Submissions/Wikipedia and Underprivileged Community

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 3052

Title of the submission: Spoken Wikipedia for visually impaired and underprivileged community.

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): Presentation

Author of the submission

Abhishek Suryawanshi

E-mail address: i.abhishek.suryawanshigmail.com

Username: User:AbhiSuryawanshi

Country of origin: India

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): Wikipedia Club Pune, Wiki Project Med Foundation.

Personal homepage or blog

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Spoken Wikipedia for Indic Languages is a Wikipedia Project undertaken by Wikipedia Pune Community to give a voice to the Indian community and to produce a knowledge domain of information related to India through audio recordings of the articles. Wikipedia seems to relatively lack articles on India, its culture, its people and about the little things that make them Indian. This project is a huge step forward in uplifting India to a global level through this platform, making it more noteworthy, better understood and effectively represented. Who better to undertake this task than the Indians themselves?

It is a fact that a majority of the Indian population belongs to the rural section of the country. What one must realize is that this chunk of the population is often ill-informed and spends a lifetime in relative ignorance about even the most basic of aspects. Every decision a citizen makes about oneself or others affects the nation as a whole at a smaller or larger scale. When the majority of people of a country belong to a section of the society that is less-privileged in terms of communicating or gaining knowledge, amongst other things; Spoken Wikipedia becomes almost a necessity.

How can we reach out to those who do not have an access to technology or the Internet? What about those who don't have basic education or don't comprehend the English language? With the development of this project, this audience shall have audio recorded articles in their mother tongues. They can reach out and hear these articles without the limitation of knowing a language that might have been a barrier earlier. Further, the people who can understand English but cannot read or write it would benefit from this project too. These are certain major advantages of Spoken Wikipedia, amongst others, the details of which can be found on the page-link provided previously.

Health is a primary concern in the agenda at present. It has become immensely important for the rural community especially, though not exclusively, to know and take the right decisions about its health. Evidently, a disease, however trivial it may seem, doesn't only affect the concerned person, but everyone around him/her as well. Epidemics can have a nationwide effect and recent occurrences of the spread of grave and severe contagious diseases should serve as an eye-opener for one and all. This issue shall be looked into and be given due importance in this project.

Track: Education Outreach

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Depends on Scholarship.

Slides or further information (optional)

Special requests

Interested attendees

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The idea of allowing people to contribute to and use Wikipedia without even having Internet access is an amazing prospect. This is one of the more significant and radical proposals made to change both contributor and reader experience, plus it is a proof of concept and not just a theoretical design. I will not miss this talk. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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