Omshivaprakash H L

Omshivaprakash H L

Digital Archivist · Entrepreneur · Language Technologist
#ServantsOfKnowledge  ·  #Sanchaya  ·  #SanchiFoundation

I'm a digital archivist and entrepreneur from Bengaluru. For over 20 years I've worked in technology - and for most of that time I've been putting it to work for my mother tongue, Kannada. I've helped put 1.75 lakh+ books and manuscripts online, built research tools for 11th-century poetry, and documented theatre and folk art that might otherwise have vanished. My belief is simple: knowledge should be free, open, and available to everyone.

Bengaluru, India GitHub Sanchaya Sanchi Foundation Linuxaayana
About

Twenty years of technology, in service of a language

I started out teaching computers, spent the middle of my career architecting cloud systems and leading business development, and somehow ended up as one of the people trying to save a language in the digital age. It all started in 2006, when I began writing a Linux blog in Kannada - Linuxaayana - back when almost nobody was talking about free software in my mother tongue. The blog grew into a community, the community grew into Sanchaya, and one thing led to another across #ServantsOfKnowledge and the Sanchi Foundation.

Digital Archiving

Running #ServantsOfKnowledge - a volunteer community that has digitized 1.75 lakh+ books and manuscripts in 20+ languages and made them freely available on the Internet Archive.

Language Technology

Founded Sanchaya to build open-source tools, fonts and research platforms for Kannada - from legacy font conversion to literary research tools.

Heritage Documentation

Co-founded Sanchi Foundation to record folk and classical art forms, theatre and indigenous knowledge as freely licensed archives.

Open Knowledge

A Wikipedian since 2007, a Mozilla Rep, a Creative Commons certified educator - and author of Creative Commons Kannada 101.

20+
years in technology
1.75 lakh+
books & manuscripts digitized (SoK)
20+
Indian languages archived
1 crore+
pages scanned in a year
The long way round

How I got here

2001

First years: teaching computers

Started at NIIT, Rajajinagar, Bangalore as faculty - my first love was teaching people how computers work.

2006

Linuxaayana & the Gnu/Linux Habba

Began writing about free and open source software in Kannada. Helped organise the first localized install fest - Gnu/Linux Habba - which drew 300+ people to a small workshop in Bengaluru.

2010

Founded Sanchaya

Started the Kannada language technology research forum - building open tools for Kannada literary research, starting with Vachana Sanchaya.

2014

Co-founded Sanchi Foundation

Founded a not-for-profit to document audio-visual heritage - theatre, folk and classical art forms - released openly under Creative Commons.

2019

#ServantsOfKnowledge

With the Internet Archive and Public.Resource.Org, began scanning out-of-copyright books at the Indian Academy of Sciences - the start of a project that now spans 1.75 lakh+ books and manuscripts in 20+ languages.

Today

Still building language technology

Continuing to build the next generation of language technology - technical support, e-book manufacturing and digital consulting centred on Kannada and other Indian languages.

The big one

Servants of Knowledge

#ServantsOfKnowledge

In 2019, with a scanner provided by Public.Resource.Org and the support of the Internet Archive, we started scanning out-of-copyright books at the Indian Academy of Sciences in Bengaluru. What began as a few stacks of old books has grown into a volunteer-powered movement that has made 1.75 lakh+ books and manuscripts across 20+ languages - Kannada, Konkani, Tulu, Sindhi, Sanskrit, Tamil and more - freely accessible worldwide. We've digitized rare copies found in Karnataka, vintage magazines and newspapers, and invaluable heritage material like Talegari (palm-leaf manuscripts) and Tadapatra. In the past year alone we scanned over 1 crore pages, and made around 40,000 books at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) accessible to visually impaired students and researchers. Read about the initiative in MIT Technology Review.

Internet Archive Collection

1.75 lakh+ digitized books, manuscripts, magazines and journals in 20+ Indian languages - freely downloadable, searchable, with OCR.

Browse collection →

Open Source Toolkit

We build and share the tools we scan with - OCR apps, metadata managers, corpus builders and archive indexes. All open source.

See all repos →

SoK OCR

Browser-based OCR built on Tesseract.js with multi-language support for Indic scripts.

GitHub →

Official Gazette Explorer

Digitized official gazettes - a growing public record of government publications in Indian languages.

GitHub →

Corpus Toolkit

Downloader, metadata scraper and corpus builder for archival collections - the data backbone of the initiative.

GitHub →

Drive Index & Archive Stats

Tools to catalogue scans across cloud drives and track the real-world impact of every uploaded book.

GitHub →
Founded 2010

Sanchaya · ಸಂಚಯ

Kannada Language Technology

Sanchaya (ಸಂಚಯ) is the forum I founded in 2010 with a straightforward idea: literary research shouldn't be locked inside printed volumes. We build free, open tools that let anyone - a student, a scholar, a curious reader - explore Kannada literature. The flagship, Vachana Sanchaya, opened up 25,000 vachanas from the 10th–12th century to the public. The same approach now covers the Dasa movement, Ranna and Janna, Sarvajna, Kavirajamarga, dictionaries, and the digitization of vintage Kannada books. Today Sanchaya tracks 200+ projects and resources across 241 open repositories.

Vachana Sanchaya · ವಚನ ಸಂಚಯ

A landmark research tool bringing 25,000 vachanas from the 10th–12th century to anyone with a browser.

GitHub → Visit →

Dasa Sanchaya · ದಾಸ ಸಂಚಯ

13,973 kirtanas and 363,000+ words, cross-linked to composers - built for Dasa Sahitya research.

Visit →

Kannada Font Converter

Convert legacy ASCII Kannada fonts (Nudi, Baraha, ShreeLipi) to Unicode - and back. The bridge old texts need.

GitHub →

Karnata Typeface Revivals

Recreating historic Kannada typefaces - the Basel Mission Press face, G. T. Narayana Rao's, and more - as open fonts.

GitHub → Fonts →

Pustaka Sanchaya · ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಸಂಚಯ

Index and discovery for public domain Kannada books - and a crowd effort to rebuild metadata when DLI and OUDL went dark.

Visit →

Pada Sanchaya · ಪದ ಸಂಚಯ

A growing Kannada lexicon - word corpus to feed future spell and grammar checkers.

Visit →

Kannada Chandassu · ಛಂದಸ್ಸು

Computational analysis of Kannada prosody - scanning metres and poetic structure.

GitHub →

OCR Training for Kannada

Automated Tesseract training for Kannada and other Indic languages using our revival fonts.

GitHub →

Karnata Sanchaya

An interactive historical atlas of Karnataka - dynasties, kings and inscriptions mapped through time.

GitHub →

Ranna, Janna, Sarvajna, Kavirajamarga

Research platforms for the classical canon - the ratnatraya and the earliest Kannada poetics.

Ranna → Sarvajna →

Sanchaya API

Open data API giving developers and researchers programmatic access to Sanchaya's datasets.

GitHub →
Co-founded 2014

Sanchi Foundation · ಸಂಚಿ ಫೌಂಡೇಷನ್

Archiving for the future

In 2014, with a group of like-minded friends, I co-founded the Sanchi Foundation - a not-for-profit documenting audio-visual heritage. If #ServantsOfKnowledge saves books, Sanchi saves performances: folk and classical art forms, theatre, and streams of indigenous knowledge that are rarely written down. Everything is released under Creative Commons licenses, free for the public - because we believe these recordings belong to everyone. Over the years we've curated 190+ videos: theatre productions, talks, and rare footage of art forms like Yakshagana and Kathakali.

Ninasam Archive

Documenting the celebrated theatre repertory of Ninasam, Heggodu - Tirugata seasons, Samskruti Shibira, summer workshops and Ranga Prayoga.

Explore archive →

Yakshagana & Kathakali

Recording the coastal Karnataka dance-drama - including a rare Yakshagana/Kathakkali juxtaposition of Dushshasana Vadhe.

View projects →

Sanchi Knowledge Series

Capturing leading thinkers - Dr. K. Ullas Karanth, Prof. S. Settar, Bangalore's lakes, Ranga Sangeetha and more.

Watch series →

Ranga Sangeeta · ರಂಗ ಸಂಗೀತ

Recording the music of the stage - theatre songs and musical traditions documented with LokaCharita.

Explore →

Netravathi River Documentation

Documenting the environmental and social dimensions of the Netravathi river diversion.

Learn more →

Training & Workshops

Annual short-film workshops at Ninasam, Heggodu - training a new generation of Kannada documentarians.

View training →

Annual Reports

Open annual reports (2022–2025) documenting projects, impact and finances.

Read reports →

On YouTube

190+ curated videos of theatre, folk art, and culture - free for everyone to watch.

Watch →
Volunteering

Community is where it all started

Everything I've built grew out of volunteering. I've been a Wikipedia editor since 2007 and a sysop on Kannada Wikipedia, a Mozilla Rep for Bengaluru, and a WordPress translator for Kannada. Along the way I helped run community experiments like Arivina Alegalu and Hejje - TED-style gatherings that gave "common people" a stage to share knowledge.

Wikipedia · editor & sysop since 2007 Mozilla · rep, Firefox L10n Bidar Fort QR Pedia · preserving Bidri art WordPress · Kannada translator & community editor Wikimedia India · SIG chair, Kannada Creative Commons · certified educator
Recognition

Awards & honours

2024

Ramanasri Sharana Seva Prashasti

From the Akhila Bharata Sharana Sahitya Parishat & Ramanashree Pratishthana - for Sanchaya & Sanchi Foundation's service to Sharana literature research, modern vachana composition, vachana music and culture.

2022

Sharana Sri Puraskara

Basavakendra, Shivamogga.

2022

Deccan Herald Changemaker 22

Named among Deccan Herald's Changemakers of 2022.

2021

News18 Kannada - Varshada Kannadiga

Science & Technology category. Watch →

2020

Prajavani - Varshada Kannadiga

Technology Yuva Sadhakaru, Bengaluru Rural. Read →

-

Rotary Club - Rajyotsava Award

For service to Karnataka's language and culture.

Talks & press

Highlights

MIT Technology Review · Oct 2023

The grassroots push to digitize India's most precious documents

Profiles the Servants of Knowledge operation - scanning about 1.4 million pages a month across Bengaluru.

CreativeMornings Bengaluru · Feb 2025

Uncovering the Layers of Language Preservation

Keynote on the layers of language preservation - from Vachana Sanchaya to the public impact of digitization.

IndiaFOSS · 2022

Scanning is the new spinning

Digitization and open knowledge initiatives around you - watch the talk →

Wikimedia Technology Summit · 2023

Public archives and participation - past, present and future

Panel discussion at the Indic Wiki Technology Summit, IIIT Hyderabad.

Bangalore International Centre · May 2023

#ServantsOfKnowledge first public event

Launching the initiative in public - with a follow-up at Gandhi Bhavan with HindSwaraj.

Hampi Kannada University · Karnataka Arebhashe Academy

Lectures on digitization & open knowledge

On Kannada literature and digitization today and tomorrow, and on Unicode, open knowledge and the Arebhashe language.

More

And many more

MiniDebConf India 2021, Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021, FOSS United Bengaluru, Creative Commons Lightning Talk 2020, Wikisource Advanced Training 2019, the 78th & 81st Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelanas, Mathru Bhasha, and Vachana Vijayotsava.