Google is Providing Wikimedia Free Access to Translate, Custom Search, and Cloud Vision APIs Along with Donating $3.1 Million

From the Google Blog:

By collaborating on programs to increase the availability of local language content and providing technology tools for Wikipedia editors, we aim to bridge this gap and empower local editors to serve their communities with relevant content in their native languages.

Creating new articles from scratch can be time and resource intensive for volunteer editors, and translation tools can be useful to help generate local language content.

To make it easier for editors to create this native language content, we’re providing access to the Google Translate API through Wikipedia’s content translation tool at no cost.

We’re also working with Wikimedia and their editor community to expand our Project Tiger initiative (now collectively referred to as GLOW – Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia), which we piloted last year as a competition between 12 language communities in India to create more native language content. We will expand these programs with Wikimedia affiliates and volunteers to provide editors with resources and insights to drive the creation of new Wikipedia articles across 10 languages in India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and the Middle East and North Africa region.

Bringing local language information online comes with new challenges in maintaining Wikipedia’s content and citation standards. Google Cloud Custom Search API helps editors ensure contributions are appropriately cited from sources. Our Cloud Vision API enables editors to digitize public domain books in Indic languages to include more diverse, reputable sources for citations. Both of these tools will be provided to Wikimedia at no cost.

Learn More, Read the Complete Blog Post

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