Are you a college student interested in contributing to online resources? The Tamil Internet Conference, to be held along with the World Classical Tamil Conference in June, might be an interesting avenue.
College students could contribute by taking part in a contest wherein they could work on Wikipedia entries in Tamil. Speaking at an orientation programme for students in this connection at Loyola College last week, Anto Peter, president, Association for Tamil Computing, said that at present there were only about 22,000 Wikipedia pages in Tamil.
“In languages such as Spanish, 22,000 new pages are being added every day. So there is a lot to be done,” said Mr. Peter, also an organising member of the Tamil Internet Conference.
Pointing to the different kinds of colleges in Tamil Nadu, such as medical, engineering, nursing, law, arts and science, agriculture and B. Ed, he said a wide variety of students could thus contribute in adding entries on a host of topics related to their areas of study.
“The State government has been campaigning and putting up posters to spread awareness about the contest. As of now, languages such as Hindi and Telugu have more entries in Wikipedia compared to Tamil. We hope that this contest will add to the Tamil resources online,” Mr. Peter said.
For details and registration, visit tamilinternetconference.org. The last date for submission of entries is April 30. Winning entries, to be chosen by a 31-member jury of Wikipedia, will receive prizes and certificates from the government.
