Grants/WikiConnect Pilot - January 2015

Abhishek Suryawanshi User:AbhiSuryawanshi Community Member,Marathi and Hindi Wikipedia. WikiConnect 30,000/- 1st January 2015 1st March 2015
 * Grant contact name:
 * Grant contact username or email:
 * Grant contact title (position):
 * Full project name:
 * Amount requested (in INR):
 * Provisional target start date:
 * Provisional completion date:

Budget breakdown

 * 1) Travel : 3,000/-
 * 2) Print Material : 4,000/- (Banners,Posters,Handouts etc)
 * 3) Accommodation : 7,300/- (Approx 15 days in Nashik at discounted rate)
 * 4) Food : 3,000/-
 * 5) Merchandize : 5,000/- (Stickers and buttons for participants.)
 * (2,000 - stickers, 1500/- buttons and 1500 stationary)
 * 1) Cake with Logo : 6,100/- (For anniversary celebration)
 * 2) 4G Internet for 4 workshops : 5,000/- (Sponsored by Airtel 4G)
 * 3) Venue : 4,000/- (150 people auditorium - Sponsored by IEI Local organization)
 * 4) Internet Lab and follow-up space : 3,000/- Sponsored by SIOM
 * 5) Misc : 1,000/-


 * Sponsorship raised : 12,000/-
 * Amount Requested : 30,000/-
 * Target Cities : Nashik, Pune, Delhi.

Project scope
India is a country of tremendous diversity; geophysical, societal and cultural. This has created huge barriers for communication across different communities resulting into isolation of some of them; particularly those in remote, rural and tribal areas. A healthy dialogue facilitating knowledge exchange needs to be established with these communities to form a cohesive society and thus realise “national integration”.

Project goal
WikiConnect is a proposed large-scale project that will connect Wikipedia with rural and those people who don't have direct access to Wikipedia.

The following are the goals of the pilot project.
 * Start new Wiki Community in Nashik.
 * Plan Wiki Activities around Kumbhmela.
 * Nurture the relationship with the institutions with a vision of long term engagement.
 * Increase content in English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
 * Bring in new users to the Wikimedia projects through the program.
 * Active dialogue between Hindi Wikipedia Community.
 * Two Workshops in Nashik in January 2015.
 * Two small meet-ups in Delhi (One in Mid-January and another in early February).

Other benefits

 * A strong, diverse and engaged students community.
 * Growth in editorship and readership from Pune.

Measures of success
We will be able to report on:
 * Number of outreach programs done in various cities/universities
 * Number of fests/student fairs we participate in
 * Number of workshops, meet-ups
 * Number of Newspapers who covered event.
 * New contributors to the Indic language & English Wikipedias (unmeasurable)
 * There are, of course, things that cannot be tangibly measured, such as the impact of the larger participation of community members in the dissemination of the free culture and access to knowledge via Wikipedia/Wikimedia.