Grants talk:TPS/Innocentbunny/WorldHindiConference

Feedback about your request

Dear Innocentbunny,

The WorldHindiConference seems like it would be an excellent event at which to educate others about the Wikimedia movement and I think we can likely support your request partially, though not in full. Before I review it, I encourage you to thoroughly review our eligibility requirements and selection criteria and revise your request accordingly.

You will see in our requirements that the maximum number we will send to a single event is a group of 4 individuals. In actuality, though, we rarely ever approve requests for a group as large as 4. In the large majority of requests we approve only one person. Sometimes we send two people. It's extremely rare that we send more than two. When we send more than one person, a case must be made for why each additional person is needed and what each person will do to contribute.

In addition, you will see in our selection criteria what we look for in a request. Typically, we do not review any requests until the applicant provides an acceptance letter from the conference organizers showing that they will be presenting at the conference. Every person we fund through TPS should be accepted to give a talk. In addition to a presentation, we prefer to see additional active forms of participation, such as hosting an editathon, a training, discussion forum and/or a plan for follow-up activities either on- or off-line.

Before I review your proposal, please adjust your request to meet our eligibility requirements and to take into consideration our selection criteria and the other information I have provided above.

Thank you for your work on this request!

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello again, Innocentbunny,

I saw that you have changed your request to four applicants to meet the eligibility requirements. As I noted before, in the large majority of requests we approve only one person. If you would like to send four, can you please respond below and explain your reasons for why each person is needed for this event, what each person will do to contribute and what their specific goals will be?

Thank you!

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Marti (WMF), We are in contact with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), organizer of the events. On 3rd of May, we had a meeting (U:Suyash.dwivedi and U:आशीष_भटनागर) with the Joint Secretary and Deputy Secretary (MEA) officials at their New Delhi office, they have shown positive interest and willing to support us. since they are under program finalizing process they have asked to wait for few more days, thanks --Suyash Dwivedi (talk) 13:01, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello Marti,

Thank you for your feedback and suggestions. I do understand the need and importance of a detailed explaination for the need of each person required at the event and invitation from the organisers of the event for the said participants. It's obviously evident that this program is very important for the Hindi Wikipedia community (and the Wikimedia Movement at large) and we want it to be as successful and impactful as possible, we are very keen to represent Hindi Wikipedia at this very important event of the Hindi language. I'd like to inform you that the government committee, responsible for organising this event was setup less than a month ago in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, and our team is in correspondence with the Ministry in New Delhi and have held couple of personal meetings with the Joint Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the Ministry to try and ensure the participation of our team, at the events and to include at least one of our Representatives to address the conference and to provide us space at the event venue to setup a stall there, where we can conduct our activities(advertising, editathons, discussions, etc), all at reduced prices and with other incentives, and they have shown positive interest in supporting our participation in the program, like U:Suyash.dwivedi has already stated. By the reports that I get, the ministry would probably require few more days to finalize our program. Also, I am personally trying to contact few other organizations and indivisuals, participating in the upcoming event, in search for prospects of possible cooperative aggrements with Hindi Wikipedia.

By our current plan, at the event, we would be needing volunteers there, to Speak/address the conference on behalf of Hindi Wiki, conduct short workshops/training program there (if required), manage our stall at the event venue, contact other interested organisations on our behalf. All details currently depend on these external factors, and would require some more time.

Thankyou,

 Innocentbunny    TALK  21:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Innocentbunny and Suyash Dwivedi,

I want to update you that, because of budgetary constraints in this grantmaking program, we are unlikely to be able to fund more than two people, and would strongly prefer that you identify one candidate who is able to speak at this event and handle outreach efforts. Please start consulting among your team about which person could best represent you at this event.

I am very excited to hear about the preparatory work you are doing to prepare for the event. The networking and partnership-building work you are doing will go far to further leverage the value you will get from the event itself. Thank you for sharing about it here!

Kind regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Marti (WMF) I am happy to share that, as per my telephonic conversation with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), officials they are willing to support us like free (limited) registration for the event, free food during conference days, space for discussions, support for customs department for clearing advertising materials etc. We have asked for the time slot for presentation and our participation in discussion panels and they have also willing to support since their program is yet to be finalized they have asked us to wait for few more days. Hope for the best thanks --Suyash Dwivedi (talk) 17:49, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Updates

Hindi Wikipedia community has decided to send Two representatives Suyash Dwivedi and U:आशीष_भटनागर (Ashish Bhatnagar) to represent. (https://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/विकिपीडिया:चौपाल#विश्व_हिन्दी_सम्मलेन_२०१८_में_हिन्दी_विकिपीडिया_की_प्रतिभागिता )

Resources

What resources do you have? Include in-kind donations or additional funding.

1. Exemption for paying Registration Fee for two participants (2X5000INR=10,000INR ~146USD)
2. Exemption for paying any charges for stall (3X3 meters) in exhibition area.
3. High Commission of India in Port Louis will support for customs clearance and other administrative procedures.
4. Local travel support for Airport, Hotel to Exhibition place from 18-20 August 2018.
5. Free food during conference dates 18-20 August 2018 for two participants.
6. Special Rates for Hotel Booking (https://www.vishwahindisammelan.gov.in/accomodation.htm )
7. Special 20% discount on air travel for registered representatives. (https://vishwahindisammelan.gov.in/writereaddata/images/Special-Discount-on-Arifare-and-accomodation.pdf )

-- Suyash Dwivedi (talk) 17:09, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Marti (WMF), We are running out of time, less than 20 days left to go. I request you for quick action. Thanks-- Suyash Dwivedi (talk) 08:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello Suyash Dwivedi, one last question before I approve your request: Do you have final confirmation that you are accepted to give a presentation as part of the program? If so, please forward your confirmation to participation wikimedia  · org. I'll check back tomorrow! Thank you!

Marti (WMF) (talk) 22:52, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello Marti (WMF) thanks for the reply, as there are very few days left for conference so I asked for a Rapid Grant as suggested by community which is already funded yesterday, since it is a Rapid grant and we will be getting only 2000USD so I request you to please fund remaining ~1142USD necessary amount through this grant (we are also worried about price hike on airfare) CIS India is helping us in bookings Air tickets and hotel and they can help us to provide advance fund as it may take another 5-10 days to fund get transferred toour account. The resources I mentioned above are confirmed and I am forwarding the confirmation emails sent by the organizers (Ministry of External Affairs Govt of India) to participation wikimedia  · org, out of two emails one is in Hindi language and I think Satdeep Gill can help you in translation.thanks -- Suyash Dwivedi (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi again, Suyash Dwivedi, I understand you are frustrated about the delays. The reason for them is that I still don't have all of the information that I asked you for on May 3 and again July 26. Mostly importantly, I still need your explicit confirmation that you are giving a presentation at this conference, and explain why it requires two people. On June 4, you said it would take a few more days to confirm whether you were giving a presentation, but there is not a follow-up afterward to confirm. On 15 July, you confirmed you are getting support with registration, a booth, local travel, food, hotel and air travel, but again, there is still no confirmation you are giving a presentation. I received your letters by email in Hindi and will work today on getting translation to determine whether they explicitly provide information about acceptance to give a presentation (as opposed to confirming registration, travel/accommodation/food support or booth space). As I've explained above, hosting a booth is not a robust enough participation plan to meet the criteria for TPS reimbursement.

If you have already been approved for a Rapid Grant award, it may be the case that their participation criteria are lower than for this program, and so I'm glad that the Program Officer, Woubzena, could support your request. Since you have received a Rapid Grant, I do not believe we can also reimburse you with additional TPS funding, since our policy is typically that grantees can only receive funding through one program at a time. I will confirm this with our grants administrators and get back to you.

Kind regards, Marti (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Suyash Dwivedi, my supervisor has just confirmed that we can't fund you through both Rapid Grants and TPS. Unfortunately, we can't offer you further funding. I am going to mark this request ineligible because it has been funded through another program. Kind regards, Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Marti (WMF) first of all thanks for the reply and understanding my situation, you can also see organizers yet not finalized the program (http://archive.is/ShTqr) however as per my discussion during the last meeting they said they will give us chance to present/part of discussion panel.It's good that they have confirmed us for a stall space where we can use it as a point of publicity, discussions, even for a small workshop/editathon, I am also thankful to Woubzena and CIS for support. I appreciate your efforts and all your support, Thank you again -- Suyash Dwivedi (talk) 05:52, 28 July 2018 (UTC)