Wikipedia should adopt open University: Pillai

KAVITHA MOHAN

KOLLAM: “Knowledge is a public treasure and denial of knowledge is a crime”, said Dr .V .N. Rajasekharan Pillai Vice chairman of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment. He was inaugurating the 4^th Annual Congress of Malayalam Wikipedia-in Kollam on April 28. The two-day event was organised by the Wikipedians. Wikipedia was started on Dec 21st, 2002 to popularise Malayalam language. Expatriate Keralites have contributed much to the enrichment of Wikipedia. Now wikipedia has 250 language editions and 14 of them are Indic.

 

Regional language plays a vital role in the growth of global language. Wikipedia is required to popularises regional languages. It is good for global knowledge dissemination and it enriches regional language, and makes the language efficient   to handle new technological developments said Rajasekharan Pillai. Wikipedia should adopt Open University approach as it is open to ideas, strategy, people and place, he added.

The conference was chaired by N. Jayadevan, chairman of Wikipedia Malayalam community. Chief global development officer, Wikipedia foundation Barry Newstead and Wikipedia Indian Chapter president Arjun Rao Chawla also spoke.