Bureau, September 8,
2026: The fourth edition of WikiConference
India 2026, held in Kochi, Kerala, from September 4 to 6, witnessed
participation from several Wikimedians connected to Odisha, representing
different Wikimedia language communities and areas of work.
The three-day conference
brought together more than 220 Wikimedia volunteers, researchers, educators,
technologists, community leaders and advocates of free and open knowledge from
India and other parts of South Asia. Held under the theme “Reimagining the
Knowledge Commons,” the conference focused on the future of open knowledge
and the changing role of Wikimedia communities in an era increasingly shaped by
artificial intelligence.
The conference was the
fourth national edition of WikiConference India and provided a platform for
Wikimedians from across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka to
exchange experiences, discuss challenges and explore new opportunities for
collaboration.
Odisha's presence at the conference
The Odisha Wikimedia
community had a diverse presence at the conference. Participants included Subhasis
Panigrahi, Gyan Ranjan Sahu, Aliva Sahu, Sangram Keshari Senapati, Chinmayee
Mishra and Ramjit Tudu, along with Sailesh Patnaik, a Senior Program
Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation and a member of the Odia Wikimedians User
Group.
Chinmayee Mishra, one of the members of the Odia Wikimedians User Group, was also part of the organizing team and worked with Wikimedians from Kerala in organizing the conference. Aliva Sahu, an active member of the Odia Wikimedia community also represented the Odia Wikimedia community and contributing to discussions around community participation and the growth of regional-language Wikimedia projects. Her participation added to the representation of women contributors from Odisha at the conference and provided an opportunity to connect with Wikimedians from different language communities across India and South Asia.
Another participant from
Odisha was Khaatir, who is primarily active on the Urdu and English
Wikipedias. According to his Meta-Wiki profile, Khaatir began contributing
to Wikipedia in 2021 and has focused particularly on biographies of Islamic
scholars, academics and literary figures. He is also involved with Deoband
Community Wikimedia.
The participation of
contributors working across different language Wikipedias reflects the wider
contribution of people from Odisha to the global Wikimedia movement, extending
beyond the Odia-language projects.
Sailesh Patnaik, who began contributing to Wikipedia as a teenager
in 2012, has been involved in initiatives related to digitisation, content
relicensing and partnerships aimed at enriching Odia Wikimedia projects. His
profile on Meta-Wiki identifies him as a Senior Program Officer at the
Wikimedia Foundation and a member of the Odia Wikimedians User Group.
Focus on human knowledge in the age of AI
One of the major themes
of WikiConference India 2026 was the rapid development of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs).
As AI systems
increasingly learn from human-created and multilingual information available
online, the role of volunteers who create, verify and maintain reliable
knowledge has become increasingly important. Discussions at the conference
explored how Wikimedia communities can remain resilient, inclusive and relevant
as AI changes the way people discover and consume information.
The conference also
addressed issues related to community leadership, knowledge equity, regional
languages, cultural documentation and new forms of participation in the
Wikimedia movement.
The discussions
highlighted that Wikimedia projects are not simply online encyclopedias. They
are community-driven knowledge ecosystems where volunteers document
information, preserve cultural heritage, improve language resources and make
knowledge freely available.
Regional languages and local knowledge
Regional languages and
local knowledge formed another important part of the conference discussions.
India has one of the world's most diverse linguistic landscapes, and Wikimedia
projects play an important role in bringing knowledge from Indian languages
into the digital sphere.
Wikipedia is available in
more than 25 Indian languages, while almost all of India's 22 scheduled
languages have their own Wikipedia editions. India is also among the largest
audiences for Wikipedia globally, with hundreds of millions of page views
originating from the country every month.
The conference also came
at an important milestone for the open knowledge movement. Wikipedia and
Creative Commons both completed 25 years in 2026. Discussions around this
milestone looked at the future of cultural heritage, community archives,
indigenous knowledge, regional languages and freely licensed content.
OpenSpeak and multimedia documentation
Among the programmes
involving participants from Odisha, Subhasis Panigrahi and Ramjit Tudu along
with Sanjib Kumar Chaudhary from Nepal conducted a session on audio and
video documentation carried out through the OpenSpeaks project. They
also organised a workshop before the main conference.
The initiative focuses on
documenting voices, stories and knowledge through audio and video, providing an
important method for preserving oral traditions and community histories. Such
documentation can be particularly valuable for communities whose knowledge has
traditionally been passed down through generations by word of mouth.
The session also
demonstrated how Wikimedia projects can go beyond conventional text-based
editing and incorporate multimedia resources into the broader knowledge
commons.
Technical contribution
Gyan Ranjan Sahu, also a member of Indic MediaWiki Developers User
Group contributed to the technical aspects of the conference and helped address
technical challenges faced by members of the Wikimedia community.
Technical contributors
have become an increasingly important part of the Wikimedia ecosystem, helping
communities use tools, platforms and technologies more effectively. The
conference featured discussions on Wikimedia's technical future, including
emerging technologies and the potential applications of AI.
#100WikiDays and the Odia Wikimedia community
Sangram Keshari Senapati delivered a short presentation on #100WikiDays,
a challenge in which participants create at least one Wikipedia article every
day for 100 consecutive days.
His presentation, titled “How
#100wikidays changed my Wiki Journey,” was part of the lightning-talk
programme at the conference. The five-minute presentation focused on his
experience with the challenge and how maintaining a regular editing habit
influenced his long-term journey as a Wikimedian.
Senapati also
participated in a panel discussion on Wikipedia Asian Month, sharing his
experience with one of the initiatives aimed at encouraging collaboration and
content creation across Asian-language Wikipedia communities.
Odia Wikipedia's long journey
The participation of the
Odisha community at WikiConference India 2026 also highlighted the long history
of Odia-language contributions to Wikimedia projects.
Wikipedia was launched on
January 15, 2001, while the Odia Wikipedia was started on June 3,
2002, making it the first South Asian language Wikipedia to be launched.
Over the past 24 years, volunteers have built a substantial collection of
freely accessible information in Odia.
Odia Wikipedia now
contains more than 21,000 short and knowable articles, covering subjects
ranging from history, literature and culture to science, geography and
contemporary topics. The project has become an important digital repository of
knowledge in the Odia language.
The contribution of
regional-language volunteers has become particularly significant in the age of
AI. As large language models increasingly depend on publicly available
information, the availability of reliable, well-referenced and diverse content
in regional languages can influence how those languages are represented in the
wider digital ecosystem.
Connecting Wikimedia communities across South Asia
WikiConference India 2026
also provided an opportunity for contributors from different countries and
language communities to build connections.
More than 220
participants attended the conference, including contributors from India as well
as Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The event enabled participants to
share experiences from their respective communities and explore ways to
collaborate on common challenges.
For Odisha's Wikimedians,
the conference provided an opportunity not only to showcase work related to
Odia Wikipedia and local knowledge but also to engage with contributors working
in Urdu, English, Santali and other Wikimedia projects.
The presence of
contributors such as Khaatir, who
primarily works on Urdu and English Wikipedia, and Sailesh Patnaik, who combines community experience with his
professional work at the Wikimedia Foundation, demonstrates the diverse ways in
which people connected to Odisha are contributing to the wider Wikimedia
movement.
The future of open knowledge
The discussions in Kochi
underlined that technological advancement does not diminish the importance of
human-created knowledge. Instead, the rapid growth of AI makes accurate,
diverse and community-maintained information even more important.
From documenting oral
histories and local traditions to writing encyclopaedia articles, developing
technical tools and building partnerships, Wikimedia volunteers continue to
expand the amount of knowledge freely available to the public.
For the Wikimedia
community in Odisha, participation in WikiConference India 2026 was therefore
more than attendance at a national conference. It represented the community's
continuing engagement with the wider Wikimedia movement and its contribution to
a global effort to make knowledge accessible, diverse and freely available.
As the conference concluded in Kochi, the conversations around regional languages, community leadership, technology and human knowledge are expected to continue across Wikimedia communities in India and South Asia. The central message of the conference remains especially relevant in the AI era: the future of open knowledge depends not only on technology, but also on the people and communities who create, verify, preserve and share it.
