India: Media speculation on country's future "Wiki-capital"; community newsletter released Barry Newstead, the Wikimedia Foundation's Chief Global Development Officer, visited India last week to prepare the opening of the organization's first office outside the US, combined with the hiring of a "National Program Director" for India (see Signpost coverage: September 6 and August 30). Newstead visited New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. It was the first time a Wikipedia Meetup was ever organized in New Delhi and Mumbai. It brought together a mix of bloggers, Wikipedians and people generally interested in contributing to Wikipedia. Some 40 people attended the Mumbai and Bangalore Meetups and about 20 attended the Delhi meet, despite heavy monsoon rains disrupting the city. Along with WMF Trustee Bishakha Datta and advisory board member Achal Prabhala, Newstead addressed a press conference in Bangalore city. The office is set to open in early 2011, and its location has not been announced yet. Yet various Indian media speculated which of the three cities might have the best chances. Bangalore, which is already the seat of the Indian Wikimedia chapter appears to be the front-runner according to The Hindu ("Wikipedia eyes Bangalore"), Times of India ("Wiki logs into India for its second office"), and The Economic Times ("Wikipedia aims to interact in top 10 Indian languages"). However, The Press Trust of India ("Wikipedia to open India office soon") said "Wikipedia" would launch the office "probably in Mumbai", while Daily News and Analysis ("Bangalore is in fray to become Wikipedia's India capital") mentioned Pune as a fourth possibility. Wikimedia India Community Newsletter Time Out Mumbai quoted Prabhala on possible reasons that might still be "keeping Indians from becoming active contributors". The Economic Times described some of Newstead's personal background. Before becoming the Foundation's CGDO in June (see Signpost coverage), he had been a consultant at the non-profit Bridgespan Group, having quit a lucrative career at the Boston Consulting Group. Newstead explained: "I’ve always had a passion for education and knowledge. I enjoyed the training I got in consulting, but it was a personal decision to spend my career working on important social issues". In related news, the first Indian Wikimedia Community Newsletter has been released last week. The publication contains a foreword by Bishdatta and Jimbo Wales (who already praised the Indian-language Wikipedias last month). The newsletter is 36 pages long in PDF format. The newsletter reports the size of the Indian community: because of the large number of languages in India, there are about 20 different Wikipedias, as well as a similar number in the incubator. There is also significant Indian editing activity on the English Wikipedia (English is one of the official languages of India). There is a story on the activities of the Indian Wikipedia Chapter, and information on the activities of the various Indian-language WMF projects and the interactions between them. Some interesting tidbits: The first Indian-language wikis were in Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, and Malayalam, all created in 2002. The Hindi Wikipedia is the largest of the Indian projects, with 56,000 articles. The Malayalam Wikipedia is one of the few languages (and the only one with a non-roman alphabet) to have its contents published as a CD. more at wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment