Grants:TPS/Harsh4101991/FOSSASIA/Report

Event name: FOSSASIA

Description of your participation:

I was speaker at FOSSASIA. I delivered talk on How to Become Wiki [Media] Wiki Hacker and also I had one workshop about MediaWiki Gadget Kitchen. Unfortunately due to some time constrain that workshop didnt happen. I met various people from different Open Source Organisation like Fedora, Mozilla, KDE, Typo3, Gnome, Open Stack. It was great fun and learning process. I also met Cat Allman (Open Source Programs Office at Google) and Stephanie Taylor (Program Manager, Google), Kushal Das (Fedora), Arky (Mozilla) and the most important I met most enthusiastic Khmer Wikipedia Editors Sovichet Tep and Vantharith Oum. I met different people from South East Asia and learn lot by meeting them.

What lessons were learned that could help others in similar events?

The FOSSASIA event which spanned across 3 days provided us participants with immense knowledge and experience. Although on the downside the event scheduled were arranged back-to-back with hardly any slack period in between them. Due to this hurried streak of events, several talks and workshops had to be cancelled; including my own workshop on MediaWiki Gadget Kitchen. Therefore I’d like to request you to schedule the events in timely fashion so as to avoid this kind of rush.

On the plus side, on our arrival, we were greeted with warmth and the event handlers of FOSSASIA provided everyone with a local sim card. This was an extremely thoughtful move as it enabled us to maintain our mobility and remain in touch with each other. It also allowed us to create a 3G hot-spot and access internet connectivity in absence of proper internet connection which proved to be extremely useful. Availability of this ad-hoc network made it easy for us to establish connection with the web independently from the local connection.

What impact did your participation have on the Wikimedia Mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation?

I presented my talk on How to Become Wiki[Media] Wiki Hacker on the main track. My audience consisted of around 50-60 technical enthusiasts. I guided them regarding 10 different doorways to enter the MediWiki community. The talk was not only from those with a background in programming, but also for those who did not possess the skill set of a programmer. According to me the event went well. People from OpenStreetMap were also present in my talk. They are also using MediaWiki for their wiki. So I discussed about various gadgets and extensions with them.

Following the talk, I interacted with the students from Cambodia who were interested in translate, mobile and gadgets. These topics were discussed in great detail with them. Moreover I met Khmer Wikipedians. We discussed about the several bugs that were present in Khmer Wikipedia. To sort out these issues I spent some time on fixing their CSS, JavaScript and templet errors. Alongwith debugging the Khmer Wikipedia errors, I taught them how to do so on their own and ways to file bug on Bugzilla. Finally we exchanged our contacts in order to stay in touch, making this whole experience the most cherished part of the conference.

Detail of expenditures:

• Flight Ticket : USD 547.92 (Booked by Wikimedia Foundation)
• Hotel : USD 140
• Visa : USD 20
• Extra Expenses :
  • Food : USD 45
  • Tuk Tuk : USD 16 (8 times. 2 USD per each)
  • Taxi : USD 8 (24/3)
  • Total : USD 69

Amount underspent/left-over (please specify currency):

Total underspent money/left-over = USD 845 - USD 777 = USD 68