Hiya all. This is a quick summary of one of my silliest ideas. Thanks to my Wiki-friend PhantomSteve, and real life buddy @aagan86 [from Twitter] who got me interested in QR codes. I kept this a secret, telling it partly to Pradeep Mohandas, and Nitika Tandon. [SBC-YPR knew it the whole time]. I had contacted Roger Bamkin of the UK Chapter, and he connected me with Terence Eden. As you all know, the two of them created QR Pedia together.
Sent on 28-12-11 to Roger Bamkin. *Hi, I'm Srikanth, from India, known on Wiki and Twitter as Rsrikanth05. I've been on the English Wikipedia from June '05 and I have a little over 10,000 edits. I've been editing since I was 13.
I got really interested in QR Codes a while back, and I tried using one to promote a WikiMeetup in Coimbatore.
I stumbled across QR Pedia on Google, and thought I'd get in touch with you. I thought of this crazy idea to promote learning History and Geography via Wikipedia in India, using QR Codes. Seeing that a VAST majority of kids today roam around with BlackBerrys, iPhones, et al, I thought this would be a good opportunity.
I'm a mega transport enthusiast, so I thought I'd write to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited, who operate the Bangalore Metro. I chose BMRCL, because:* * 1> Out of the three Metro systems in the country, it is the most approachable. 2> Out of the various agencies in Bangalore and it's parent state of Karnataka, again it is the most approachable and tech savvy.
My plan is to convince the BMRCL about providing QR codes to the various localities and landmarks along the route of the first track. Ideas in my brain are: 1> Each station has multiple exits, each of those can be linked to an article. Eg: At MG Road station, there is an exit towards Commercial Street, one towards Brigade Road, and one towards the Parade Ground. The Brigade Road exit can have a QR code pointing to Brigade Road, while the Comm. St, one can have one pointing to it's article. 2> Where the board says the station name, place a Code for the article of that area. 3> Presently, two stations are named after people: Mahatama Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda. More are in the pipeline, once the construction is completed. We could link the Code to the article on that person.
I agree that articles should be in all possible languages and should be of high quality with good media. I am working on this, hoping the community will join me.* * * *This came in response:*
*I don't think its silly at all. What can we do to help you? Most of our best successes have been silly ideas (who would think you could allow everyone to edit a good source of information?)
We have a following of people who like writing articles and the Wikimedia UK board are keen on this idea. (We were also in the Wikimedia Foundation annual report)
We can show you how we ran the Derby project * * http://midea.nmc.org/2011/12/one-small-museum-making-a-big-impact-an-intervi...
One of our most repected editors in the UK is 13 now!* *
Do you have some "sources" that we could write these articles from? You may be able to convince the bus company by doing one stop?
Very interested in helping you, the bus passemgers etc and of course Wikipedia
regards* * Roger*
*Further*: *Srikanth
Obviously Ive never tried to sell this idea to a bus company, but I have given talks in Bristol about how QRpedia can move a museum or a city up the google rankings.
I have also copied in Terence Eden as he has also spoken about this idea (we both made QRpedia together). He'll be intrigued by the India link and he may be able to suggest other business cases.
If you look on my wikipedia page and try the links ...* *
regards Victuallers - Roger*
*From Terence:* *Sounds really good. I currently work for [placeholder]- who are based in Bangalore. Hopefully I'll be able to come out and visit the installation in 2012 :-)
You could also link to the transport company's Wikipedia page - they* * may like to see that as an example.*
Hopefully, something can happen.