WikiPatrika/2011-06/Meetups and Events

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 A summary of Wikimeetups, Wikiacademies , workshops and other Wikimedia related events around the country.

Bangalore 33rd Wikimeetup - 08 May 2011


The 33rd Bangalore WikiMeetup, held on 08 May 2011, was attended by around 19 Wikipedians and Wiki enthusiasts including Bishakha Datta (Member, Wikimedia Board of Trustees) ; Hisham Mundol (India Programs, Wikimedia Foundation) and Wikimedia India Chapter Executive Committee members.

Hisham Mundol introduced the ongoing programs of Wikimedia Foundation focused on the outreach of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects to masses and bring in potential editors for both English and Indic language Wikipedias. The primary structure of new projects for India includes creating awareness through various media with a prime focus on Digital Media (Central Notice, Social Networks, Video Editing, etc) and campus programs like Pune Pilot Project. The present campus program also encompasses on educating students as well as teachers about the importance of Wikipedia and Potential of Wikipedia in Classrooms. The model structures from US campus programs which gave rise to a huge some 962 good quality articles could be also a beneficial factor to be imparted with an Indian context. He also insisted using repeatability impact of core messages during the outreach programs like [Edit] India!. And also during this sort of campaigns a student-teacher correlation and collaborative effort will give birth to not only a handy, easily searchable modern tool but also an imperative knowlegde base for various age groups and professions. These campus programs will also make a student-teacher relationship better to join hands and produce authentic, reliable source of information and make conventional education easier rather than creating cracks in the existing education system, the mission is to bridge the gaps, not expanding them. The campus program will also facilitate extensive support for training on editing, motivation for both student and teachers, monitoring the strategic implementation by campus ambassadors. The Pune Pilot project will be a learning sessions and infancy of future outreach campaigns for India.

The second talk of the day was by Wikimedia India Chapter President Arjuna Rao Cavala, who introduced the other chapter Executive committee members Gautam John, Anirudh Bhati, Arun Ramarathnam to the attendees. He shared the following points

a) Formulation of several guidelines of the approved India Chapter membership. The chapter has opened a bank account and will soon be opening the membership. All Indian nationals of/above 18 with contact address in India can become members. An online form will be made available, which needs to be filled and then printed. The printed form after signing can be sent to chapter office along with payment details.  He shared the benefits of membership and encouraged all the participants to become members once the membership is open. b) He also shared the idea of designing Wikimedia Chapter brochures in English and native languages. He shared a sample brochure to explain the key expectations from the brochure. c) He said that city/language subcommittee is being launched soon and invited community members to propose Wikimedians to serve on the same. Finally WMF Board of Trustee member Bishakha Datta shared a brief talk about her current role with the foundation and possible major goals, involvement of Women Wikipedians, socio-economic strategies and progressive growth in the field of Art, Culture and Communication.

You can find more photos of the event here.

Pune 13th Wikimeetup - 14 May 2011


The 13th Wikimedia Pune Wikimeetup was held on 14 May 2011 at SICSR, Pune. The representatives of Mumbai Wikipedia Community, Amitabh Kundan and Pranav (User:Wheredevelsdare) also came over to Pune  for discussing the forthcoming Wikiconference India 2011 and met up with representatives of Pune community, Sudhanwa Jogalekar, Radha Mishra, Suhel Bohra, Srikeit, Harshad Gune and Ashwin Baindur. The Wikimedia India chapter was represented by Arjuna Rao Cavala (chapter President) and the Wikimedia Foundation India Office by Hisham Mundol.

The Pune Wikipedia Community acknowledged the great honour done by Mumbai community in asking the Pune community to co-host the event and promised all cooperation. Subsequently in the evening meetup the members of the Pune Wikipedia Community were informed about this proposal and the Pune community unanimously agreed to participate and support the venture.

Pranav gave a presentation on the progress so far - the suggested dates for finalisation i.e. 5 to 7 Nov 2011, the proposed venues for the meetup, the accommodation, a marquee event featuring Jimbo Wales and a social get-together. Also discussed at the meeting were the proposed make-up of organising committee, the modalities, likely budget, and other issues. The Mumbai meetup where they will discuss these issues is being held next weekend. After that we assume the planning will begin in right earnest.

The regular monthly meetup was held in the evening. Bishakha Datta, Trustee, Wikimedia Foundation graced the meeting with her presence. Attendance was excellent with 50 plus people turning up. Most of these are the eager young aspirants of the Campus Ambassador program. The meeting began with Arjuna Rao Cavala giving a presentation on the India chapter. He mentioned the short history of raising the chapter, its aims and goals and that the chapter has now started soliciting membership. Arjuna Rao received the first chapter membership from long time Wikipedian Ashwin Baindur.

In all, 24 applications were handed over from Pune community right there and then and others will follow soon.

Hisham Mundol then addressed the aspirants. He mentioned the role they would play to bridge the gap between people who have the freedom to edit Wikipedia and those who actually do so. He encouraged them to join one of the finest group of people in the world - Wikipedians. He outlined the sequence of events, the training they would receive. He said that due to the need to start off the program right away, the program would begin with those aspirants who already had the skills being looked for especially the knowledge of the Wikipedia world. However, there was an overwhelming need of campus ambassadors; if we say one per class of 50, Pune would require hundreds and thousands of them. So everyone who applied but was not selected in the first round was considered an ambassador in waiting and with the help of interaction and training provided by the Pune community they would be prepared for the next rounds of selection. The aspirants responded with interest and a lot of questions.

It was interesting to note that amongst the young folk were some adults who wanted to give back something to society. Coming from varied walks of life, they were yet another face of altruistic Indian society. There were a couple of professors of the Pune Colleges attending out of their own interest. They were keen to bring these programs into their institutions.

Lastly, the community was formally informed about the proposal to co-host the Wikimedia India Conference 2011 which was unaimously approved.

Hyderabad 4th Wikimeetup - 15 May 2011
The 4th Wikimeetup of Hyderabad  was held on May 15th 2011, at Lamakaan, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. Around 20 people attended the meetup. There were participants from Wikipedias of Telugu, Tamil, English and Esperanto and few newcomers and Wiki enthusiasts. It was an open agenda with people sharing why they contributed to Wikipedia. The more experienced ones spoke about the best practices in their Wikipedias. One of the participants promised to get in touch with people from the Digital South Asia Library Project. This was followed by a presentation by Hisham Mundol, Wikimedia Foundation, India Programs. He spoke on editing Wikipedia articles, and the campus ambassadors program. The meetup was covered by journalists from The Indian Express and The Times of India.


 * Blog post (in Esperanto) by A Giridhar RAO
 * The Times of India : Wiki league, Who wrote my Wiki?

Mumbai 10th Wikimeetup - 21 May 2011
The 10th Mumbai Wikimeetup was held on 21 May 2011 at Pinstorm office, Santacruz West, Mumbai. Bishakha Datta, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation and Hisham Mundol, WMF Consultant for National Programs, India, attend this meetup. Hisham gave a presentation on the upcoming Wikipedia Campus Ambassador program pilot at Pune. An Organising Committee and sub-committees for the WikiConference was purposed and was decided to work on.

Upcoming events

 * 4/5 June 2011 : Wikipedia Campus Ambassador Program training, Pune
 * 11 June 2011 : Wikimeetup5, Kolkata
 * 11 June 2011 : 4th Malayalam Wikimeetup Kerala, Kannur
 * 12 June-2011 : Wikipedia Wikimeetup34 Bangalore
 * 18 June 2011 : GLAM Creative Commons Workshop Mumbai 1
 * 23 June 2011 : Wikipedia Wikimeetup1 Patna
 * 28 June 2011 : Wikipedia Wikimeetup1 Ranchi
 * 30 June 2011 : Wikipedia Wikimeetup1 Jamshedpur
 * 07 July 2011 : Wikipedia Wikimeetup1 Bhagalpur