Ambassadors in place for Wikipedia education programme

“It is basically a voluntary initiative and the reason I joined the India Education Program is because it is an opportunity to share knowledge on a global platform. For instance,in the US,even small things such as streets are on Wikipedia and that is how people learn about them. In India,where we have so much of diversity and knowledge to share with the world,what needs to be taught is to put the knowledge on Wikipedia and share it with the world,” says Abhishek Suryawanshi,20,pharmacy student and campus ambassador for SNDT University.

“We will interact with students and teachers in the city and train them how to write,edit articles on Wikipedia. By doing this,we are increasing the number of contributors to Wikipedia,increasing the knowledge base and promoting the use of Wikipedia for learning.”

While Pune was selected for the pilot programme because of the high population of students and large number of colleges,the response was overwhelming as the organisation received as many as 700 applications from across the country in May. “We shortlisted them based on resumes and then had video or audio interviews with select 50. The campus ambassadors were given basic primers on Wikipedia — which covered introduction to the project as well as the essentials of editing. They were also given assignments prior to the formal training,” says Hisham Mundol,who leads programmes in India.

As of now,four campuses and 1,000 students are learning the way to share knowledge using Wikipedia.

Wasim Mogal,a third-year Civil Engineering student of Imperial College of Engineering and campus ambassador for Modern College of Engineering,says,“In engineering,we hold seminars where students make presentations. These can make wonderful inputs for Wikipedia.”