(Originally published at:
http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/celebrating-the-success-of-wikipedia-in-…
)*
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*Wikipedia Club Pune, a local community based outreach user group in Pune
has recently organized Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 to spread words about
“Spoken Wikipedia”, a project to add recorded audio for Indic language
Wikipedia articles which will help the disabled to access Wikipedia and
“Bridging Editor Gender Gap.” It was supported by Centre for Internet and
Society, Wikimedia India Chapter, PAI International Learning Solutions and
Kusuma Foundation. Here is a sumary of activities of this two day event.
*
I was in Pune from 12-13th January to attend Wikipedia Summit Pune
2013<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune>ne>,
a two day event organized by Wikipedia Club
Pune<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Club_Pune>to
promote Wikipedia as an effective means of education, to empower and
reach out to India, to bring the country under a spotlight through Spoken
Wikipedia<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spoken_Wiki…es>,
and to bridge the gender
gap<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/27/nine-out-of-ten-wikipedians-con…
Wikipedia editors. Here is a summary of the activities.
*Day 1:*
12 January has seen more than 100 participants which includes students from
almost 10 different schools, housewives, working professionals and free and
open source activists. Myself from the A2K team of Centre fro Internet and
Society, Sudhanwa Jogelker and Nikita Belavate from the Wikimedia India
Chapter joined for this event. The opening ceremony was started with talks
from Abhishek Suryawanshi, founder member of Wikipedia Club Pune, Sudhanwa
Jogelkar, President of Wikimedia India Chapter, Rishi Aacharya, Principal,
PAI International Learning Solutions, and social activist Mrs. Vibha.
Before the formal opening Abhishek spoke for a while about the Spoken
Wikipedia project which is one of the main agenda of the two day event. He
explained about the need of spoken Wikipedia, especially for people with
disabilities and how effective it would be when it spreads in 20 Indic
languages. In the past Wikipedians in Pune gathered and recorded articles
in various Indian and international languages.
Sudhanwa Jogelkar, President, Wikimedia India Chapter introduced the
chapter's role for Wikimedia movement to the audience. He spoke Chapter's
in few of national events/projects like Wiki Loves Monument, GLAM project
in Crafts Museum, Delhi and many other outreach events. There were few
announcements about the chapter on the MoU to be signed from the chapter
with district collector of Kanyakumari, Chapter being partner to
Springfest, IIT, Kharagpur, Commons day celebration in February and GNUnify
2013, Pune.
Vibha, a social activist based in Delhi spoke about gender discrimination
in many aspects of our social and professional life. Access to knowledge
for free could bridge this and Wikipedia, being so known universally and
accessed by millions of people every day could be the best platform for
this.' says Vibha.
Rishi Aacharya, Principal of PAI International brought the vedic saying “Ya
vidya sa vimuktaye” to explain the real meaning of knowledge which is free
its existence in an Indian context. He spoke about open source movement and
Wikipedia's part in it.
After the formal opening there was a Q&A session for the participants to
clarify various questions they had about Wikipedia. Then they were
explained about the 3 parallel sessions; An open discussion about Gender
gap, Workshop for Indic languages and Spoken Wikipedia. Gender gap session
was attended by many school students. Vibha and few more activists were
coordinating this event. In the Workshop for Indic languages and Spoken
Wikipedia Wikipedians helped participants for the workshop with basic
editing and the participants edited Marathi and Hindi Wikipedia. Articles
from various medical subjects of common interest were chosen. There were 3
medical professionals to support with the medical terminologies for editors
contributing to Marathi and Hindi Wikipedia.
At the end of the day there were separate wrap up tracks to summarize the
learning of whole session. All of the participants gathered together to
educate each other about the work they have done. Many of the participants
spoke about their experience and learnings. Plans for the next day was
announced. Wikipedians gathered for a group photo and socialized after the
closing talks.
*Day 2:*
Second day of Wikipedia Summit Pune was a sequel of the activities which
happened in the first day.More than 40 students took part in this session.
Vibha, Srishti and team were coordinating the gender gap track. Many topics
related to Gender Gap, gender based discrimination, Role of gender gap in
occupation, Gender gap in Wikipedia, Participation of Woman editors on
Wikipedia were discussed.
Participants of the Spoken wikipedia session worked on the articles on
Hindi and Marathi Wikipedia and moved them from sandboxes to article
namespaces. After all of the articles were created they recorded them. They
formed groups of 3-4 members and worked together. One of them would search
information mainly from the English Wikipedia articles and some of the
available Marathi (or Hindi), some other would translate and the other
member would record it using a mobile phone. That was a great team effort.
Over 25 voluntary organizers joined hands for making this a success. No of
participants were around 120. At the end of the day participants from both
the sessions gathered. Many of the participants and organizers shared their
experiences and learnings. The program was concluded with socializing,
taking group pictures, promises to stay in touch and taking active part in
more Wikipedia activities.
*Quick links:*
Blog:
http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/celebrating-the-success-of-wikipedia-in-…
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Wikipedia Summit Pune:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune
Wikipedia Club Pune:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Club_Pune
Pictures:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune
Spoken Wikipedia Project:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Spoken_Wikipedia_-_India
Pune Club facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/WikipediaClubPune
--
Best!
Subhashish Panigrahi
Access To Knowledge
Centre for Internet and Society
New Delhi