Dear All,

As you all remain aware the world's biggest sporting event 'The Olympics' is set to knock the door, this August. At present, 111 athletes from India have qualified, the largest ever contingent. More than 311 National Coaching Camps have been held across India as a part of their pre-tournament preparation. To celebrate this sporting festival we at Wikimedia India have decided to promote a virtual-edit-a-ton.

During the primary research, It was observed that a lot many areas on Indian Sports and 'India at Olympics' for which no article exist. Even if they do, there presence on Indian languages remain negligible. Considering this event would be in progression soon, we have decided to promote this activity. A draft note could be found here although this is still in the development stage.

While working on Olympics we have made attempts to promote virtual edit-a-ton on a different theme altogether, we also decided to make the awards different. For every 15 good articles created by an editor, Wikimedia India would be planting trees on their behalf in their name symbolising 'Wikipedia India Supports India at Olympics, tree planted by Wikipedian......'. Considering tree plantation involves significant time and human labour, we have partnered with a tree plantation organisation SankalpTaru. They would be our sponsors for this event. Pomegranate trees in Barmer, Thar Desert Rajasthan would be planted. These trees will be planted on a rural farmer's land who would further nurture these trees under the supervision of SankalpTaru. Once the harvest starts, the local inhabitants would start earning livelihood by selling fruits (based on the consent of Wikipedia who is awarded the respective tree).  A virtual forest could also be monitored online here.  This is a novel idea of English Wikipedian Mr. Rudra Pratap Sinha (User:JimCarter). Wikimedia India is further bringing this this idea into practice, more information here.

Besides this, we are happy to inform, Niyogi Books has decided to sponsor the biography of Mr. Prakash Padukone, 'Prakash Padukone Story'  and Sir Sunil Gavaskar, 'Cricket's Little Master'. Every participants who completes 15 good articles would also be awarded a book.

We plan to roll out this event between 29th July, 2016 and 25th August, 2016. In the meantime we request you all to please provide suggestions on how to make this event effective.

Disclaimer : This event is totally a zero-budget exercise.

Thanks
--

Srivastava

Executive Committee Member|Wikimedia India  

Ph - +91-9711739003|Skype: abhinavsrivastava619

Wiki Username - abhinav619