Purnima Sriram By

HYDERABAD: Hyderabadi boy and software engineer Sakthi Swaroop just got invited for the prestigious Wikipedia Tea House. That means he gets to rub shoulders with veteran editors and writers online, which itself is a rare honour. A Tea House is a friendly place to help new editors become accustomed to Wikipedia culture, ask questions, and develop community relationships. His contributions to the free encyclopedia (written collaboratively by the people who use it) is what fetched him the special invite.

The go-to place for students and housewives alike for any information, Wikipedia itself needs no introduction. From finding out details about our favourite stars to learning about history of anything under the sun and beyond, Wiki is where the Gen-X turns to. While we all learn from this user-generated database everyday, Sakthi has seen it from the other side. He writes about civil servants and unsung heroes of India. His contribution was acknowledged and he was recently invited for the prestigious Wikipedia Tea House. Today, he has his chin up as the Wikipedia biography and state member.

This proud National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (NITK) alumunus says, it all started when he found that biographies of a number of important people were missing. “ I was dependent on Wikipedia during my college days like any other student. After surfing Wiki for long, I realised that it has a lot of biographies but not of those who are silently working for the society. To me, they are the real heroes. I had decided to gather stories about a few sincere officers and started writing about them. Among the ones, I have written are Roman Saini IAS, founder of an academy that provides free civil services coaching, Swathi Lakra IPS, founder of She teams, MN Reddi - Bengaluru City Commissioner, Ira Singhal, the IAS Trainee who secured first rank despite being physically challenged among others,” he informs.

This Domalguda boy has come a long way in his mission. He handles the Aam Aadmi Party social media presence. “I do contribute to the national, social, IT and Wikipedia team of the party through the State Conveners. I have developed Google Chrome extension for the party which is also hosted on Google Chrome store. I do feel happy as I am penning down the biographies of officers who are India’s pride. I am sure my write-up would inspire many aspiring civil servants,” shares the 24- year old, who cleared GATE , with an all-India Rank of 2,295, which eventually fetched him a seat in NIT-Karnataka, where he pursued M.Tech in Pollution Control .

His social media presence is not limited to Wiki. He is also one among the most-viewed writers on Quora, a website that has answers to almost every question generated by experts in the field. He is also an award-winning start-up entrepreneur, who received the Microsoft Bizspark Membership for his startup www.herody.in .

“I am glad, I won the membership, which fetched me $20,000 worth software, free for two years. I am a Google startup launch developer too,” he shares with pride.

Telugu boy Sakthi draws inspiration from his dad, Raghunath, who works for the Dairy Department of AP.

He beams, “My father’s influence is more on me. He is a writer too who pens poems and stories. He is known for his speeches, but he never became a professional. He is the one who inspired me to read and write.”

Three cheers to the writer who is giving back to the online world!