Submissions/Open Knowledge: Tamil Wikipedia Collaborative Initiatives with Tamil Virtual Academy

This is an Open submission for Wikimania 2017 that has not yet been reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Submission no. 6030 - E2

Title of the submission: Open Knowledge: Tamil Wikipedia Collaborative Initiatives with Tamil Virtual Academy

Type of submission (lecture)

Author of the submission: Thamizhpparithi Maari
Language of presentation: English

E-mail address: tparithigmail.com

Username: Thamizhpparithi Maari

Country of origin: India

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): Tamil Virtual Academy, Department of Information Technology, Government of Tamilnadu, India

Personal homepage or blog: http://thamizhpparithi.blogspot.in/

Abstract (up to 300 words to describe your proposal)

My talk will explore the Tamil Development, Tamil Wikipedia Collaborative Initiatives of Tamil Virtual Academy. Moreover I will share my experience with Tamil Wikipedia collaborative initiatives like Creative Commons SA announcement by Department of IT, outreach activities of TVA, policy level strategies and its implementations. TVA has long term collaboration with Tamil Wikipedia movement. TVA has shared Tamil-English technical terms with Tamil Wiktionary, Shared the soft copies of nationalized books in Tamil. Facilitated to automate Tamil articles of the entire Village panchayat basic data of Tamilnadu and 38800 temples.

The Tamils living in different parts of the world, in order to preserve their cultural identity and observe their traditions and values, need to maintain familiarity with Tamil and be knowledgeable about their heritage. Recognizing this fact and for meeting the felt and emerging needs of the Tamil Communities and others interested in Tamil studies, the Chief Minister of the Government of Tamil Nadu, announced at an International Seminar and Conference on Information Technology in February 1999 that a Tamil Virtual University (TVU) would be setup. This University has been established in pursuance of that announcement. Now, its name has been changed as Tamil Virtual Academy.

Tamil Virtual Academy implementing its initiatives in four verticles viz., 1. Tamil Computing and open source Outreach, 2. Tamil education, 3. Tamil computing Research and Development and 4. Digitization and publishing the documents under CC by SA 4.0 and GNU 2.0.

Tamil Computing Outreach initiatives

For the Tamil Computing Outreach TVA has for, formed a independent unit viz., Kani Tamil Peravai (KTP). The objectives of Kani Tamil Peravai are, i) To guide Tamil computing projects/ internships to students, ii) To conduct Tamil computing sensitization programmes to teaching faculties, students and community members, iii) To popularize the open source software and content, iii) To conduct ‘Kani Tamil’ Festival, iv) To guide the students to develop Tamil e-content / Applets / software, v) To conduct summer course on Tamil computing, vi) To develop Tamil Mega Encyclopedia under CC by SA 4.0

TVA has inaugurated KTP is above 100 colleges in Tamilnadu. The KTP’s are functioning as knowledge center for Tamil Wikipedia movement and free source software. TVA has 80 contact centers in 19 countries and striving to popularize in more countries. Tamil Virtual Academy have been collected in more than 1 lakhs rare printed books, palm-leafs, paper manuscripts, photographs of Tamil language, Tamil culture, Tamil history and archaeological. In continuation of digitization project, rare Tamil books and other resources are being digitized. All those resources will be categorized and published in virtual library under CC by SA 4.0

Some initiatives with Tamil Wikipedia

TVA has signed MoU with Tamil Wikipedia
A workshop on Content development for Tamil Wikimedia has been conducted on 22 and 23/08/2015
A workshop on open source media content has been conducted on 29 and 30/08/2015
Grants team of Wikimedia Foundation has visited Tamil Virtual Academy and observed the outreach activities of TVA on 04.02.2016
An International workshop on Wikimedia Technical Skill Development has been conducted 29,30 April and May 01, 2016
Conducted Workshop on E- Content Development with special focus to Wikimedia projects.
Conducted basic sensitization programme to edit Wikimedia projects in 100 educational institutions.
During the book exhibitions TVA collaborating with Tamil Wikipedia and sensitizing the community on Wikimedia projects and open knowledge.

I will share my knowledge about the Strategic initiatives of TVA Tamil Development, Tamil Wikipedia Collaborative Initiatives of Tamil Virtual Academy.

What will attendees take away from this session?

Theme of presentation

For workshops and discussions, what level is the intended audience?

Length of session (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long): 25 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes

Slides or further information (optional): I will upload

Special requests: nothing

Is this Submission a Draft or Final? Draft

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