Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) program would like to share with you the newsletter below for the month of April 2016. We look forward to hear any feedback or input you might have.

== Odia-language Women’s History Month edit-a-thons ==

Last month, the second Women’s History Month edit-a-thon (https://goo.gl/VjCPgq) began on Odia-language Wikimedia sites. With a theme of Women I am inspired by, the event aimed to improve articles on these notable individuals. Twenty articles were created and ten were improved, thanks to the dozens of participants—seven of which were women who went on to found an informal group for female editors (https://goo.gl/K5D6CX) on the Odia Wikipedia.

Among the participants, eight were brand-new. We reached out to Rajalaxmi Mishra(https://goo.gl/cxrkL2)  to talk about their experience. Rajalaxmi is a MCA student who began editing the Odia Wikipedia after a Utkal University workshop (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Utkal_University_workshop). Annie Besant (https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/ଆନି_ବେସାନ୍ତ), an article she has been working on since the edit-a-thon (in part thanks to Content Translation https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/29/content-translation-50000-articles/), is now among the top ten longest articles on the site, and she has also put in time editing Sudha Chandran (https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/ସୁଧା_ଚନ୍ଦ୍ରନ୍).

. . . Read more on Wikimedia Blog (https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/05/09/bangla-translations-odia-womens-history/)

== Program reports ==

⬤ Subray, Ananth. Edit-a-thon organised at Christ University Bangalore to celebrate Women’s Day (http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/edit-a-thon-organised-at-christ-university-bangalore-to-celebrate-women2019s-day).

A day-long edit-a-thon was organised at Christ University Bangalore on March 12, 2016 to celebrate the Women’s Day and grow the women-related articles on Kannada Wikipedia.

⬤ Panigrahi, Subhasish, Celebrating the 13th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kannada-wikipedias-13-year-old-journey-of-knowledge-sharing), reports 13th anniversary celebration of Kannada Wikipedia, 19 April 2016(http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kannada-wikipedias-13-year-old-journey-of-knowledge-sharing), 19 April 2016

The Kannada-language Wikipedia, arguably the largest online encyclopedia in Kannada language, celebrated its 13th anniversary on February 14, 2016 in Mangalore.

⬤ Patnaik, Sailesh. Introducing Odia Wikipedia to students of Utkal University, Bhubaneswar (http://cis-india.org/openness/introducing-odia-wikipedia-to-students-of-utkal-university-bhubaneswar) reports a workshop organised at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha for the students of Master of Computer Applications (MCA) and Master in Arts, Department of Odia-language. 24 April 2016

A four-hour-long workshop was organised at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha on February 25, 2016 for the students of Master of Computer Applications (MCA) and Master in Arts, Department of Odia-language.

== Articles/blogs ==

⬤ Eight Challenges Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome (https://globalvoices.org/2016/04/27/eight-challenges-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome/), GlobalVoices, 27 April 2016

=== Upcoming events ===

14th birth anniversary of Odia Wikipedia https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:ଜନ୍ମତିଥି/୧୪  (5 June 2016, Bhubaneswar, Odisha) The Odia Wikimedia community is organizing the 14th birth anniversary of Odia Wikipedia on April 5 at Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The community and CIS-A2K are collaboratively planning to organise a series of training programmes to learn more about advanced editing on specific areas where they are facing problem with.

== Media coverage ==

In this month we have organised or participated in this event:

⬤ Odia gets more space in e-world – 20% rise in Unicode use in past two years (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160407/jsp/odisha/story_78701.jsp#.Vz7eMT_h7Hi), The Telegraph, 7 April 2016

⬤ Exercise to Correct articles in Tulu Wikipedia begins (http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/exercise-to-correct-articles-in-tulu-wikipedia-begins), The Hindu, 28 April 2016

== Train-a-Wikipedian ==

This month the following Train-a-Wikipedian session were conducted:

⬤ 19 April (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Train-a-Wikipedian/Sessions/2016-04-19)

⬤ 22 April (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Train-a-Wikipedian/Sessions/2016-04-22)

⬤ 28 April (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Train-a-Wikipedian/Sessions/2016-04-28)

== Keep me updated! ==

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