Would like to thank the community for this unprecedented response, we never expected to sell out when this event was on the drawing board! We hope to live upto your expectations.
Kind Regards,
From: srik.lak(a)gmail.com
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:47:12 +0530
To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] [WCI] Registrations Closed
Hi all,
We have closed the registrations for the conference. Thank you for your interest and looking forward to seeing you at conference. If you have missed registering, see you at next conference. :)
--
Regards
Srikanth.L
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*Will young India take to editing Wikipedia?"*
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_will-young-india-take-to-editing-wikip…http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epaperpdf/12112011/11main%20edition-pg7-0.pdf (
The print version is a must see)
*At the age of 10, Srikant Kedia began inserting his name into Wikipedia
articles as a prank, leading to several of his accounts being blocked.
However, a year ago, Kedia turned into a serious Wikipedian after finding
that he could make contributions to Wikipedia in Oriya — his first
language. “Now, I am part of the sum of all human knowledge,” gushed the
18-year-old college student from Cuttack.*
*
*
*At the upcoming WikiConference in Mumbai, Wikipedians from across the
country will come together to chart out an action plan for the future of
the user-generated online encyclopaedia in India. And they hope that the
youth will play a major role.*
*
*
*Computer savvy, with plenty of time on their hands and a direct
involvement in the sphere of knowledge and education, students are ideal
candidates for a project like Wikipedia, which is completely
volunteer-driven.*
*
*
*Srikant Ramakrishnan, a 19-year-old computer science student in
Coimbatore, began editing on Wikipedia when he was 13. He now has 10,000
edits on English Wikipedia.*
*
*
*With endless access to knowledge that is constantly evolving and the
thrill of contributing to something that will be of use to others, these
bright youngsters have discovered that Wikipedia can be just as addictive
as Facebook. Take the case of Surya Prakash, 18, the youngest administrator
on Tamil Wikipedia. He admits to spending most of his holidays and free
time at his campus browsing centre. Instead of status updates, he borrows
his friends’ laptops to make an urgent edit or to update pages. And in
Kozhikode, Kerala, Netha Hussain, a 20-year-old medical student, likes
chatting with her friends as they make improvements on the same Wikipedia
article and compare notes.*
*
*
*But what would drive a young person to contribute to something that is
anonymous in nature and with no monetary gain? “Wikipedia has helped me
understand concepts in medicine. Whenever I notice an insufficiency in a
medicine-related article, I look up authentic websites/books and edit that
article. So I’m learning while editing,” said Hussain.*
*
*
*Prakash, who did his schooling in Tamil, said, “Having conversations with
foreigners has helped me develop my English. I’ve learned how to write
professionally. I have also picked up skills on how to convince and bargain
with people,” he said, referring to the extensive dialogue that goes on in
the back-end of every Wikipedia page whenever an addition or edit is
brought to question.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
*Important Note *: The publisher ( DNA / Dainik Bhaskar ) of the above news
article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not
reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared
only with an internal community who have been featured on this article.
All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
*DNA : "Here’s chance to become Wiki editors"*
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_heres-chance-to-become-wiki-editors_1…
*Achu Kunameara, 10, from Kochi, uses Wikipedia on a daily basis to promote
his mother tongue by regularly editing and uploading content in Malayalam.*
*
*
*Now he will present a paper on how students like him are using Wikipedia
to help generate content, at the Wikipedia conference to be held at the
Mumbai University’s Fort campus from November 18 to 20. “I started using
Wikipedia when I was in class IV. Instead of using its content, I started
editing some articles,’’ he said.*
*Like Kunameara, many people in the age group of 10 to 30 are using and
generating content on Wikipedia.*
*
*
*Now, Wikipedia is encouraging Indian youth to become content generators
and editors, as well as being the end users. *
*At the two-day conference, workshops like Editahon and Hackathon, will
teach students how to edit content on Wikipedia and will give chance to
tech savvy youth to develop components for mobile applications, offline
open source application and improving its interface.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : The publisher ( DNA / Dainik Bhaskar ) of the above news
article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not
reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared
only with an internal community who have been featured on this article.
All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
*DNA : "South India bags 50% of Wiki scholarships"*
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_south-india-bags-50pct-of-wiki-schola…
*There are only eight days to go for WikiConference India 2011, the first
national conference of its kind in India aimed at creating a platform for
Wikimedians (volunteers engaged in creating and editing content for all
Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia) from across the country to enter
into a dialogue about the future of the online encyclopaedia in India,
especially its Indian language counterparts.*
*
*
*Interest in this purely volunteer-driven activity can be gauged from the
number of scholarship applications that arrived for assistance to attend
the conference which will take place at the Fort campus of University of
Mumbai. A total of 7,070 applications were received and nearly 100
candidates were selected based on their level of contribution to Wikimedia
projects.*
*
*
*However, even though the conference is being held in Mumbai, the current
lack of awareness about Indian language Wikipedias in western India has
seen just over 15% of application awards go to this region, principally
Gujarat and Maharashtra.*
*
*
*“Within this we have a very strong presence from Pune, including a focused
community working on the Marathi language Wikipedia,” said Vickram Krishna,
head of the scholarship committee for the conference. He added that over
18% of scholarship applications came from the north, and 13% from the
eastern region. The largest number of scholarship-awarded participants came
from south, a total of 50%.*
*
*
*WikiConference India will be held between November 18 and November 20. To
register as a participant, visit bit.ly/wci11* .
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
*Important Note : *The publisher ( DNA / Dainik Bhaskar ) of the above news
article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not
reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared
only with an internal community who have been featured on this article.
All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
Hey everyone,
We are currently in the planning process to figure out how we can take the India Education Program (IEP) forward i.e. what can we do better in the next semester, avoid some of the fall outs we had during this semester, making sure we have a good number of campus ambassadors and online ambassadors to handhold students, etc. etc. One of the other decisions we have to make is whether (a) we continue the program only in Pune (b) do we continue the program in Pune and start the program in one more city. If we go with option (b) we also need to figure out which city it would be?
If at all, we're thinking of launching the program in one of the metropolitan cities (Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai) as we'll find better quality of schools/students/professors from these cities. Apart from several other determinants one of the most important factors to answer 'which city it would be?' is to figure out how many existing wikipedians from each of these cities would be able to volunteer as Campus Ambassadors for the IEP.
I would like to ask you all (existing wikipedians) if you'd be willing and able to volunteer for the IEP during the school hours (9am -4pm) from Mon -Fri. Main role of CAs is to co-ordinate with professors, conduct in-class presentations for students, introduce students to wikipedia, conduct editing workshops in classes, take refresher sessions in classes etc etc. As you'll notice most of the work that a CA is required to do takes place during working hours and not over the weekends or not in the evenings after working hours.
So for us to take this decision of 'which city it would be', we'd like to know how many of you would be able to actively contribute towards IEP as Campus Ambassadors if we do launch the program in your city. Here is a link to a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtsrCZ_fInBPdG… that you can fill in. Please note that there are different sheets for Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai. Please put in your names here if you'd like to volunteer as CAs and also mention how many working hours during a week will you be able to volunteer. I have added another sheet named 'Additional Comments' if you'd like to discuss some more thoughts/ideas/suggestions/criticism etc.
It will be great if you could fill in this sheet by 14th Nov, Monday 9am IST.
Thank you so very much for taking out time to read my long mail and helping us out with the India Education Program.
Thanks
Nitika
*The Hindustan Times : "Wikipedia plumbs for more Marathi articles"*
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/PUBLICATIONS/HT/HM/2011/11/10/ArticleHtmls…
*Lack of digital archiving, limited Indian references and difficulty in
accessing the Devnagari script are the main reasons for the lack of
contributions made to the Marathi Wikipedia page, said Pranav Curumsey,
chairperson of WikiConference 2011, at a press conference on Wednesday.*
*“While the English Wikipedia page has more than four million articles, the
Marathi page has barely 35,000 articles,“ said Mandar Kulkarni, editor of
Marathi Wikipedia.*
*
*
*The WikiConference 2011, organised by the Mumbai Wikipedia community and
the Wikimedia Chapter (India), will be held from November 18 to 20 at the
Mumbai University Convocation Hall.*
*
*
*The conference will have a Marathi track, including paper presentations
and a group discussion on encouraging Wikipedia users to contribute to the
Marathi page of the webbased encyclopedia project. The three-day conference
will have Jimmy Wales, founder and chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation,
will address attendees during the three-day conference. “Out of the 700
seats, only 50 are vacant at the moment,“ said Hisham Mundol, consultant,
Wikimedia Foundation, India.*
*
*
*The conference will have paper presentations on topics such as Wiki for
the Blind, WikiBhasha: Our Experiences with Multilingual Content and Legal
aspects of Wiki culture.*
*
*
*“We will also have a panel discussion on Wiki Women Web: Bridging the
Gender Gap, which will encourage more women to write and edit articles on
our page,“ said Curumsey. “Even at the conference, only 14 % of the total
registrations include women. We need to change this mindset,“ he added.*
*Important Note* : The publisher ( The Hindustan Times ) of the above news
article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not
reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared
only with an internal community who have been featured on this article.
All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
Srikanth, Ansuman & all others unable to make it for the conference,
We have partnered with Youtube who will be lve streaming the event from the Convocation Hall, University of Mumbai - so you can catch the action as it unfolds!
Kind Regards,
> Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 13:59:43 +0530
> From: rsrikanth05(a)gmail.com
> To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [WCI11] Best wishes and a request.
>
> Please record videos and upload to the Commons or YouTube so that we
> can see it later. All the very best guys. Google mail is acting
> strange now, so forgive the second mail. All the best.
>
> On 07/11/2011, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <rsrikanth05(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Heya guys, with the India conference and hackathon barely two weeks
> > away from now, I just wanted to wish you All the very best for the
> > event. Hopefully we shall, at the other end of the event. know better
> > methods me sharing knowledge.
> > As a non attendee, I put forth a request. Please keep us updated on
> > the events as they progress, both in real time, and post. Tweet about
> > it, blog about it, post on Facebook. Please don't tweet about what you
> > eat though, that is for our meetups. Use the conference twitter ha
> > http://www.google.com/gwt/x?wsc=hg&wsi=b27749e54f1fa0ec&source=m&u=http%3A%…
> >
> > --
> > Regards,
> > Srikanth Ramakrishnan,
> > Sathyamangalam-Gobichettipalayam Star Gazers Gang, Ukkadam, Coimbatore.
> > My Commons uploads, now exceeding 75.
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/Rsrikanth05
> >
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Srikanth Ramakrishnan,
> Sathyamangalam-Gobichettipalayam Star Gazers Gang, Ukkadam, Coimbatore.
> My Commons uploads, now exceeding 75.
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/Rsrikanth05
>
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For those interested in attending WikiConference India 2011 in Mumbai (18-20 November 2011) - the delegate passes are almost sold out, so please do register for one asap if you have not already done so (Register @ bit.ly/wci11). If you have, we look forward to seeing you!
Follow WCI 2011 on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/wci11
Thanks!