Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], March 7 (ANI/Seraphim): International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH) and the Wikimedia Foundation , the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and other free-knowledge projects , successfully concluded the 2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit at IIIT Hyderabad campus today.

This one-of-a-kind event enabled discussions around developing the future of the internet, forging enduring alliances, and engaging in open discussions about the cohesion between technology and open access to knowledge. It was organized by IIITH's Indic Wiki Project - an initiative funded by The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), and supported by the Government of Telangana, to enhance the online presence of Indic language encyclopedias.

Speaking at the opening ceremony Prof Vasudeva Varma, Centre Head, Language Technologies Research Center (LTRC), IIIT - Hyderabad said "We have a large number of people speaking Indian languages but the amount of 'useful' digital content available in these languages does not represent our cultural and linguistic richness. It is our immediate need to make knowledge available in our languages. Crowd-sourced encyclopedias like Wikipedia make huge contributions to enhancing the knowledge, awareness, and rationality of people. This summit addresses important issues in enriching content and knowledge available in human languages and the ways to overcome challenges."

Following the mini-hackathon, the Summit featured a series of talks, and panel discussions on 3 and 4 March on topics such as the future of open knowledge, the creation of sustainable knowledge systems, digitization of content, and digital humanities - all with a focus on Indic languages. It also featured keynote addresses by leading experts from the field of Indic language technology, learning researchers, and technology platforms.

Over the course of the event, which brought together top researchers, open technology enthusiasts, Wikimedia volunteers and members of WikiClubs (a project that aims to form youth clubs at educational institutions to enable creation of free and open content) - over 150 attendees had the opportunity to participate in a wide range of topics to discuss best practices and set the future course of knowledge access in regional languages on the Internet.

The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) is an autonomous research university founded in 1998 that focuses on the core areas of Information Technology, such as Computer Science, Electronics, and Communications, and their applications in other domains through inter-disciplinary research that has a greater social impact. Some of its research domains include Visual Information Technologies, Human Language Technologies, Data Engineering, VLSI and Embedded Systems, Computer Architecture, Wireless Communications, Algorithms and Information Security, Robotics, Building Science, Earthquake Engineering,

Website: www.iiit.ac.in

The IndicWiki project was initiated in 2019 to enhance the content in Indian Language Wikipedias starting with Telugu and Hindi. This project is funded by The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, PRIF, and IIIT Hyderabad and supported by the Government of Telangana. https://indicwiki.iiit.ac.in/

This story is provided by Seraphim communications on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/Seraphim)