Thank you so much for introducing me.

Hi All,

(Little bit about my background and wiki-story)

My name is Abhishek

Suryawanshi

. Wikipedia is special to me because it saved my life several times

I was born and brought up in rural India where healthcare access is a luxury, even today. I had severe Asthma. It took me 14 years and I recovered because asthma attack prevention techniques were communicated and were available to me by my parents.

Yes, I survived, but there are million kids who are far away from global healthcare due to various limitations. Global knowledge is available only in English. Internet is there, but penetration of web access in rural and underprivileged society is very low. The literacy rate is also low in rural India.

As a small effort, I started Spoken Wikipedia in local Indian languages. We translated basic health related articles and ensured those are available to illiterate as well as visually impaired people through various channels.

I am a native speaker of Hindi, Marathi, and English, and in my home community. I live with people who in my lifetime are beginning to seek online information in all of these languages but who are underrepresented in giving feedback to health care information providers when health educational resources are created. In addition to not having enough information available in my native languages, my culture’s regional needs are not sufficiently met.

In order to bridge this gap -

I am in Boston to study Health Communication on Presidential Fellowship at Tufts Medical School&Emerson.

I joined Wikimedia community in 2010 through Wikipedia Education Program. As compared to on-wiki,

I am more active in offline-wiki world. I was actively involved in Wiki Conference India, Wikipedia Summit India, Hindi Wikipedia Sammelan and various Wiki-Club events in India and Sudan. I was Vice President for Wikimedia New York Chapter and helped NYC community with local outreach events. Currently, I am working on WikiConnect Project for emerging worlds.

Wikimedia New England is one of the oldest and prestigious group in the world and it is my honor to be in New England area. I would like to take this opportunity to serve Wikimedia community by organizing more meet-ups and regular events. I think New England is the ideal place in the world to organize international local language wiki workshops. Students from all across the world come to Boston/Cambridge to study. We can channelize university network and help developing countries by enriching content in respective local languages. I believe knowledge should be free, open and accessible to all and technology or language should not be a barrier. I need your help and support to plan activities and outreach sessions.

As compared to Marathi and Hindi - my English is poor and I am improving my English E-Mail writing skills. Apologies for any typos or grammatical mistakes.

I will be active on the mailing list to answer queries. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any ideas or plans.

Your guidance and advice can help us to develop better strategies for rural and underprivileged communities in other parts of the world.

Looking forward to meeting you during next meet-up.

Keep Supporting, Keep Inspiring! :-)

Warm Regards,

Abhishek Suryawanshi

(New family member, Wikimedia New England)

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Maia Weinstock <maiapw@gmail.com> wrote:

P.S. Meant to include Abhishek's email, in case you'd like to touch base with him on events as well; he's at i.abhishek.suryawanshi@gmail.com

cheers,
Maia

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Maia Weinstock <maiapw@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,

Hope you all are doing well. It's been a busy year for many of us, and group meetings and events have unfortunately been less frequent than in recent years. I know there are many who are active with Wikipedia and related projects and wanting to meet up more regularly, however.

With that in mind, I'd like to introduce Abhishek Suryawanshi, an editor and community leader who has offered to help lead meetings and events in the coming year. Abhishek is a student and longtime Wikimedia contributor who has expressed interest in rallying the troops in our area. He has offered to organize, for starters, a 15th anniversary Wikipedia celebration in mid-January, with details coming soon. I will be adding Abhishek as a moderator to our Meetup.com group and Facebook page, where events will be broadcast, along with links to their Wikipedia event pages.

In other news: Congrats to Molly White for her re-election to a new 2-year term on the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee! Molly will be stepping back in terms of NE Wikimedians events leadership, leaving myself and Amanda Rust as contacts for group meetings at present. Note, however, that it is my intention to step away from a leadership position by June 1st, 2016. As such, I'd like to take this opportunity to invite anyone who is interested in volunteering time as a leader for the New England Wikimedians to please get in touch!

In the meantime, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year. I or Abhishek will reach out soon with details as to our January gathering.

best,
Maia

maiaw.com | @20tauri | user:Girona7

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