Hi All,

The 1st Odia Wikipedia Workshop has been organized on 26th of June 2011 at Orissa Academy of Social science & Integrated Studies(OASIS). This was started when I was looking for few wikipedians who can contribute to Odia wikipedia. This was for Odia Wikipedia to bring awareness and motivate common mass from different educational and social background. Odia Wikipedia was started way back in 2002, but because of the lack of proper awareness and activism there was a slight movement for almost 8 years. Odia Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia in Odia language to make knowledge available freely for masses.

The workshop was conducted by Dr. Laxmikanta Tripathy, Artist Kesu Das and me with the help of wikipedian Subhashish Panigrahi. Dr. Laxmikanta Tripathy who is Organizing Secretary of Odia Bhasa Bikash Aandolon(OBBA) invited many members of Odia Bhasa Bikash Aandolon. Some of them are Dr. Bhagavat Prasad Das, Secretary of OBBA Pt. Surendra Nath Kara and President of OBBA Dr. Ramakanta Behera. Several participants from the nearby management colleges, engineering students have also participated. We also got the support of Mr. Sanjay Sahu the Director of OASIS.

Dr. Laxmikanta Tripathy addressed the participants and introduced Poet Brajanth Ratha and Others. Brajanath Ratha the poet has officially inaugurated this event enlightening about Odia language and his catching on Odia wikipedia. A FAQ Booket version 1.1 was released by and distributed among them. I demonstrated the basics of Wikipedia, Current status, Sign up process, How to Edit Odia Wikipedia, Searching Existing Articles, Creating new articles, How to Upload picture and adding that to article and their alignment along with basic introduction of syntax for the new users. This was an interactive session where the participants interacted with each other and several discussions went on about Odia wikipedia. They came up with several suggestions such as :

- To add Purnachandra Bhasakosa (Odia Lexicon) link on Odia wikipedia article pages. - The Pages should be protected so only the authorized person can edit to avoid vandalism. - To build a Community Center where members can work on various fields/Categories to improve Odia wikipedia. - They use to Windows XP and not ready to the other availability of Operating System. Issues on XP for Odia Language.

More and more such activism are expected in the coming future with the involvement of people who are eager for the development of Odia language on web. Odia Wikipedia can be accessed at *or.wikipedia.org*http://or.wikipedia.organd the Facebook page for Odia Wikipedia is *http://facebook.com/OdiaWiki http://facebook.com/odiawiki .*

To read this *Reporthttp://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%89%E0%AC%87%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%AA%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86:MBLS1#.E0.AC.B0.E0.AC.BF.E0.AC.AA.E0.AD.8B.E0.AC.B0.E0.AD.8D.E0.AC.9F_.28Report.29 * on Wikipedia Click Here http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MBLS1.

Ansuman Giri * ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Odia (Oriya) mailing list wikipedia-or@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-or facebook.com/OdiaWiki Tweet @OdiaWiki *