Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Digitizing Local Languages, Localizing Digital access for Africans
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Applicant details edit
Wikimedia username(s):
Organization:
G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Did not apply previously
H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- No
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- N/A
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Additional information edit
R. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- Nigeria
S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:
- Regional
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
- N/A
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Proposal edit
1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning at scale, 1 Billion Africans can learn, create, trade and solve historical/future challenges using local languages and participate in the global tech ecosystem.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
To protect indigenous African languages and simplify communication through digitization to ensure prosperity is within every African’s reach.
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
Collaborate with local communities: Collaborating with local communities is critical for successful language digitization efforts. By engaging with local experts, linguists, and community members, you can gain valuable insights into the language and its cultural context. This can help ensure that the digitization efforts are linguistically and culturally appropriate, and that they meet the needs of the community.
Develop language resources: Developing language resources, such as dictionaries, grammar guides, and language learning materials, can help support language digitization efforts. These resources can be used by community members to learn and practice the language, and by linguists and researchers to study the language and its features.
Use technology: Technology can be a powerful tool for language digitization. Speech recognition and text-to-speech technology can help to create digital versions of the language that are easily accessible and shareable. Additionally, online platforms such as social media, messaging apps, and online forums can be used to facilitate language use and exchange.
Promote language use: Promoting language use is critical for maintaining and revitalizing endangered languages. This can be done through language immersion programs, language learning initiatives, and language use campaigns that encourage people to speak and use the language in their daily lives.
Create partnerships: Creating partnerships with other organizations and institutions can help to expand language digitization efforts. This might include partnerships with universities, research institutions, or non-profit organizations that focus on language preservation and revitalization.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
Translation And Interpretation Services Available In 10+ Languages To Individuals And Organisations Who Are Looking To Reach Newer And Larger Audiences. And A Revolutionary Product That Would Transform The Future Of Indegenous Communication.
5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
No
5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?
- N/A
6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
1. Aminu Aminu Bello Role: Hausa language Propagation Officer Volunteer
- 2. Yakubu Ahmad
Hausa Language Propagation Officer Volunteer
- 3. Ahmad Aminu Bello
Language Propagation Officer Volunteer
- 4. Farouk Umar
Volunteer
8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Language, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context), Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Culture, heritage or GLAM , Open Technology, Diversity
10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background, Linguistic / Language, Digital Access
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
Meet people where they are: Consider the social media platforms or online communities where non-Wikimedia participants already spend their time. Share interesting content and engage with users on those platforms to draw them into the CDIAL community.
Highlight the benefits of participating: Many people may not be familiar with the benefits of participating in our projects. Highlighting the positive impact of contributing to a global knowledge base can help motivate new participants to join in.
Make it easy to get started: Sometimes the barrier to entry can be intimidating. Provide clear and easy-to-follow guides for getting started with CDIAL projects. Host online workshops or webinars to help new participants get up to speed.
Foster a sense of community: Encourage participants to connect with each other and build a sense of community. People are more likely to stay engaged if they feel a sense of belonging and support.
Use storytelling: Share stories of successful collaborations, interesting contributions, and the impact of the project. Personal stories can be powerful motivators for people to get involved and stay engaged.
Provide ongoing support: Make sure that participants have the resources they need to continue contributing. This might include access to training materials, mentorship, or technical support.
12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?
Providing inclusive and respectful language Avoiding discriminatory language Promoting a safe and friendly environment Upholding community guidelines Continuously learning and improving
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
No
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
Yes
14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
N/A
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.
- External/contextual issues
Cybersecurity risks Governance/leadership changes Bias and discrimination Performance issues
17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Innovate in Free Knowledge, Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt
18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
- No
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation edit
19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
If my strategies for digitizing African languages were successful, there are several things that I would like to learn:
Adoption rates: I would like to learn about the adoption rates of the digitized African languages, both in terms of how many people are using them and in what contexts. This would help me understand the impact of my efforts and identify areas for further development.
User feedback: I would like to learn from user feedback about their experiences using the digitized African languages. This would help me identify areas for improvement and better understand the needs and expectations of users.
Language diversity: I would like to learn about the diversity of African languages that have been digitized, including which languages are most commonly used and which are less represented. This would help me identify areas where additional digitization efforts may be needed.
Use cases: I would like to learn about the different use cases for digitized African languages, such as in education, media, or government communications. This would help me understand the impact of my efforts on different sectors and identify areas where additional support may be needed.
Technical challenges: I would like to learn about any technical challenges that were encountered in the process of digitizing African languages, such as issues with font support or compatibility. This would help me identify areas where further technical development may be needed.
20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.
| Main Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Adoption rates | To determine adoption rates of digitized African languages, data could be collected on the number of users accessing and using the digitized language resources. This could be through website analytics or user surveys. | 100000 |
| User feedback | User feedback could be collected through surveys, focus groups, or user testing to understand their experiences with the digitized African languages. Feedback could include user satisfaction, ease of use, and perceived impact on their lives. | 20000 |
| Language diversity | Data could be collected on the number of African languages that have been digitized, and their level of representation. This could be through mapping studies or linguistic surveys. | 1000 |
| Use cases | Data on the use cases for digitized African languages could be collected through case studies or interviews with organizations or individuals using the language resources. This could include information on the sectors where the digitized languages are being used, the types of content being created, and the audiences being reachedTechnical challenges. | 1000 |
| Technical challenges | Technical challenges could be identified through testing and user feedback. Data on technical issues could be collected through user support tickets or developer feedback. This data could include information on the nature of the technical challenges, the frequency of occurrence, and potential solutions. | 1000 |
Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A |
21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | N/A | N/A |
| Number of editors | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers | N/A | N/A |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
N/A
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
I'm not sure and need support
Financial Proposal edit
23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
- 2300000 NGN
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 5000 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- N/A
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Final Message edit
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
Feedback edit
- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.