Indic Digital Archive Foundation is a non-profit organization that works on digital archival and preservation of Indic language cultural artefacts such as books, publications, and documents, making them available for open access.
History
The foundation was born out of the pioneering digitization work Shiju Alex started in 2009. The open access collection of Kerala related artefacts digitized by Shiju, which he named Granthappura / ഗ്രന്ഥപ്പുര, spanning ~2000+ documents with over 2,00,000+ pages, seeded the new ഗ്രന്ഥപ്പുര project. The project has received international recognition inviting collaboration from institutions such as the Tuebingen University, Germany. In 2022, Shiju, Jisso, and Kailash setup the foundation with the goal of institutionalizing the project and scaling its activities. The Indic open dictionary projects Kailash had been running from 2010 were merged into the foundation, expanding the foundation's scope.
The foundation went live with the financial support from the following founding donors:
Charmy Harikrishnan↗, Cherian Samuel↗, CV Radhakrishnan↗, Ebenezer Manoj Kumar↗, George Thomas↗, Joy Sebastian↗, Jyothis Edathoot↗, Manoj Narayanan↗, Manojkumar Nair↗ and Mary Pearl Britto↗, Nishad Nikarthil↗, Patric Edward↗, Sunil Kumar (Muthukurussi Mana Elamkulam)↗, Samagata Foundation↗
Team
See the team page.
Press
See the press page.
Milestones
- 2022: The first scanning Centre is setup at the Dharmaram College library, Bengaluru, with an MoU to digitize its Kerala collection.
- 2023: The foundation wins Kerala State Govt. Malayalam Mission Bhasha Prathibha award (ഭാഷാപ്രതിഭാ പുരസ്കാരം) for its Granthappura project.
- 2023: Olam dictionary, created by Kailash in 2010, is inducted into the foundation.
- 2025: Shiju Alex wins Mathrubhasha Award (Pradeepan Pampirikunnu Memorial Mathrubhasha Puraskaram) of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady for the Granthappura project.
Collaborations
Digitization
- Foundation is in collaboration with various institutions and individuals for the Granthappura project. More details available here.
Technical
Financials
We are a non-profit foundation that runs on public donations and grants. If you would like to see the foundation's work continue and expand, you can donate to support its activities.
Reports
The foundation's logo is the Brahmi 𑁍 lotus glyph, a punctuation that denotes separation between large textual units, like a full stop. In the logo, it symbolises the invisible line where the physical ends and the digital begins.