Grants:Project/Rapid/OpenLabs/OSCAL2017
openlabs.cc• pingelioqoshi.me
Project Goal
[edit]Briefly explain what are you trying to accomplish with this project, or what do you expect will change as a result of this grant. Example goals include, "recruit new editors", "add high quality content", or "train existing editors on a specific skill".
- The main goal of our activity is the establishment of Wikimedia projects with a focus on SQ Wikipedia at Open Source Conference Albania 2017 (OSCAL'17), which is one of the biggest events in the Balkans about free libre open source culture and open knowledge. OSCAL (photos from the previous edition can be found here) is the first annual conference in Albania organized to promote software freedom, open source software, free culture and open knowledge. The Conference gathers free libre open source technology users, wikipedians, developers and people who share the idea that knowledge should be free and open, that software should be free and open for the local community and governments to develop and customize to its needs. It is an important meeting point for the Albanian youth and plays an important role for new and old contributors. Wikimedia supported the conference financially in the past 2 editions as well.
Through our activities during the conference we aim to:
- expose Wikipedia to newcomers as this on of the main goals of the Albanian speaking community for 2017;
- re-establish contact with older Wikipedians since this is one of the few opportunities where Wikipedians from different cities active in the SQ Wikipedia gather together and discuss ways of being more effective.
We are planning to achieve these goals through:
- info booth presence by the Albanian speaking Wikipedia community
- a 90 minute workshop for first time contributors or contributors that are doing their first steps in Wikipedia;
- meetup of the SQ Wikipedia Albanian community (after Wiki Weekend this is a yearly meeting point where we plan our activities for the second part of the year);
- Wiki Loves Maps presentation where contributors of the project will present the progress of the team and next steps.
- more activities as we get closer to the conference date and more talk submissions come in
Project Plan
[edit]Activities
[edit]Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing?
- We will work on organizing:
- the call for workshop hosts (for Wikipedia workshop for beginners);
- call for participation for volunteers that want to help organizing Wikipedia presence;
- Wikipedia workshop set up;
- promotional materials (design & printing);
- documentation (through photos), this is considered very important;
- catering (drinks and snacks) for the info booth and the workshop in order to create a friendly space for the participants and volunteers;
- a few office supplies (markers, pen, pencils, papers etc);
- organizers, volunteers and speakers dinner.
How will you let others in your community know about your project (please provide links to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions)? Why are you targeting a specific audience?
- At Open Labs, the organization behind the conference and home of some of the SQ wikipedians, we have a very active mailing list, probably one of the most active in Albania at the moment and also a very active presence in Facebook (more than 3800 fans) and a Twitter profile. During the next weeks we are planning to approach also the administrators of SQ Wikipedia Facebook page and Twitter account to get more exposure also from these social media profiles.
In addition, all the details about the participation of Wikipedians have been published today (19.01.2017) at the official mailing list of the Albanian speaking Wikipedia community and at the Telegram app channel, where some of the most active SQ Wikipedia contributors communicate.
What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?
- we are planning to add participants to (a) the SQ Wikipedia mailing list and (b) Open Labs Albania mailing list. This way interested participants will get informed about the next activities of our community;
- we are also very active on social media, especially Facebook, where also the majority of youngsters in Albania are active.
Impact
[edit]How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets and feel free to add more specific to your project:
We will have different activities during the conference, which means different goals for each one of them. The main goal is to engage new Wikimedians, which is also the main goal and vision of Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group. Al lthe below are moderate target numbers since we hope to engage even more participants, based on our previous experience.
- number of registered visitors at our info booth: 80;
- Number of the participants at the workshop(s): 50;
- Participants at the meetup of Wiki Loves Maps User Group: 15;
- Participants at the pre-conference event: 30.
Resources
[edit]What resources do you have? Include information on who is the organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).
- Open Labs community members have organized more than 100 activities related to open knowledge and free libre open source software and many related to Wikipedia for more than 4 years now and have the the required experience to organize another edition of OSCAL with a strong presence from Wikipedians. The organizing team behind the presence of Wikipedia at the conference is almost the same with the team that organized the third edition of Wiki weekend Tirana. Our community has started promoting Wikipedia in an organized way since November 2013, an experience that gives us confidence to continue the project in a more dynamic way.
The organizing team has 5 members and at least 5 volunteers who will help during both days at the info booth and also facilitating speakers. In addition to a strong organizing team we also have applied to other free software and open knowledge organizations for funding and are waiting their response. We are confident that we will have a positive answer since these organizations have supported us during the last three editions of OSCAL. In terms of in-kind donations we have managed to have the main venue for free (which is considered and important cost) and the pre-conference reception on a discount and some of the speakers related to the conference will manage to ask for reimbursement of their travel costs from sponsoring organizations and companies such as Mozilla, Red Hat, phpList and Nextcloud to mention a few.
What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense:
- Professional photographer (includes shooting for the main event and reception and editing of the photos): 300€
- Video recording & video documentation (includes shooting and editing): 150€
- Design of the promo materials (from a designer): 280€
- Preparation and production of promotional materials (posters, roll up banners, lanyards and stickers): 350€
- Table cloth branded Wikipedia (for the info booth and during the workshop): 70€
- Media coverage through partnerships: 150€
- T-shirts for volunteers (for volunteers & organizers): 50€
- Pre-conference event reception (costs for food, refreshments and rent) : 120€
- Conference food and refreshments (for organisers, volunteers and participants): 250€
- Transportation (for the materials and volunteers since the venue is not quite in the centre of the city): 100€
We will try to use design of promotional materials that can be used for future Wikipedia events from the local community. The tablecloth, lanyards and tshirts are an example of this way of thinking. Also good documentation has proved to be crucial in the promotion of our activities at a local and international level.
Endorsements
[edit]- Endorse As a neighbor Wikimedian and volunteer programmer I find this very inspiring and useful. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Endorse OSCAL is good opportunity to expose a technically minded audience to Wikimedia projects. I am considering speaking and/or doing a workshop. --Arianit (talk)
- I participated on OSCAL last year and I can say that this conference will surely have an impact on Wikimedia projects, especially Wikipedia. It will bring a lot of new users and a considered number of articles will be edited and added on Wikipedia. Olsi (talk) 20:07, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
- Albanian Wikimedia is progressing in big steps, but needs any support to continue on this way. OSCAL is a great platform for promoting it as it is the meeting point of all people in Albania who are open to share knowledge and content. Albinfo (talk) 19:16, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
- I participated at OSCAL two times (in 2015 and 2016) and it is really a great conference with marked increase in the coverage of Wikimedia-related topics.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:46, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
- OSCAL and its organizing team have helped the growth of the Wikimedia community in Albania, I hope that this tradition will continue. Liridon (talk) 13:47, 5 February 2017 (UTC)