Information just a 'scan' away: Historical sites in Bhubaneswar to get QR codes soon

BHUBANESWAR: Historic monuments in the Capital will soon get QR codes as per a new plan of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA). In a bid to make the culture and history of the city more accessible to citizens, tourists and researchers in India and across the globe, the BDA has partnered with the Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) to start the ‘QRpedia’project’.

The QR codes will be installed on temples and other heritage structures and on being scanned through smartphone, these codes will help visitors get detailed information of the monument and its history, pictures and other details of the site they are visiting. According to sources in BDA, the QR codes will direct visitors to Wikipedia page of the City-based sites and the monuments in the language of their choice, Odia or English.

The move, first-of-its-kind in the country, will add the city to the list of select countries like UK and Australia where the QRpedia is applied to increase the footfall of tourists.Officials of BDA said with an increase in the footfall of tourists to the city in 2017, articles on Wikipedia on monuments have increased by more than 25 per cent as compared to 2016. “The QRpedia project will help tourists, researchers and others, in gaining a better understanding of the region. Projects such as QRpedia have been undertaken in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia in a bid to enable the tourists for exploring the rich historical background of the places they visit,” a BDA official said.

The partner organisation CIS - A2K will help in generating more content about the monuments in the Capital, sources added.The BDA officials have named the content generating project as ‘Edit-a-thon’. They have received about 193 articles written by 26 editors in 13 different languages including, Bengali, Sinhalese, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Punjabi, Hindi, Azerbaijani (official language of Azerbaijan), German, among others.Out of the 193 articles, 44 articles were generated in Bengali and were drafted by four Wikipedians, followed by 42 articles written by an editor in Sinhalese.

Tech innovation
● QR codes will be installed on temples and other heritage structures
● 25 pc increase in articles on city’s monuments on Wikipedia in 2017 against 2016
● Edit-a-thon, a content generating project has been started
● 193 articles in 13 languages received so far