Very inspiring, Milos. Thanks for sharing.
Might be good story for Wikimedia blog.
-----Original Message-----
From: wikimedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-
bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Milos Rancic
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 6:43
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Underwater photos and videos / WMRS Microgrants
2014
For the last month or so I want to share with you the initial success of the
Microgrants 2014 project of Wikimedia Serbia. However, there are a number
of stories and it was too much to me to write about all of them at once. So, I
am splitting it, which means that you can expect more stories during the next
days.
Inside of this email, first a bit about the project Microgrants, then about the
particular project.
* * *
In brief, the goals of WMRS Microgrants project is to build capacities of
Wikimedia Serbia and to make WMRS more visible. Projects themselves are
of secondary importance. The idea is to engage individuals and organizations
in creation free content, as well as to find active volunteers inside of that
pool.
Although there are many possible cool ideas, I didn't want to base the
project on something unpredictable, but on more or less predictable
parameters. For example, if we get ~10 more active Wikimedians thanks to
that project, it would be success.
However, it turns out that some of my wet dreams have become reality :D
My unexpressed idea was that if we reach relevant population, we'll get
some very cool projects.
The initial budget for all projects was 2500 EUR. Thanks to WMRS Board and
staff, that budget raised for, AFAIK, ~2000 EUR, so all relevant projects got
funding (which was between 400 and 500 per project).
* * *
This email is about the coolest project which we got. (However, there are
other projects, even more significant than this one. This one is just the
coolest :D ) It's about recording underwater world of Drina River [1]. So, yes,
we'll get photos and videos of underwater species.
Two persons who are doing that are called "Liquid Art" [2]. Please, take a
look
at their materials.
One of very important conclusions about the work with them is that one of
my premises turns out to be true.
They are artists. They are living of making artistic movies about underwater
worlds. They needed just co-funding (500 EUR) and they will give us all
materials relevant to us, for educational purposes. They will create movies,
make other steps to compile them into artistic experience, and that material
is their, proprietary. However, educational materials will be copylefted.
But, that's not the end of the story...
We were actually lucky to start this project with them. They are in Serbia (in
Novi Sad) just because their ship is docked in Caribbean to be repaired. Oh,
and they didn't want to go to make underwater photos of Caribbean, but
underwater photos and videos of the Southern Ocean, Antarctica.
They have other materials, as well as they are making underwater photos all
over the world. Their destinations for the next year are Thailand and
Antarctica.
After they come back from their Drina expedition, we are going to talk about
liberating their older materials.
Basically, those people are living from their work, but they have enough
space to contribute to the free content corpus, as well as they are willing to
do so. And I am sure that there are many such people all over the world.
* * *
Obviously, I'd like to see other affiliate organizations doing similar things. At
some point of time I'll write a know-how for making that kind of projects. In
the meantime, feel free to approach me via email or ask the questions here,
so everybody would be able to read and participate.
* * *
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drina
[2]
https://liquid-art.net/ (some of their material is locked, as they didn't
publish those videos yet; narration of their movies is in Serbian, but I am sure
that we can convince them to make English versions, as well :) )
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