Press release
*Wikipedia to focus on health in 2020*
...............................................
Abhishek Suryawanshi announced in Pune on 19th anniversary of Wikipedia
Pune:
On occasion of 19th anniversary(which is on 15th January), the Wikipedia community in India would focus on encouraging media professionals to contribute on the world’s largest encyclopaedia in medical field.
Abhishek Suryawanshi,Director of Wikipedia SWASTHA,informed this through a press release.
Abhishek Suryawanshi is in Pune for couple of days on awareness mission of Wikipedia SWASTHA.
Through its new programme SWASTHA (Special Wikipedia Awareness Scheme for The Healthcare Affiliates), it wants to tap contributors to write on the platform in various languages.
The programme would be launched this year seeking contributors to contribute in English or other 10 regional languages mainly, Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Maithili, Odiya, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati and Urdu.
According to recent Google-KPMG report - over 500 million internet users would use regional languages by 2021 which would be mainly dominated by Indian regional languages. India's internet users have more faith in content that's not in English.
“There is a huge Indian diaspora across the globe and users from all fields access the information through Wikipedia in some form or the other. For example, any search on Google is always supported by information already available on Wikipedia,” said Abhishek Suryawanshi, leading the initiative.
Suryawanshi said that it has been found that more and more Indians are searching for information on Wikipedia related to health. “We want to take the opportunity of anniversary observed on January 15 and provide the Wikipedia users to access that kind of information.
Unfortunately, that information is not available in Indian context or related to India needs,” he added.
SWASTHA will help Wikipedia communities to channelize outreach efforts to enhance healthcare information on the web. “SWASTHA will reach out to medical professionals, medical colleges and other professionals wanting to contribute in English and other regional languages,” the programme director.
Suryawanshi said that nationwide free Wikipedia workshops would be conducted for those who wish to host Wikipedia workshops.For more information contributors can contact Abhishek Suryawanshi on director@wikiswastha.org
...............
