Grants:Project/Rapid/Hackathon 2022 Ammarpad

statusfunded

Ammarpad/Naija Hackathon 2022

Naija Hackathon 2022 would be a two-day technical event to tap technical developers of the region into MediaWiki development.

A pre-hackathon workshop would be held first for orientation and to introduce developers to MediaWiki core, extension system and Wikimedia technical space; and then followed by second day event which will build upon the first one and also give participants opportunity to meet and engage with the wider technical community at the main Wikimedia Hackathon holding at the time. This event will take place on from 19 to 22 May, 2022, in Katsina, Nigeria.

targetMediaWiki and Wikimedia Technical Infrastructure

start dateApril 18

end dateMay 31

budget (local currency)1,929,750 NGN

budget (USD)4,650 USD

grant typeindividual

grantee• Ammarpad

contact(s)• ammarpad

yahoo.com

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Project Goal

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".

People with technical background are abound in the region and most of them find it difficult, are unable or are not willing to contribute to Wikimedia projects in terms of lengthy prose writing or copy-editing routines. But very few know about the other side of Wikimedia, the technical space where their ability to contribute would be equally appreciated.

There are many article editing/writing focused events and interest groups in the region, but virtually none for technical development. There were efforts to change that some four years back in 2018, although some few events were organized at the time, the project failed to sustain the momentum after the end of the project and virtually is dormant now, and there has not been active developer engagement since then. Naija Hackathon 2022 aims to bridge that gap, lower the entry barrier to Wikimedia technical space through a full day training and post-event support strategy, endeavor to increase technical volunteer engagement in Wikimedia Hackathons as well as lay foundation for building and sustaining local technical community. Therefore main goals of the project are, among others, to:

Provide an opportunity and avenue for participants to learn something new about development of MediaWiki directly from its active developers.
Pull new technical contributors to MediaWiki development and to Wikimedia technical space in general.
Provide on-hand guide and assist participants to setup development environment and fix real bugs in MediaWiki core or extensions and gadgets.
Create enabling environment to court experienced developers who work with different technologies/projects who are willing to volunteer for ideal open source projects to volunteer for Wikimedia technical projects.
Improve awareness for Wikimedia technical open source projects, especially MediaWiki itself, as well as Wikimedia's participation in Outreachy, Google Summer of Code and other similar outreach programs.
Lay foundation and brainstorm strategies to ensure some kind of continued technical contributions of participants to MediaWiki ecosystem after the project.

Project Plan

Activities

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing?

The project is broadly divided into main events, which additional post-event segment plans to study the overall impact of the project.

This is a full day practical training that will be broken down into multiple sessions. Main session would be for MediaWiki and extension development as well as introduction to relevant Wikimedia technical areas, its ethos, conventions and technology stack. As participants are expected to have some knowledge of programming and local development, we will focus directly on setting up MediaWiki local development environment with Docker or with Vagrant as well as manual installation in the first session of the day. Additionally, the facilitator will guide participants to set up Wikimedia developer account, get some familiarity git and Gerrit (for newcomers to version control systems or git or Gerrit in particular).

Second session will feature development works and bug-hunting/fixing challenges. Additionally there would special track for introduction to extension and skin development. Introduction to Wikimedia APIs, MediaWiki gadgets and user scripts as well preliminary discussion on bot development and bot frameworks, would also be included in this session.

The main hackathon day will coincide with the main Wikimedia Hackathon to allow participants to participate directly to the main hackathon. Moreover, there would be continuation of bug-fixing challenges from the pre-Hackathon workshop stage. There would special presentation and mentoring session about the Wikimedia technical outreach programs and pointers to resources about the programs.

Additional survey to gauge participants perception and the impact the event have on them would be administered. Lead facilitator would provide after-event support on development questions and mentoring for interested participants. We will keep participants in contact via social media groups and follow-up with retraining events at some time in the future.

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? As this is a developer event, we are mostly targeting computing or software engineering students as well as those already in programming.

Africa-Wikimedia Developers,

MediaWiki Village pump,

Social media campaign as well as posters and flyers to share in local developer groups and meetings.

What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

Two-day event would be organized that will greatly improve awareness about MediaWiki and Wikimedia technical projects. Additionally, we would expect to get at least 20 volunteer developers who signed-up for Wikimedia developer account, setup MediaWiki development environment and show interest for continued participation in Wikimedia technical projects development as well as participation in outreach programs such as Outreachy and GSOC.

We will design and analyze pre-event and post-event surveys to gauge participants' Wikimedia technical knowledge and awareness, as wells the impact the event have on them before and after they participate in the program as well as the skills they learn. All participants would have gained new or improve their technical skills with regard to MediaWiki as well as their understanding and awareness of Wikimedia technical projects.

Are you running any in-person events or activities? If so, you will need to complete the steps outlined on the Risk Assessment protocol related to COVID-19. When you have completed these steps, please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool below:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1muFNJYMzXsPzmCRghhtAjEY1oqbbIHoEk_YlzCRSpL4

Impact

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:

Number of total participants: 30 (for each day)
Number of articles created or improved (if applicable) n/a
Number of photos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (if applicable) n/a
Number of photos used on Wikimedia projects (if applicable) n/a
Number of events organized: 2
Have at least 20 developers signed-p for Wikimedia developer account and get familiarity with developing MediaWiki
Have at least 5 active developers to sustain technical contribution after the end of the project
Have newcomer developers fix some real bugs in MediaWiki core or extension during the Hackathon. This item will mostly focus on the quality and technical complexity of the work rather than sheer quantity.

Resources

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).

We have experienced and active Wikimedia developers to facilitate the event and both have provided technical trainings or organized developer events before. There are no expectation of additional funding in any form from elsewhere.

Organizer

Ammarpad - is project lead and facilitator. He's an experienced MediaWiki developer, member of MediaWiki core development team and former Outreachy Intern with Wikimedia.

Logistics and local planning

Wizkid49 - is an experienced Wikipedia editor and Java developer. Has plenty logistics experience in planning and organizing successful local developer events.

Resources person (remote)

X-Savitar - has vast experience with MediaWiki development and tooling, is a member of MediaWiki core development team and a Technical Analyst at Wikimedia Foundation.

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense:

Space rent for two days: $250 x 2 = $500
Breakfast: $5 x 30 x (2 days) = $300
Lunch and beverages: $10 x 30 x (2 days) = $600
Internet (for event and event planning management): $100 x 2 = $200
Roll-up banner: $100
Operational costs for programs organization, disbursing data/hardware support and organizers communication = $250
Name tags, pens and posters swag, print/design services and promotion = $250
Local travel support (for participants that need it): $20 x 30 = $600
Data package support and hardware (headphones/mic/webcam) for participants: $50 x 30 = $1500
Projector and camera rental services: $75 x (2 days) = $150
Covid-19 safety supplies (sanitizers, masks) = $100
Bank charges and contingency: $100
TOTAL: $4,650 (Oanda; 1USD/415NGN, March 18, 2022 )

Endorsements

Support Ammarpad is an experienced Wikimedian with technical capacity to effectively implement this kind of project. He helps out a Phab and provides other technical assistance to editors. T Cells^Talk 11:05, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
Support Ammarpad is a vital asset to the Wikimedia community in Nigeria. I believe his capacity to deliver. SuperSwift (talk) 18:30, 4 April 2022 (UTC)