4 Vikaspedia

Hello friends. In our previous discussion we were talking of open educational resources, and the important issue of licensing mechanism, as well as how we can attribute the efforts of the content generator. And while making use of that, what are the precautions that we need to keep in mind. And various repositories that are available. This is all we discussed in our previous discussion. So in this part of the discussion, we will be taking up the concept of Vikaspedia.

ICT Trends—Past, Present and Future

So if you look into the ICT trends in the past, present as well as in the future.

• So the era of mid-eighties to mid-nineties was emphasizing on the concept of ‘information is wealth’. Because the availability of information was very very scarce in that particular period.
• In the next decade. The mid-1990’s to mid-2000’s, we said that the ‘knowledge is power’. Because the accumulated or the generated information was translated into knowledge and people started realizing that, really knowledge is the power and we can do number of things, we can create wealth, we can do number of achievements by using or taking the help of knowledge. So that is how we started identifying knowledge as the power.
• But the era of 2006 and beyond, till date, so now we are of the opinion that knowledge sharing is both wealth as well as power. Because the knowledge has been accumulated. But now it needs to be shared and it needs to be converted into various products as well as services. So that is why it can create wealth and it can give you the power.

Vikaspedia Portal

So the Vikaspedia portal, basically it is a Government of India initiative.

• So wherein it was launched in the year 2014,
• with the objective of providing e-Content and using ICT based applications for societal empowerment. A number of areas were taken into account for providing the services.
• So this Vikaspedia portal is available in 23 Indian languages.
• So the 6 domain areas include agriculture, health, education, societal welfare, energy and egovernance.

So these are the basic areas that the Vikaspedia is covering.

Need for e-Content in Regional Language

The need for e-Content in the regional language becomes very-very relevant in today’s context. Because in India we have about 418 languages, of which 22 are official languages. The population of the country as you are already aware is 1.28 billion, and more than 600 million internet users are there are in India. So why we are talking of these statistics, because that has a relevance. So this many huge number of people are getting the benefits of internet as well as the platforms that are available; the avenues that are available, making use of the services that are available which are having e-mediation. But if you don’t have content so in your regional language, maybe this particular huge number of population are devoid of the real benefits of the technology.

So there are about 1182 million mobile users are also there, which means,

• So of this 193 million mobile internet users are there. It means accessing internet on a mobile, nowadays it is a very common feature
• 64% of the rural users search content in the local language
• And 25% of the urban users search content in the local language

So these two figures force us to develop content in the regional language. So huge amount of population specially residing in the rural area. So they need the content in their regional languages. If you provide in regional dialect, so that is well and good. So it is not that there are no efforts. We have already discussed one such experiment under the heading of Digital Green, which is already working in this. But that is not the only experiment which can satisfy all the needs of the people. But government is also considering such efforts.

Collaborative Content Creation

So just to take care of that, making use of the similar concept, so the organization is working on the collaborative content creation.

• So wherein they are making use of the concept of crowd sourcing model. It means just they are asking the opinions of people. What are they saying about? And what are the expertise that they have? Putting all their experiences together, so they are developing the content. So inviting the community for active contribution of content in their own language. So the moment they start contributing, there is somebody who is editing that. And there is somebody who is adding value to that. So that is how the content keeps on improving. And with the people’s participation only.
• Any individual or volunteer can contribute the content. Edit the content or comment on the existing content also. So it is similar to the efforts of the Wikipedia. So the Vikaspedia is also working.
• Then contributed content is validated by the identified experts, and moderated by the State nodal agencies in the respective States. It means, that it is not that what the crowd is telling is going to be true. Yes there are lot of valid contents that are available. But that needs to be further validated by the experts, so which are being appointed by the government, who will be going through the contents that are provided by the crowd sources. So then ultimately that takes the proper shape to place in the website.
• Similar to Wikipedia. But with more reliable and authentic content in the local languages, specific to that particular region for which that this content is being developed.

Information Services

• The information services include in the local languages. It may include the success stories, the technologies, best practices, govt schemes. So this can be the areas, so wherein you can provide the information.
• Then it can be presented in any of the multimedia products.
• You can design the e-Learning courses.
• You can think of value added courses like (e-Vyapar, Ask an expert, question/answer forum) like that
• And development of mobile apps for the key livelihood sectors that you can think of.

So this is how the homepage of Vikaspedia looks,

1. Which focuses on issues related to agriculture. The entire practices that are available here covering the major crops in the regional languages.
2. Similarly the health related issues are also being covered by this Vikaspedia.
3. The content related to education, which covers issues like the child rights, then policies and schemes, child corner, teacher’s corner etc-etc, which gives an opportunity for the learner.
4. Similarly the social welfare which emphasizes on empowering the marginalized and the rural communities. And the various issues associated with the women are being covered here, by giving appropriate information.
5. Similarly the energy page is there
6. Then e-governance page is there giving lot of information regarding various govt schemes etcetc. if you look into the e-governance, it becomes very relevant that. So availability of the information regarding government schemes. So that itself is one of the important source.
7. Because as on date, there are more than 140 projects related to agriculture and allied sciences are in operation. But how many of the farmers are aware of this, out of 140 projects or the program schemes that are for the benefit of farmers. So it is very difficult for an individual to remember all these things. So that is why the portals like this, the platforms like this becomes more relevant.

VikasPedia – Current Status

The current status of Vikaspedia is,

• Hosted Content and Service

1. 1. 1.  So there are about 14,000 + web pages are there
      2. Then multimedia content if you look at- the audio is of about 2330 mins, video for about 13, 923 mins. So this is all the content that has already been developed

• Portal Utility (Since launch in Feb, 2014)

So if you look into the utility of the portal since Feb, 2014

• 9.2 million hits per month, that this portal is getting.
• 2.2 lakh unique visitors per month that it is having.
• 26 million page views per month
• And 8405 content volunteers across 10 languages, who are working for development of content for Vikaspedia.

Conclusion

To conclude we can say that.

1. 1. Search for need based regional language e-content is increasing owing to the mobile internet users. So as the mobile as well as internet penetration increases, the search for content also increases. If there is no content available, the user is going to divert himself while making use of the internet sources.
   2. The key challenge for Vikaspedia is to ensure credibility and authenticity of the content for the communities. Care has already been taken by employing the people to validate the content.
   3. Then converging Vikaspedia with the existing public library system in India will ensure greater reachability. So this can be a virtual library for the entire country. It is available for the use of the whole country.
   4. Then crowd sourcing model is effective in meeting the growing demand for region specific information needs in India.

So looking into the diverse nature, diverse culture that is available, and the diverse agro-climatic situations that are available in the country. So crowd sourcing is one of the best model, but the validation of the content that is generated through crowd source is also there. So this is how the Vikaspedia model is working for the benefit of rural people, covering maximum number of farmers.

With this we will be coming to the end of this discussion. And in the next interaction we will be talking of the electronic- National Agricultural Marketing.

Thank You.