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 :) )