Centre for Internet & Society

The key mandate of the Access to Knowledge project at CIS (CIS-A2K) is to work towards catalysing the growth of the open knowledge movement in south Asia and in Indic languages. From September 2012, CIS has been actively involved in growing the open knowledge movement in India through a grant received from the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). The current focus of the CIS-A2K team spans over 5 language areas (Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu), 2 community strengthening initiatives, and 6 stand-alone Wikimedia projects.

CIS-A2K Logo

Mission

The mission of CIS-A2K is to catalyze the growth of open knowledge movement in South Asia and in Indic languages. Within the Wikimedia universe CIS-A2K specifically strives to further grow the Indic and English Wikimedia projects and communities by:

  • supporting and serving the Indian Wikimedia communities in all possible ways;
  • building institutional partnerships;
  • bringing more content under free license;
  • designing and executing projects with community participation;
  • strengthening the Wikimedia volunteers; and
  • fostering and enabling an appropriate legal and technological ecosystem.

 

Work Plans

Work plans and other programme documents can be accessed here:

 

Activities and Feedback

If you have a general proposal/suggestion for Access to Knowledge team you can write on the requests page. If you have appreciations or feedback on our work, please share it on feedback page.

 

Recent Posts

Blog Entry WikipediansSpeak: Odia Wikisourcer Shares her Journey and Goals by Subhashish Panigrahi and Nasim Ali — last modified Feb 05, 2016 08:49 PM
The most active editor on the Odia Wikisource is Pankajmala Sarangi, a native of Odisha who now lives in New Delhi, where she works at a non-profit. As a leader in a broad community that is dominated by males—indeed, she is the most active contributor to the Odia-language Wikisource—we asked her to share her journey and her goals to grow the project and community as part of the “WikipediansSpeWell, I think I would work on creating a database of all the Odia speakers living in New Delhi and the city organizations that work in propagating Odia language and culture, and plan Wikisource outreach programs for them.k” interview series.
Books at a Click by Prasad Krishna — last modified Jun 18, 2016 05:52 PM
The OdiaWikimedia community and Bhubaneswar-based Srujanika have come together to make rare science books available online for readers, students & science educators.
Wikipedia initiative - Celebrating legacy of Bangalore Blue grapes online by Prasad Krishna — last modified Jan 29, 2016 03:44 PM
Black is beautiful, and it can go places if it is well researched. When HL Omshivaprakash wrote a Wikipedia article about Karnataka's bidriware, the metal handicraft where gleaming black bowls and hookahs are dotted with delicate silver strips, he didn't expect it to be picked up by the French and Swedes.
Kannada Wikipedia not on top of the charts by Prasad Krishna — last modified Jun 18, 2016 04:23 PM
It occupies the 10th place among Indian languages.
GI-tagged products to get Wiki pages by Prasad Krishna — last modified Jan 27, 2016 04:33 PM
Ever realised that the famous, red hot Naga Mirchi (a special variety of chilli from Nagaland) doesn’t have a Wikipedia page?
Blog Entry This Multilingual Edit-a-thon wants to Improve Indian Content on Wikipedia by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Jan 28, 2016 07:23 AM
Ever wondered how many articles the Kannada Wikipedia or the Hindi Wikipedia have relating to India, its social history, literary and cultural heritage and the journey of over 1600 languages?
Blog Entry କେତେ ମାଗଣା ଫେସବୁକର ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ? by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified Jan 28, 2016 07:23 AM
This opinion piece in Odia on Facebook's Free Basics App was published in Odisha.com. The post highlights several user security and privacy that Free Basics is violating apart from violating net neutrality. It also brings the parallel of Airtel Zero and Free Basics with the Grameenphone project by Mozilla in Bangladesh and the worldwide Wikipedia Zero projects.
Blog Entry Why It's Essential To Grow Indian-Language Wikipedias by Subhashish Panigrahi — last modified May 28, 2016 06:52 AM
On 15 January, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia celebrated its 15th birthday, meeting this milestone with 36 million articles in more than 290 languages (the English-language Wikipedia alone has crossed the 5-million article mark). But here I want to address some major questions that we need to ask as Indians.
Geographical Indications in India Edit-a-thon from Jan 25, 2016 12:00 AM to Jan 31, 2016 11:55 PM India, by Prasad Krishna
Between 25 January and 31 January 2016, CIS-A2K is organizing an edit-a-thon to celebrate India's republic day. The goal of this edit-a-thon is to create and improve Geographical Indications articles.
Kannada Wikipedia edit-a-thon for Mechanical Engineering students of Sagara from Jan 26, 2016 10:00 AM to Jan 27, 2016 04:00 PM by Ananth Subray
In Sagara, Karnataka, a Kannada Wikipedia edit-a-thon is being planned to be organised during January 26-27.