a part of his role, Subhashish interacts with school and university students from different parts of India regularly. In this interview, he reflects on how students are aware (or not) of attribution.

Read the original published on Commons Machinery website here.

What is the general trend around sharing information resources and attribution among students and teachers?
It is funny to know most students I have spoken to rely on photocopied notes provided by their teachers and try to keep the writing style and sentence structure same as the notes. They don’t know that copying answers or quotes amounts to plagiarism. It is the same for many teachers who teach them to keep the beauty of the author’s writing without modifying it. Also, when I visit universities and interact with professors and students, most consider Google and Wikipedia their best friends, primarily for the quick access to information and imagery. I get a lot of questions about the proper procedure of inserting images that appear in Google search in Wikipedia entries. Many student projects are focused on getting the best pictures available on the internet which means they may download copyrighted images (with watermarks) and modify them. With music and video, it is even worse.

Does the current situation become problematic when you encourage students to contribute to Wikipedia?
It often does. For instance, when we initiated the India Education Program (IEP), as a part of Wikipedia Education Program (WEP), to include editing Wikipedia articles as part of academic curricula. Started in 2011 as a pilot program in the city of Pune, IEP engaged with over 1000 students on English Wikipedia. But the lack of education about copyright violation, and a habit of copying notes from books and other sources affected the program outcome. Many articles were copied from books and internet portals without even paraphrasing, which is completely against Wikipedia policies.

What could be the possible reasons for the lack of basic awareness about how to share information among these students?
Self-taught knowledge about the Internet and the idea of the Internet as a place with few restrictions could be a few of the reasons for these problems. Frequently, social media platforms do not have barriers to downloading and sharing content produced by people in your network. With mobile devices, all incoming content is downloaded and stored on your phone. Often, people crop incoming images or modify them and share them in small networks. Although they do it in good faith, information keeps getting reused very rapidly without any credits or metadata.For a new media educator like me, it is easy to explain why and how to contribute to Open Knowledge projects like Wikipedia…but attribution, and why appropriate attribution is crucial to information sharing, are very difficult things to teach. Most students feel like it is not really important to attribute correctly as long as you are not using it for profit or with bad intentions.

How do you deal with it individually and as a part of the A2K team?

It is crucial for educators, academics and everyone else to include education about Copyright and Copyleft in their syllabus so that students and faculty alike can know how not to violate copyright. At the same time, I think schools and universities are a great place to educate students about Open Access journals and the entire culture of knowledge producing/sharing beyond commercial gains.I often cite the example of one of my pictures that got featured in many international magazines and newspapers including The Conservation magazine and The Huffington post, which would not have happened if I hadn’t let the copyright go. I tell students that the biggest perk of contributing works in Creative Commons licenses is having a wide audience, especially young people. People release published information in free licensing when they hear about the opportunity to get enormously popular.

Similarly, BBC and Al-Jazeera have set great examples of mass donating imagery and video footage under CC. In one of our recent collaborations at the A2K program, the Goa University, on our request, changed terms of their licenses for a Konkani language Encyclopedia to Creative Commons license that has brought many volunteers to digitize and enrich the Konkani Wikipedia.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/commons-machinery-march-14-2014-noopur-raval-open-education-week-interview-with-subhashish-panigrahi

Adianta School for Leadership and Innovation to Host Design Public

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T08:08:10Z

The conclave in its 5th edition will feature Aam Aadmi Party members Rajmohan Gandhi and Somnath Bharti along with Sunil Abraham in conversation with Dr. Aditya Sood about different approaches through citizen centric governance.

The information was posted on BusinessWire India on March 11, 2014. Source : Adianta School for Leadership and Innovation

Adianta School of Leadership and Innovation is setting up the stage for yet another conclave to establish a dialogue around innovation with ‘Design Public’. The key aspect of the conclave would be a dialogue between Raj Mohan Gandhi, Member- Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) & Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi; Somnath Bharti, Former Law Minister Delhi, Member- Aam Aadmi Party (AAP); Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society and Dr. Aditya Dev Sood, Founder & CEO, CKS about different approaches through citizen centric governance.

The fifth edition of the Design Public Conclave which will be held on Friday, March 14^th, 2014 at Vihara Campus, is being produced by the Center for Knowledge Societies, the Adianta School for Leadership and Innovation, the Startup Tunnel, the Bihar Innovation Lab, and the Financial Innovation Alliance, in partnership and with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grameen Foundation, CGAP, UNDP's GCEPA and the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX).

Over the past three years, Design Public has emerged as the premier location for high-level conversations about the public role and social impact of design and innovation in India. It has attracted some erudite and high profile speakers and discussants across regions, society and sectors of industry. The fifth edition of Design Public will focus on “Social Innovation through Partnership with Private Sector” and “The Elements of Governance Innovation” as both are relevant in present day context. The discussions will set the stage for recommendations and suggestions around promotion of social innovation through new partnerships between the social and private sectors, promoting social enterprises and beneficial social consequences of private sector activity with specific focus on the new companies bill and how it brings centre stage new opportunities for promoting social innovation. Focus on “The Elements of Governance Innovation” will focus on the importance of distinguishing governance innovation from policy work, the key constituencies involved in governance innovation and how better collaboration can create more meaningful impact.

The conclave will see two Keynotes touching both the aspects by Esko Kilpi, Writer and Theorist of the Networked Society and Arndt Hussar, UNDP-GCPSE, Singapore, respectively. Apart from the Keynotes, there would be other speakers which include Ada Wong, Chair, SIX, Hong Kong; Nehal Sanghavi, Advisor, USAID, India; Rajesh Sawhney, Founder, Global Superangels Fund, India; Louis Pulford, Director of SIX (Social Innovation Exchange) and Prof. M.P. Ranjan, Design Chair, CEPT University.

Apart from the keynotes, the conclave will also feature two working groups and three breakout sessions followed by presentations from each breakout and a dialogue for framing conclusions and charting next steps.

The working groups will focus on designing a Social Innovation Exchange for India and building an action plan for Governance Innovation respectively. The breakouts will be explaining Open Data in the Indian context, opening out closed systems of Governance and developing start-up opportunities in Governance Innovation.

Other key participants for the fifth edition of Design Public conclave include Abhimanyu Nowhar, Founder, The Kiba Design; Ambrish Arora, Head, Lotus Design; Balasubramanian Munuswamy, Private Sector Development Advisor, Department for International Development (DIFD), British High Commission; Chakshu Roy, Heads, Outreach Initiatives, PRS Legislative Research; Chandni Ohri, CEO, Grameen Foundation, India; Daniel Radcliffe, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Gautam Gandhi, New Business Development for Emerging Markets, Google; Harsh Srivastava, Chief Operating Officer, Centre of Civil Society; Ishan Khosla, Founder, Ishan Khosla Design; Jatin Modi, Founder, FrogIdeas, India; Karan Malik, Associate, Advisory Research, Dasra; Lysander Menezes, Team Leader, Maternal Child Health & Nutrition, PATH; Namit Arora, Writer & Activist; Nehal Sanghavi, Advisor, USAID, India; Rajesh Khati, Founder & Principal Consultant, Clearway Advisors; Ramanjit Chima, Senior Policy Analyst, Google; Sanjay Rishi, President, MCS, Usha International Ltd.; Shweta Banerjee, CGAP, India; Soaib Grewal, Founder, Bold Capital, India; Somnath Bharti, Member-AAP and Former Law Minister, Government of Delhi; Suhas Mhaskar, Senior General Manager & Head, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd.; Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Researcher, The Sarai Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Usha Alexander, Writer and Instructional Designer.

About Design Public

Over the past three years, Design Public has emerged as the premier location for high-level conversations about the public role and social impact of design and innovation in India. It has attracted speakers and discussants from all regions of the world, from all estates of society and from diverse sectors of industry. Out of the conversations held here, many new initiatives have emerged, including the Bihar Innovation Lab, the Adianta School for Leadership and Innovation, among others. There has been wide coverage of the themes and ideas emerging from Design Public in the media and blogosphere, including in the New York Times, Economic Times, Times of India, and Mint Newspaper. High value participants in the past have included Arun Maira (Planning Commission), Sam Pitroda (National Innovation Council), Geoff Mulgan (NESTA, UK), Ashok Alexander (BMGF), Rohini Nilekani (Arghyam), Yamini Aiyer (Accountability Initiative), Ashwin Mahesh (Lok Satta Party), Samanth Subramanaian (Writer), Vish Palekar (Mahindra Group), Jeby Cherian (IBM), Riku Makela (Tekes, FI), among many others.

About Adianta

The Adianta School for Leadership and Innovation promotes a radical and empowering educational approach that promotes Learning by Doing. It is a collaborative effort between some of the world’s leading innovation organizations, including the School of Design at the Technische Universiteit Delft (Netherlands), NESTA (UK), The Social Innovation Exchange (Global), and the Center for Knowledge Societies (India). With a distinguished team of advisors, international faculty and a global network of over 100 mentors, the Adianta School provides an unprecedented quality of international education right here in India.

For News Release background on Adianta School for Leadership and Innovation click here

Media Contact Details

Abhishek Shivam, Greyhound Neo, +919582199990 , ashivam@greyhoundgroup.com Priyanka Ahuja, Brand Manager, Adianta School for Leadership and Innovation, outreach@adianta.org

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For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/businesswire-

Integrating Urdu with Modern Technology the Need of Hour

praskrishna — 2014-04-01T11:15:54Z

A report of the Urdu Wikipedia Workshop at Maulana Azad National Urdu University by the Department of Translation Studies on March 6, 2014. Syed Muzamiluddin is quoted.

Advancing technology necessitates integrating language with the concurrent developments. These thoughts were expressed by Syed Muzammiluddin, Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore during the Urdu Wikipedia workshop organised at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad.

Continuing his lecture, Muzammil said Wikipedia is a freely accessible online repository of knowledge available in multiple languages across the world. He emphasised that while other language Wikipedia communities have geared up the momentum and contributed immensely, Urdu still needs its fair share of contributors.

Prof. Zafaruddin, head, Dept. of Translation Studies emphasised that the department desires to see all the students contributing to the Urdu Wikipedia and hence this event has been organised.

Dr Vishnu Vardhan from the Centre for Internet and Society addressed the gathering through the video conference and stressed the significance of Urdu language and the need for proactive contribution on Urdu Wikipedia.

In the later session, the students got the first hand exposure of the Wikipedia editing basics. Since all the participants had opened their accounts prior to the event, they all actively edited articles on the Urdu Wikipedia.

The event coordinator Dr Faheemuddin said that student look forward to this event as the beginning of their long term association with Urdu Wikipedia. The function ended with a vote of thanks by Dr Faheemuddin. Those present at the function included Dr Khalid Mubashir uz Zafar, Dr Mahmood Kazmi, Dr Junaid Zakir, Dr Kahkashan Lateef and Translator Shekh Sadi Arshad.

Read the original published in Urdu language below:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/daily-taskeen-march-6-2014-integrating-urdu-with-modern-technology-the-need-of-the-hour

Wikipedia Editathon on India Women's History at CBIT, Hyderabad

syed — 2014-04-07T01:32:57Z

“Wikipedia Editathon on India Women's History” and “Work-Life Balance: Women in Engineering” were organized parallelly at Chaitanya Bharati Institute of Technology (CBIT), Hyderabad on March 8, 2014. These events had a common session during the morning and a separate sessions in the afternoon.

The speakers for the morning session included Dr V Malakonda Reddy, Chairman,CBIT, Y Hemalatha, Chief Guest, CBIT staff Members V Hari Leela, Dr D Sandhya Sri and Dr B Chennakesava Reddy. Dr V Malakonda Reddy emphasised that the high position given to women is by no means a gift of the western society. He recalled the historic role played by women in India. Other speakers also stressed on importance of the day and the need for women as leaders and proactive members of the society.

During the morning session, Vishnu Vardhan, Director, Access to Knowledge, Centre for the Internet and Society, recalled that first computer programmer was a woman named Ada Lovelace, which clearly necessitates a need for women to play an even more significant role in the Information technology era. He also spoke about the Ada Initiative (http://adainitiative.org/) which supports women in open technology and culture. He concluded by showing the English and Telugu project pages of the ediathons running concurrently and especially encouraged the girl students to participate in the editathon.

During the second session of the “Wikipedia Editathon on India Women's History”, Vishnu Vardhan explained the concept of “Wiki” and Wikipedia editing basics. On this occasion, a student volunteer Gayathri demonstrated the editing basics of Wikipedia on the stage.

She was later felicitated. All volunteers wore Wikipedia t-shirts which were provided prior to the event.

The practical session in the afternoon was handled by Syed Muzammiluddin, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for the Internet and Society. Later, in the evening there was a separate session with student volunteers. During the course of the session, the volunteers led by Ranjit and Ashraf showed CBIT Wiki (http://www.3mb.in/ES).They said that contributing to Wikipedia will definitely help them to build their college Wiki. It was pointed out that most of the CBIT students have registered on Wikipedia and many contributions are in the offing. The volunteers also informed that they have also signed up for Wikimedia India mailing list as they want to see more collaboration among the Wikimedia India community in future and be part of it. Prof Swamidas of the Information Technology Department supervised all the day long activities of the event.

Media Coverage

Andhra Prabha (March 8, 2014)
Andhra Bhoomi (March 8, 2014)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-editathon-on-india-women-history-at-cbit