Bhashini & Beyond: The Open-Source Revolution in OCR

OCR has come a long way from traditional rule-based systems like Tesseract to AI-powered solutions that enhance text recognition, especially for low-resource languages. This session explores how open-source OCR is evolving, with a special focus on Bhashini, India's initiative to digitize regional languages. We’ll compare Tesseract with AI-driven OCR models, discuss real-world use cases, and demonstrate how open-source tools like EasyOCR and PaddleOCR are bridging linguistic gaps. Whether you're a developer, researcher, or enthusiast, this session will showcase how FOSS is shaping the future of OCR and multilingual digitization.

Understanding OCR Evolution – From traditional rule-based systems like Tesseract to AI-driven OCR.

Role of Open-Source in OCR – How FOSS tools are democratizing text recognition.

Bhashini’s Impact – How India’s open-source language initiative is advancing OCR for regional languages.

AI vs. Traditional OCR – Comparison of Tesseract with AI-powered models like EasyOCR and PaddleOCR.

Live Demonstration – Practical insights into implementing FOSS OCR solutions.

Future of OCR – Challenges, opportunities, and the role of LLMs in multilingual text processing.