Rayagada: After years of research, an IIT student Soni Salma Priyadarshini has succeeded in digitising the Saura script which will help to disseminate Saura culture, tradition and enable tribal students to pursue studies.
Soni is a native of Rayagada district.
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Following digitisation of the script, digitised textbooks will be published for teaching in Anganwadi centres and primary schools. Talking to the media, Soni said that she digitised the Saura script in association with Prof Girish Dalvi of IIT-Mumbai.
Soni had taken admission in IIT-Mumbai in 2014 to pursue her studies in Industrial Design. She had done a project on Typography and then did research on digitisation of the script which was prepared by a tribal scholar Mangei Gamang of Rayagada district.
“I was earlier working in Germany and left my job to come back to Rayagada for the research. Publication of textbooks in Saura script will benefit over 30,000 tribal students of Ganjam, Gajapati and Rayagada districts,” the researcher expressed.
Notably, out of 62 tribal communities in Odisha, the spoken languages of only five communities have been digitised so far.
PNN