Dear All,
CIS-A2K had a two day meeting with WMF & FDC visiting team in its Bangalore office on 11th & 12th Feb 2014. The main agenda of the meeting was:
Understanding current state of A2K -- basic facts (finance snapshot, organizational context within CIS)
Financial review of CIS-A2K, per grant agreement
Reflection on past year - successes and challenges in activities
Reflection on past year - spending vs. plan
Discussion of the preparation for funding via the FDC process; Q&A
Reflection on relationship with various communities - successes; obstacles; gaps
Discussion of A2K's current resources: staff, funds, engaged volunteers; discuss actual plans; discuss path according to roadmap
Meeting minutes can be found here.[1]
Thanks
Nitika
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Meetings/Minutes_…
Dear friends,
I am pleased to inform you that today the Urdu Wikipedia has crossed the
50,000 articles mark.
I am honoured to be a humble contributor of this Wikipedia which has
reached a dream milestone which is yet to be covered by many other
Wikipedias.
The focus, as the community feels, will now shift on referencing and
elaborating many of the existing articles to satisfactory levels.
Also, the next target is to cross the 1,00,000 articles mark.
Regards,
Muzammil.
Dear All,
It’s with deep regret that we announce the exit of Muzammiluddin Syed as Programme Officer CIS-A2K due to his personal reasons. Muzammil has been a great asset to the A2K team. CIS would like to thank him for all his valuable contributions to the Wikimedia movement and particularly helping grow Hindi and Urdu Wikimedia projects and community. During his stint at CIS Muzammil also put in concerted efforts to grow the partnership at Christ University. We're hoping that he'll continue to be a part of the movement as a treasured volunteer and we wish him the best in life.
In another context, CIS is happy to share that Rahimanuddin Shaik who was brought on board to work as Community Communications Consultant at CIS-A2K for 3 months will now continue as Programme Officer in lieu of Muzammil. Hence no separate hiring process will be undertaken for this position. In a short period of time Rahim has done some amazing work including building Telugu Wikipedia work plan for next year. Please join us in congratulating him and wishing him success in his new role.
Thanks
Nitika
Dear Wikimedians,
CIS-A2K is glad to share with you the news about the re-release of the
below listed 14 books (13 Odia and 1 English) under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license
during the Odisha Day 2014 [1] celebration in Bhubaneswar. This has been
done in collaboration with the Odia Wikipedia community, Manik Biswanath
Smrutinyasa and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS). As some of
you may know KISS is one our institutional partners.
1) 11 Odia books by noted writer and academic Dr. Jagannath Mohanty (we
partnered Manik Biswanath Smrutinyasa Trust, founded by Dr. Mohanty for
the re-release)
2) 2 scholarly books on Odia language by Odia language scholar Subrat
Prusty from Institute of Odia Studies and Research.
3) Classical Odia (in English) co-authored by noted linguist Padmashree
Debiprasanna Pattanayak and Subrat Prusty.
We have also managed to get significant media coverage for this event,
which has got 14 print and web media mentions. [2] We will continue to
bring much more Odia content under free license as per our next year's
Odia Wikipedia work plan [3] and will try to use it to make the Odia
Wikisource live [4].
1. https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OD14
2. http://goo.gl/s8gvLl
3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J…
4.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J…
Best,
Subhashish Panigrahi
Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge
Centre for Internet and Society
http://cis-india.org
@psubhashish
Dear all,
We from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) thank you all for your support and collaboration and wish you a great year ahead. We bring you the details of our work for the month of February 2014:
Tewiki 10th Anniversary
Tewiki 10th anniversary celebration 2014, started on February 15 in Vijayawada at Kakaraparti Bhavanarayana College. It was co-organized by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team and the Telugu Wikipedia community. Telugu Wikipedia has now completed 10 years of existence and there are about 55,000 Telugu articles available online: <http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs> http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs
Ø Articles
1. Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, March 2, 2014): <http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC> http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC.
2. Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain and Jeph Paul, Wikimedia Foundation, March 6, 2014): <http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf> http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf.
Ø Event Organised
1. Wiki Women's Workshop (ICG – Dona Paula, Goa, March 9, 2014): <http://bit.ly/MRRJLy> http://bit.ly/MRRJLy. The event is being organized as part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day.
Ø Events Co-organised
1. Cinemathon2014 Bangalore (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2014): <http://bit.ly/MRRkZz> http://bit.ly/MRRkZz.
2. Cinemathon2014 Mumbai (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CAMP Studio, Mumbai, February 15-16, 2014): <http://bit.ly/P5YGL8> http://bit.ly/P5YGL8.
3. Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (organized by Roshini Nilaya and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, February 26, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women.
Ø Participation in Event
1. The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: <http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc> http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc.
Ø Media Coverage
CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:
1. Father-son duo promote Punjabi online (by Jatinder Preet, Sunday Guardian, February 1, 2014): <http://bit.ly/1l87b2h> http://bit.ly/1l87b2h.
2. ୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ (Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad), February 9, 2014): <http://bit.ly/1igMynn> http://bit.ly/1igMynn. This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years.
3. Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Prajavani, February 27, 2014): <http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f> http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f.
Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Rahmanuddin Shaikh. One team member Nitika Tandon is based in Delhi. We also have one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana working with us. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here ( <http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters> http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at <http://bit.ly/TOcXId> <http://bit.ly/TOcXId> http://bit.ly/TOcXId.
About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.
Follow us elsewhere
· Twitter: <https://twitter.com/CISA2K> <https://twitter.com/CISA2K> https://twitter.com/CISA2K
· CIS group on Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india> <https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india> https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
· Visit us at: <https://cis-india.org/> <https://cis-india.org/> https://cis-india.org
Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.
Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil(a)cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant(a)cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at <mailto:vishnu@cis-india.org> vishnu(a)cis-india.org
CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
U.B. Pavanaja, MSc, PhD
Programme Officer – Indian languages <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pavanaja> ,
Access to Knowledge program
The Centre for Internet & Society
