cross-posting pan India (apologies if you got/get this through other mailing lists.)
Hi Folks,
I'm really pleased to send out this email welcoming the first 2 new members of the India Programs team. Just before I introduce them, I thought I'd share with you the background of their selection.
Context
As you might be aware, the Foundation had decided to undertake a catalyst operation in India to promote the growth of the community and projects here. The team is expected to be a small, nimble 5 person group. We had put out 2 job postings - for Indic Initiatives and for Participation. (Please refer: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-May/003007.html) We posted them on linkedin and on the Indian FOSS community list as well as announcing them on various Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.
The response was wonderful. >110 applications for Indic Initiatives and nearly 175 applications for Participation. These were short-listed to 10 (3 for Indic Language and 7 for Participation.) These were a mix of existing & previous Wikipedians, Wikipedia newbies and open source advocates.
In June, the shortlisted 10 were interviewed and further down-selected to 4. These 4 were then further interviewed by a group of other staff members from the Foundation. I am pleased to inform the community of the final selected 2.
Shiju Alex - Indic Initiatives
Most of you already know Shiju. For those who don't, Shiju is a long-time Wikipedian [User: shijualex] and is active on Malayalam Wikipedia, English wikiprojects and Wikimedia Commons, as well as Wikisource and offline. He has been passionately involved with the establishing and building of Indic language Wikipedias. He's participated in a series of outreach activities and is also (jointly) undertaking a grant from the Foundation for outreach across India. He's a regular member of the Bangalore community.
Shiju is from Palakkad, Kerala and is married with a 2 year old baby. He currently works as a Senior Technical Writer with ABB in Bangalore.
Even those of you who know him might not know the following 2 things that I was lucky to discover during the selection process. Shiju is an MSc in Physics with a specialisation in Astronomy and Astrophysics - and he retains a deep interest in anything astronomical. Feel free to quiz him vigorously on this! He also enjoys trekking and misses his time in Pune where he could be up & close the gorgeous Sahyadri Hills.
Shiju is going to lead our work on promoting Indic language projects across India. The challenges are enormous - from technical constraints to low levels of awareness of these projects to vibrant but nascent communities. However, these only point to the massive size of the opportunity for Indic language projects - which is the joint top-2 strategic priority of the movement in India. After he joins, he'll collaboratively put together a plan for Indic language projects and work towards quality execution of high-impact initiatives.
Shiju is currently serving out his notice period so will be able to join us only around September - October.
Nitika Tandon - Participation
Nitika [User:nitika.t] is relatively newer to the community - and has been brushing up her editing. She's been immersing herself in the Wikimedia world and attended community meet-ups as well as reviews of the Wikipedia India Education Program. She is from Delhi - and is currently based in Mumbai - where she works as a Strategic Partnerships Manager with Directi. (If you're not aware, they are one of the most prominent internet domain & solutions providers in India.)
Nitika has an MBA and has also worked on research analytics. A fascinating detail I discovered about a previous assignment of hers - and you must ask her about it - is how African drums can be used for management coaching! She also reliably informs me that there are 7 Spanish dance forms and she instructs in all of them!
Nitika is going to be working on Participation - which is primarily focussed on increasing the contributor base of non-Indic language projects, primarily Wikipedia. One of her first tasks will be to expand the Wikipedia India Education Program from the Pune pilot to a more national footprint. She'll also work on other initiatives to promote participation - and I can foresee Wikimedia Commons being a potential initiative.
Nitika will join us on August 1st.
Introductions
I'm going to be scheduling the August Monthly India Programs IRC on Thursday August 18th to introduce them both to you. Please do join us. I'll send a reminder closer to the date. Also, needless to say, they'll be attending a series of community meet-ups over the next months.
In the meantime, please do join me in welcoming them onboard. I'm really excited because this means that we will now have the capacity and capability to dramatically accelerate our activities in India.
Warmest Regards,
Hisham Mundol
Wikimedia India Programs
skype : hisham.wikimedia
gtalk : hmundol(a)wikimedia.org
twitter : @mundol
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
cross-posting pan India (apologies if you have got this through other mailing lists.)
Hi Folks
I wanted to share an update on the Wikipedia India Education Program. As of today, we have 15 teachers from 4 colleges participating. The most exciting part is that we have nearly 800 students (and counting) who are going to work on about 1200 articles in this semester. (Do note these numbers may fluctuate as the actual editing in classrooms starts - which is only to be expected.)
Please see the project page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program - and do go through the sub-tabs for Ambassadors and courses.)
I think it will be a great idea if the Campus Ambassadors had a chance to introduce themselves to you and you had a chance to interact with them. Can we do it on the India Programs Monthly IRC this Thursday (July 28th) at ppm IST on #wikimedia-office. (I apologise that we are late on this month's IRC.)
You can also hear from them about their experiences. They've having 1-on-1 discussions with faculty members to identify potential articles to work on and conducting editing workshops for students in classrooms.
I look forward to as many of you attending as possible - and for a wonderful interaction with the Campus Ambassadors. They are great guys and have done amazing stuff so far. They're going to need your help and encouragement. Drop in and say hello, and a little more!
Warm Regards,
Hisham Mundol
Wikimedia India Programs
skype : hisham.wikimedia
gtalk : hmundol(a)wikimedia.org
twitter : @mundol
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
FYI - We invite applications for scholarships for attending WikiConference India, 2011 in Mumbai from 18-20 November 2011. Kindly Refer to email below.
Kind Regards,
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:36:07 +0530
From: vvcrishna(a)radiophony.com
To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] WikiConference India 2011 - Scholarships
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dGNxS…
Applications are invited for travel/boarding scholarships for WikiConference India 2011. There are a very limited number of such scholarships, and it is also possible to apply for partial assistance, in case you can handle part of the costs on your own - doing so will ensure that more Wikipedians will be able to get assistance. Provisions have been made for participants from special interest groups. Applications will be welcomed until Aug 15, and the decision process will be completed by the first week of September 2011. Please study the form carefully before submission.
We look forward to plenty of active participation at the conference, with the help of all Wikipedians.
--
Vickram
Fool On The Hill
_______________________________________________
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
**Kindly forward this to other language/city lists that you are a part of**
Just to follow up, we have received offer for help with translation to Hindi, Telegu, Sanskrit and Kannada thus far. We still need help with all the other indic languages and request volunteers to come forward. Kindly contact Theo or myself privately if you can help.
Kind Regards,
Hiya,
The Scholarship Application Form for WikiConference India 2011 is ready to go live - we need help with translating the form as well as the site notices (for Wikipedia) into the 20+ indic language languages that have operating wikis. Kindly contact either Theo directly or respond privately to my email if you can help us.
Kind Regards,
Pranav
HelloI have created an article on yesterdays bombings. Now few foreigners are proposing to rename this article to Mumbai 2011 bombings. Please oppose this on talk page. Please support me.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:13_July_2011_Mumbai_bombingsI am opposing it for following reasons1) Year 2011 has not yet ended so how can it be labeled as 2011 mumbai bombings?
2) What if there are more bombings in this year? Editors are saying that if new bombing happens then we will rename it to 13 july Mumbai bombings! Why to go to double work?
3) All outsiders are supporting no Indian comments on it!! Please Vote on it
Suyog Vyawahare +919987135236
Hi,
We hosted two Pre-Launch Meet-up back to back. One was on Saturday
(09-July-2011) afternoon and another on Monday(11-July-2011) Morning.
On Saturday many students were not able to attend due to school timing,
Remaining joined on Monday (those students - having holiday on Monday on
behalf of Aashadhi Ekadashi.) So for them we conducted second session of
Pre-Launch Meet-Up.
[image: wiki-student club-pune.JPG]
Aim of pre-launch meet-up was to clear up confusions, and to have basic
outline to student club.
[image: what is student club.JPG]
We discussed various things regarding Wikipedia Students Clubs, also we
highlighted work of "existing" Wikipedia Student Clubs...
[image: existing student clubs.JPG]
After exploring activities and structures of "USA Wikipedia Student Clubs"
Basic Question was still there :
[image: what-you-are-going-to-do-in-studentClub.JPG]
We did interesting brainstorming session about "Activities" and "Things to
do" in Wikipedia Student Club Pune, and we came to several conclusions.
Overall Activities : Group Editing Sessions / Editing Collaborations, Trivia
Nights , Fun Workshops , Field Visits and documenting our experiences in a
public forum , Contests etc.
[image: 11072011145.jpg]
We outlined few basic rules like - ANYONE can join Student Club, but if he
or she wants to have advantages like Field Visits, Project Experience, its
mandatory to make three minor edits per month.
After long discussion, everyone enjoyed Charlie Chaplin's Modern
Times<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_%28film%29>Movie
Clips.
[image: charlie-chaplin - student clubs.JPG]
Next Steps for Wikipedia Student Club Pune :
[image: next steps-wikipedia student club-pune.JPG]
Also, Next Important step involves inclusion of Local Community.Including
Help of Ashwin Baindur , Sudhanwa Joglekar , Mandar Kulkarni and others for
Advisory Board.
We are fortunate enough to live in city which is graced by such Wikipedia
Devotees. Hope so they will agree to be on Advisory Board of Wikipedia
Student Club Pune.
Also We need to keep open system, where anyone will be able to join Club.
We will discuss about those issues in next meet up.Also its important to
encourage other students to start their own Student Club in respective
colleges and schools.
We need to work hard on first students club in Pune, if we make it
successful [throughout year], other students will start clubs in their own.
We need to make sure that everything goes fine with this first club in
city..
Those who were not able to attend first meet-up,Hope to have their
help/support for next activities..
To Get Regular Updates , Please Join Wikipedia Students Club Pune FaceBook
Group : http://www.facebook.com/groups/224329400941064?ap=1
Hope to see all of you in next meet-up.
Best Regards,
Abhishek Suryawanshi <http://www.facebook.com/AbhishekSuryawanshi>
Campus Ambassador,*Wikipedia*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AbhiSuryawanshi
cell :+91 9420542578
skype : abhisheksuryawanshi
Suyog, Tinu & Shiju are right about canvassing. This should not be done.
That apart, I oppose the renaming vide -
It seems that only one article, that of 26/11 is named as [[2008 Mumbai
attacks]] per year and the others per date though in some cases there is
only attack/blast/bombing per year. Logically speakiing, a person unfamiliar
to the topic would think that "2011 Mumbai bomb blasts" would be about all
the bomb blasts in Mumbai in 2011 and not about those on a date - so the
proposed title is misleading in a way, as it is in the case of 26/11.
BTW Users Joyson Noel & MikeLynch are Indians :).
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 8:10 AM, CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Hi Suyog,
> Appreciate the great work on creating the article.
> It was also good to bring in attention of all on the discussion on the
change of article.
> But per Wikipedia guidelines, it is highly inappropriate to canvass for
support in a non-neutral manner.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing
> Wikipedia is a global collaborative project and nobody owns the articles..
There is neither insiders nor foreigners.
> Personally i am of the view of having the article as "2011 Mumbai
bombings". There was an article created by Moksh Juneja at the same time by
that name. This article was redirected to 13 July article since the later
was more worked on.
>
> God forbid, Let us hope that there will be no more blasts in Mumbai this
year ( or ever ) !
> Regards
> Tinu Cherian
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 7:46 AM, suyog vyawahare <
suyogaerospace(a)yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>>
>> Hello
>> I have created an article on yesterdays bombings. Now few foreigners are
proposing to rename this article to Mumbai 2011 bombings. Please oppose this
on talk page. Please support me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:13_July_2011_Mumbai_bombings
>> I am opposing it for following reasons
>> 1) Year 2011 has not yet ended so how can it be labeled as 2011 mumbai
bombings?
>> 2) What if there are more bombings in this year? Editors are saying that
if new bombing happens then we will rename it to 13 july Mumbai bombings!
Why to go to double work?
>> 3) All outsiders are supporting no Indian comments on it!! Please Vote on
it
>>
>> Suyog Vyawahare
>>
>> +919987135236
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiConference-India mailing list
>> WikiConference-India(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiconference-india
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
Now that the Wikipedia India Education Program and Campus Ambassador Program
have been in full operation for just over one month I think it is timely to
provide an update to you, the Wikipedia Community.
In early June staff from the Wikimedia Foundation's San Francisco office, as
well as Hisham Mundol (Consultant, India National Programs) and two
Wikimedia Fellows conducted a two-day training session for the first batch
of Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors in India. Since conducting that session
we've been hard at work recruiting professors to participate in the program.
We held faculty workshops at 7 colleges during which we introduced Wikipedia
and this project to interested faculty members. For these sessions we
welcomed Dr. Bob Cummings, a professor of English at the University of
Mississippi, to talk about his experience using Wikipedia in the classroom.
These workshops provided excellent opportunities to talk honestly with the
professors about not only what benefits they could expect, but also what
challenges they would face. On the whole, faculty members
(and administrators) were extremely supportive and enthusiastic.
The final two weeks of June were extremely busy as we worked to finalize
commitments from professors. It was hard work, but it certainly paid off. We
now have twelve professors and about 500 students committed to using
Wikipedia in the classroom this semester. And we're still not done! We are
continuing recruitment efforts at several other colleges so it is likely
that these figures will increase in the coming weeks. For an up-to-date list
of the participating colleges and professors please see the Wikipedia India
Education Program project page (linked
here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program>
).
Last week the first Wikipedia campus workshops outside of the United States
happened at the Symbiosis School of Economics (SSE) in Pune. Two campus
ambassadors (Abhishek
<goog_82403213>Suryawanshi<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AbhiSuryawanshi>
and
Wasim Mogal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wasimmogal2007>) conducted
introductory editing sessions for over 150 students. This was an important
moment. Until this point we had largely been interacting with professors and
administrators. And while their support is crucial, ultimately it will be
the students who will make this project successful. Based on what I saw last
week I am very confident that this project will indeed be a resounding
success.
We continue to charge ahead. This coming week we will return to SSE to talk
to students specifically about the Wikipedia assignment the professor
designed for their class. Next week we will be conducting our first sessions
at the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP). Very soon we will be seeing the
first Wikipedia edits coming from these students. I know this is the moment
we've all been waiting for and I assure you that it is not far off.
Your continued support is critical to the success of the project. Please
feel free to contact me (pjtabit(a)gmail.com) with any questions you may have.
All the best,
PJ Tabit
Wikipedia Fellow, Wikipedia India Education Program
Dear friends,
We will have a monthly meetup on 9th July 2011 in SICSR at 6pm.
We will have updates on the Campus Ambassador program, conference in
November in Mumbai and can also have a demo edit session.
One of the media person is likely to join to discuss the following
points (taken from his mail).
1. मराठी विकीपीडिया सध्या इतर भारतीय भाषांच्या तुलनेत कुठे आहे?
2. त्यावर तयार होणारा कॉन्टेन्टचा दर्जा तुलनात्मक काय आहे?
3. संख्यात्मक पातळीवर मराठी कुठे आहे?
4. वाढविण्यासाठी काय करणं आवश्यक आहे?
These are the details of the meetup:
Venue: SICSR, Atur Centre, Model Colony. Room No 704. 7th floor, time 6pm
http://www.plug.org.in/images/map-to-aturcenter.jpg (Directions)
All Puneri Wikipedians who are interested are encouraged to attend the
meetup. Your voice and opinion are needed to be heard.
All the very best to all of you and looking forward to meeting you all
on Saturday.
Ashwin Baindur, Sudhanwa Jogalekar
