Grants/Bengali Wikipedia 10th anniversary/Report

Completion

 * Is your project completed?
 * Answer YES or NO or OPEN ENDED for long term projects.
 * YES


 * Have you submitted all receipts for any expenses paid?
 * Answer YES, NO or N/A.
 * YES

Activities and lessons learned
''This section describes what the grantee did, and what the grantee learned from implementing the project. This section should be useful to others implementing similar projects and is an opportunity for the grantee to reflect on the project's performance.''

Wikipedia takes Kolkata IV
Wikipedia Takes Kolkata, a planned photo scavenger hunt in the spirit of Wikipedia Takes the City, was held in Kolkata on December 14, 2014. This event ws aimed at increasing the coverage of free photographs involving the city of Kolkata so that they can be used in Wikipedia articles which need pictures, as well as promoting awareness of Wikipedia. In this fourth annual photo-hunt, several temple complexes around Chetla and Tollygunge along the Adi Ganga river were photographed and 328 photographs were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The participants were encouraged to upload their photos as entries to the 'Bangla Wikipedia Photography Contest 2014 being held along the lines of the 10th anniversary celebration of Bengali Wikipedia. Fifteen persons turned up for the photo walk.

Photo contest


Bangla Wikipedia Photography Contest 2014, supported by Wikimedia India and organized locally by the Bangla Wikipedia community members, was held on the theme of 'India', as a part of the 10th anniversary of Bengali Wikipedia program. More than 1,100 photos were uploaded as a part of the contest out of which the jury chose the top three winners. The aim of the 3 months long contest was to collect pictures of natural heritage sites and gardens, such as nature reserves, nature / landscape conservation areas, natural parks, scenic / landscape areas, remarkable gardens, etc. of India to illustrate articles in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. The focus was not only on sites of national importance, but also on those protected at the regional level, and variety of natural and historic sites possible. The competition started from 1st October and the final deadline was December 31, 2014. This event was supported by Wikimedia India and organized locally by the Bangla Wikipedia community members.


 * Top three winning photos are shown below.

International conference
An international conference was held at Jadavpur University on 9th and 10th January 2015. This was the first international meetup that brought the Bengali Wikipedians from India and Bangladesh in one platform. Apart from that, Indian and Nepali Wikiipedians actively contributing in other Indic-language Wikipedia like Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Maithili, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu also participated in the event.

Call for papers
The conference offered four tracks for paper submissions: Community, Technology, Knowledge and Outreach and emphasizing the areas of Open source software and technology, Technological glitches of softwares/platforms/interfaces developed in Indian Languages. The topics which were expected to cover in the presentation were as follows. The submissions were reviewed and successful candidates were accepted for oral and poster presentations and scholarships were given to those who requested.

Scholarships
With the assistance of Wikimedia Foundation and CIS-A2K, scholarships to Indic language Wikipedian delegates and Bengali language Wikipedians of Bangladesh were granted. The scholarship included dormitory or shared accommodation for two days with moderate facilities, food and refreshments. In addition, they were entitled to be reimbursed for the charges for a round trip train ticket for second class non-air conditioned sleeper from the city of the applicant, not exceeding INR 3000. Selected very-active Bengali Wikipedians from Bangladesh were granted to and fro Economic class flight fare.

Program
The two day international conference commenced with a welcome note by Professor Asis Mazumdar, Dean of the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, Jadavpur University, followed by the keynote by Professor Pabitra Sarkar, former Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University and then the speech by the chief guest of the program Professor Basab Chaudhuri, Registrar of Calcutta University.

After the opening session, the program split into three parallel tracks - paper presentation, panel discussion and workshop. In the first track, eight papers were presented by scholars from various institutes. In the second track, panel discussions were held on topics of collaboration with academic institutes for the growth of Indic language Wikipedia and collaboration between Bengali Wikipedia editors from Bangladesh and India for the growth of Bengali Wikipedia. In the third track, nine sessions were held on basic and advanced editing in Bengali Wikipedia and sister projects. The day ended with the 10th anniversary celebration of the Bengali Wikipedia. Day two began with a joint photo sessions. The program for the day was divided into three tracks. the first track included paper presentations, invited talks & poster presentation. The second track consisted of round table discussions on topics of women's contribution to Wikipedia and collaboration between Indic language communities for the growth of Indic language Wikipedias. The third track consisted of a day long editathon in Bengali Wikipedia and sister projects. The day ended with the 14th anniversary celebration of English Wikipedia.

Lessons learned

 * What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects? Consider the following questions and respond with 1 - 2 sentences.
 * The event was an overall success. The speeches by the guest speakers captivated the audience. The round table discussions between the Indic language Wikipedians and the Bengali Wikipedians from Bangladesh and India were quite fruitful. The workshops drew an audience beyond the capacity of the hall. The first Bengali Wikipedia Editathon was also met with success. Food was good and enjoyed by all.


 * What did not go well?
 * Some of the guest speakers cancelled their speeches at the last moment. The management at the registration desk could have been better. The Wifi connection at the original venue for editathon was poor. We had to change the venue midway.


 * What would you do differently if you plan a similar project in the future?
 * We would target a less number of attendees and of course with less budget. We would like to involve the actual contributors more than the newbies or academics.

Expected outcomes
This section should reference the expected outcomes and measures of success described in the approved grant submission.
 * Provide the expected outcomes here.
 * Bengali is the 10th most spoken language in the world considering native and secondary speakers. If only native speakers are considered its rank would be even higher. Bengali Wikipedia is a growing in content with over 30,000 articles. The Wikipedia statistics shows 66 active editors and 15 very active editors as of July 2014. At present, in India, there are 8 editors actively contributing in the various Bengali Wikimedia projects - Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wiktionary. Apart from that we have around 15-20 volunteers who work mostly offline or little bit in the English Wikipedia and others. The objective of the Bengali Wikipedia 10th anniversary celebrations is to commemorate 10 years of Bengali Wikipedia and to strengthen Bengali Wikipedia community and its outreach efforts.


 * The second objective of the project was to strengthen the Bengali Wikipedia community. The Bengali Wikipedia community is divided across India and Bangladesh and there had been very little interaction between the members of this divided community. The international conference at Jadavpur University aimed to bring these two communities together in a common platform.


 * The third objective was strengthening the Bengali Wikipedia outreach efforts. This has been a constant endeavour of the Bengali Wikipedia community of India.


 * Did you achieve the expected outcomes? How do you know the outcome was achieved?
 * The primary goal of the project was the 10th anniversary celebration of Bengali Wikipedia. We organized a two day international conference at Jadavpur University, Kolkata to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Bengali Wikipedia. The conference was attended by Wikipedians from India, Bangladesh and Nepal across various Indic language communities. The conference was an overall success. It has been covered in the English and Bengali media in India and Bangladesh.


 * During the conference, free round table discussions took place between the Bengali Wikipedians from India and Bangladesh on various topics related to the growth of Bengali Wikipedia. Several proposals were raised, discussed and concrete action items were formulated. One of most successful of them has been online editathons in Bengali Wikipedia. Ever since the conference four such online editathons have been held, which have resulted in more collaborative editing and more content.


 * The conference brought together interested people from various spheres and subsequent collaboration with them has resulted in new outreach efforts. There has already been four outreach activities including workshops following up on leads generated during interactions at the conference.

Impact
This section ties this project to Wikimedia India's broader goals, and shows what the project accomplished.
 * What impact did this project have on WMIN's mission and the strategic goals?
 * PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

 * Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to the office? Answer "Yes" or "No".
 * YES

Total Fund Approved: INR 3,00,000

Total Fund Disbursed: INR 2,00,000

Total Amount Spent: INR 67,080

Remaining Amount: INR 1,32,920

Planned Expense: INR 55,000 (Photography Contest)

The remaining fund of INR 77,920 shall be with the Bengali Wikimedia community to cover the post-Conference events and the ones planned in future.

Final comments

 * Include any final comments you may have.
 * PLACEHOLDER TEXT