Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia workshop in Carte Blanche, Chennai

A preliminary update about the Carte Blanche event: 1. Feb 5: I delivered the inaugural address as chief guest. I spoke about what all constitute free software and content, why anyone should care (more in the context of underserved needs of groups of people without market strengths and fragmented markets like Indic users), and how all one can contribute. I pointed at the "non-mainstream" projects which are relatively small and needing contributors as opposed to well-known projects like GNU and Linux. 2. Feb 6: There was a stall for Wikipedia and one for Wikibhasha. Surya Prakash mainly volunteered at the Wikipedia stall and Mahir and others helped with the logistics. Saravanan from Microsoft Research helped with both the stalls. We had workshops in the afternoon with a very good infrastructure provided by MIT. However, attendance at the workshops were not as good as for the stalls (perhaps due to the OS workshop that ran in parallel). Tamil Wikians Surya Prakash, Manian, Sengai Podhuvan, Mahir, and Paridhimathi and I spoke as well as provided hands-on tutorials to the participants. Almost all participants created accounts and made their first few edits there. One ILUG member invited us to post projects for FOSS enthusiasts at http://wiki.ilugc.in/index.php?title=Projects_List. Saravanan demoed a special (yet-to-be released) version of WikiBhasha for Tamil and took our feedback. Some photos at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wiki_CB_Chennai Tamil wiki page: http://j.mp/eLOVOy Special thanks to go to Srikanth for connecting us with the organisers and making all this possible. Thanks to Tinu who drove to deliver the wiki banners to me. I request the other volunteers to add further information on this thread. - Sundar "That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted." - George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture ----- Original Message ----