Indians sell Wikipedia
By Bala Shah

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, photos, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT - ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym.  A Techie Tipster who prefers we only publish his first name Salman* wrote in

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Wikipedia, among the top 10 websites in the world, announced on the weekend that it had met its 2011-12 fund raising target of $29.5 Million.  People from all over the world donated to this worthy cause.

One of the key elements of the Wikipedia’s fund raising was the Advertisements on its own website by Wikipedians asking their global readership to donate. And in another sign of India’s growing influence in Wikipedia, many of the Wikipedia Ads asking for donations featured Indians.  In fact, India, among all the other countries, had the second most representation in the Wikipedia Advertisements on its site asking for donations.  Of the 14 people in the Ads, 4 are from India.

Who were those Indians in the fund raising banners on Wikipedia? 
 
- Karthik Nadar is from Mumbai, India.  He is a student and he works part-time.  His favorite part of his job is he has enough time to contribute to Wikipedia.  He contributed a lot to the 2011 Mumbai bombings article, including adding a picture he took after a bomb blast. In his free time, other than editing Wikipedia, he enjoys playing the drums and playing cricket.  He also enjoys photography.

- Dr. Sengai Podhuvanar is from Chennai, India.  He is currently retired after having many jobs:  he worked on a rural farm, as a school teacher, as a state-appointed journal editor, and as a PhD expert on indigenous Indian games.  He “was born a poor farmer, and still considers [himself] a farmer with a single plow.”  Currently he enjoys his retirement by reading, writing, taking walks and adding lots of his knowledge to Wikipedia.

- Akshaya Iyengar is from India.  She grew up in Solapur, a city in Maharashtra state.  She moved to the US for graduate school and now lives and works in Seattle, WA.  Akshaya is a Software Developer for a technology company.  She likes the fact that the software she writes is directly used by many, many people.  In her free time she enjoys ballroom/latin dancing, playing the guitar, and solving jigsaw puzzles.

-  Aniruddha Kumar is from New Delhi, India.  He is a blind Wikipedia editor who finds it important that Wikipedia remain ad-free because he does not have to waste time listening to advertising text on the site.  He also likes that there is no barrier of nationality, ethnicity, religion, caste, or gender for editors or readers of Wikipedia; it is information for all written by all.  He is a research scholar in Jawaharlal University, New Delhi.  He enjoys the art of winning a debate and convincing others to see his point on topics, spreading information, and eating tasty food.
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Salman, thanks for a great Tip.  Rs. 1000 has been couriered to Salman for this interesting insight.

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