Grants talk:IndicWiki/2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit

Support

I support this grant -M. Abhilash

WMF review and feedback

Hi @Kasyap and the Wikimedia Technology Summit organizing team!

Thank you for your work on the grant request. I appreciate your initiative and leadership in promoting the efforts for Theological development and capacity building within the Wikimeia movement.

You have raised some very interesting and important questions as to the role that technology plays in our lives. I also liked the focus on the connection between languages and technology. I also think your efforts to establish a technological community makes lot of sense for our movement.

I do have a few comments and follow up questions to your proposal:

• 4 responded to the survey is concerning and does not demonstrate properly the need for this event. What other indications do you have for the community need in this conference?

IndicWiki Response: we have shared survey only to MediaWiki India technical group as we targeting only technical community mediawiki-india@lists.wikimedia.org, as IndicWiki project by IIIT conducting training sessions and outreach activities with hundred of participants we underrated there is need to organize summit to bing new technical contributors Kasyap (talk) 05:31, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Can you share the outcomes or achievements from the 2021 summit? Was it also focused on tools and capacity building? Do you have any indications at to what has changed since? It actually makes me wonder if a conference is the right platform at this point. If the goal is to tackle technological gaps and required tools, I wonder if it isn't better to ask for a Technology fund or a Rapid fund for developing specific tools and feature (such as the keyboard support), or even by organizing a series of online/local training or a Hackathon, before hosting an event.

IndicWiki Response: We have achieved following from 2021 summit
Process: We have learned the cultivation process to build a strong wiki ecosystem and reach technological communities with geographic proximity, special interest and understanding needs.

Engagement: Engaging and enhancing Wikipedia community (people) is critical with help from Technology by sharing and discuss with the community about the state-of-the-art tools, technologies, knowledge, and ongoing research, providing a platform to discuss topics related to technology areas like the Indic language computing tools, text processing, text generation, document archival, rich media processing, and user interfaces.

Program: Program includes lightning talks and session on knowledge repositories,Building crowd sourced,The Ethics of Building Language Technology ,Human Bot collaboration, Wikipedia – Language Technologies – Language Resources and panel discussion on Role of Wikipedia in preserving Language and Culture and Machine Translate

Output :We understood the need of deeper engagement with technical community and learned that virtual summit platforms are not effective in engaging the participants.Provide a platform to discuss topics related to technology areas like the Indic language computing tools, text processing, text generation, document archival, rich media processing, and user interfaces, 2021 helped us in understanding how and where wiki related technologies and tech community can be improved.

• You haven't mentioned what will be the online part of the conference. But I do want to flag that from our experience, it is very difficult to conduct active learning and training in an hybrid model. It needs to be very well facilitated so online voices are heard, online participants can remain engaged alongside the in person presence, and it is not an easy task at all. There are so many positive and inclusive elements is having an in-person event. But as first time in-person organizers, I actually don't suggest to include something more complex than live-streaming.

IndicWiki Response: We are proposing only in person event with online streaming any participant engagement will happens in physical mode at summit, like our previous we have a dedicated team to communities any questions or comments received in streaming channels

• Can you share more about the pre con training? And the 'online Wikimedia technical training session' you have mentioned - will it be before or after the event?

IndicWiki Response: We have 70 participants attending for Wikimedia Technology Training, the object of these training programs is to promote the use of software resources that extend content contributors and consumers capabilities and insights beyond those provided by the core wiki experience by WikiMedia Volunteer developers , we have contacted the 6 sessions on weekends from 10th September on Wikipedia EcoSystem MediaWiki ,Wikimedia APIs,Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons licences + Accessibility in Wikimedia projects- an overview ,Wikipedia Tools and programs and Writing user scripts & gadgets we will conduct 7 more sessions to conduct on every Saturday till 13th November 2022

• I'm not sure I understand the scholarship allocation process - will you offer 1 spot to each wikimedia affiliates? (but you allocated 30 international scholarships) If not - who will be the delegates?

IndicWiki Response: We are providing travel scholarships only for domestic (India) participants and participants from Neighbouring Countries of India. We are providing total 60 scholarships including speakers , special invites and Wikipedians

• It's also not clear to me who will choose the scholarship recipients - will it be the delegates, or the Scholarship committee?

IndicWiki Response: Scholarship committee will select recipients and we have SPOC. We have 30 for speakers/ special and 30 for Wikimedians, The scholarship committee will select recipients based on the mediawiki contributions for Wikimedians.

• Can you also confirm how many attendees there will be in total? I see 60 scholarships, but you also mentioned 200 participants. Can you please clarify?

IndicWiki Response: The 60 scholarships are reserved for the non-locals. And remaining participants are expected to join from Hyderabad or nearby cities. Participants from the pre-training sessions, members from the Wiki Club initiative that IIIT-H is coordinating, members and delegates from other tech companies will contribute to the 200 participant number

• I very much agree with your perspective about frontal presentations vs creating a more interactive active learning sessions. I'm really happy to hear that's the approach that you are taking.

IndicWiki Response:Thank you Kasyap (talk) 05:31, 6 October 2022 (UTC) Budget

• I don't think 5,644 USD is enough for 30 international flights. have you conducted any research around travel costs (and other expenses in general)? Have you asked for any price offers/ quotes before designing he budget proposal?

IndicWiki Response: The scholarships are earmarked for Indian subcontinent participants and will cover their logistical requirements. If any international participants join, they will bear their travel expenses.

• I strongly encourage that you will add a budget item for professional travel booking services.

IndicWiki Response: Travel booking services is Managed by IIIT-H logistics team

• I see you budgeted for accommodation and catering during the event for 30 scholarship recipients. What about all the other participants at the event? It is common that the event include meals for all the participants. You can cover that with registration fees, but you can also increase the budget to accommodate catering to all the attendees.

IndicWiki Response: We have sufficient arrangements at IIIT-H campus to cater the needs of other participants at the event.

• Internet costs - have you asked for a price offer? adding stronger intent connection in the venue usually costs a lot more, and is essential especially if you want to have training and workshops. I recommend you get price offers for all those services.

IndicWiki Response The event location is IIIT-H and the campus has sufficient IT infrastructure to cater the needs of any large event including Internet support. The project office will pay for the related expenditure.

• I also recommend adding event management professionals, unless those are within the IIIT capacities.

IndicWiki Response: In IIIT-H we have an outreach office that extends support to all the institute events (within the institute) such as Workshop, Conferences. They have good experience in organizing international events.

• When will the pre-event and Hackathon be? Is it for the conference attendees or is it local?

IndicWiki Response: Currently we are conducting Wikimedia technology training program as part of Hackathon Training Program from 10th September to 13th November 2022. This training helps the volunteers interested in learning WikiTech. We are conducting a Hackathon in hybrid mode where local participants can attend at IIIT-H. We are planning to award some scholarships to participate in the Wikimedia Technology Summit.

• I recommend adding 10% for Unforeseen expenses (and nor 5%).

IndicWiki Response: Thanks for the recommendation, We will add it in the budget.Kasyap (talk) 05:31, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

To summarize - you do have a great proposal, well presented, and with a great vision in mind. 

My main 2 concerns are around demonstrating a clear community need for this conference. We cannot rely on 4 survey responses. We need far more clarity than this. More indications or responses, and more concrete information about the outcomes from the last summit, will be very helpful.

My second main concern is the research on costs and planning expenses. I'm not sure that the proposed budget is accurate. It would be great if you could get more price offers to confirm that those planed costs are correct.

Thank you again for this well presented proposal. When you're able, please respond to the questions above and revise the proposal if needed. These revisions will be due by October 2nd, 2022, after which the Conference Grant Committee will begin formal review of the proposal. Thank you,CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 02:55, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Conference proposal approved

Hello all,

Thank you for your work on the funding request and responding to our comments.

On behalf of the Conference Fund committee, I’m happy to tell you that we've reviewed the final proposal for the 2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit and will be happy to support the event in the amount of 2,951,300 INR.

In the coming weeks, I will contact you to set up our first meeting. This will be followed by a regular monthly meeting.

Looking forward to working together! CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Request for additional fund support

@CAlmog (WMF) we are requesting INR 11,20,390 / USD 13,539, additional funds from WMF for travel, Accommodation, and Food, as we have moved the event dates to the weekend 3rd, and 4th of March 2023 (Friday&Saturday), and based on hotel, and travel quotations that were received after reviewing the additional cost and We have received a request from Mini Hackathon organizing team to participate in Summit as we are planning to conduct on Mini Hackathon Thursday 2nd March 2023.

Category A: Travel -INR 1140000 + 228000 (20%)
Category B: Accommodation & Food - INR 358000 + 71600 (20%)
Category F: Mini Hackathon Expenses - INR 290000 + 200000
(Accommodation on a twin-sharing basis (for 4 nights) + meals & refreshments twice for hackathon participants to attend the main event)
Total additional budget request: INR: 499600 / USD 6,036.
and GST on the amount INR 29,49,235 received on Wed 23/11/2022, plus additional fund request of INR 499600 and 18% GST on Total amount 34,48,835 is INR:620790 / USD 7,501

The total additional fund request is = INR 11,20,390 / USD 13,539
Thank you in advance for consideration,Please let us know if you need any further information: Kasyap (talk) 14:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Kasyap, your increase request is approved. I will follow up with you on next steps on a separate email. Best CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 15:20, 22 December 2022 (UTC)