Grants:TPS/Yug/Wikimania

This Wikimedia Participation Support request was not funded. Reasons have been communicated with the request submitter on the Discussion page.

statusnot funded

Travel & Participation Support

Wikimania 2017

summaryLead LinguaLibre's workshop and hackathon, so contributors get trained with this Wikimedia audio recording tool.

event locationMontreal, Canada

event websitehttps://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Lingua_Libre:_Massive_Open_Audio_Recording

event date(s)2017/08/09-13

amount requested3,660€ ($4,200US)

home countryFrance, (Paris, Dax)

creator• Yug

submitted on16:43, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Create your report

Learn about reporting

Note: This late demand is an emergency measure due to sudden lack of expected travel funds from Wikimedia France (French chapter) to its volunteers, in order to maintain our accepted Wikimania workshop. Successive hopes that WM-fr's funding abilities would return to normal level never materialized. Also, volunteers of the LinguaLibre team requires the support of the TPS program.

Proposed participation

The project

Wikimedia France chapter (WM-fr) current lead technical project is LinguaLibre. LinguaLibre is defined as a Massive Open Audio Recording system : an opensource and open-license web application which boosts the recording of mass of words or sentences into clean, well cut, well documented audio files. Generated data-sets can be used for language conservation, language learning, and text-to-speech researches. So far, over 120 000 audios have been created and shared with Wiktionary and Wikipedia. Kick started by the WM-fr chapter as a Franco-French project, we recently switched to production phase, and wish to push it so it become as soon as possible a self-sustainable open source project.

Demand is high for presentations and workshop on this new audio recording tool by Wikimedia :

• we recently built official partnerships with French universities
• we recently started international communication and training of non-French contributors at the 2017 Vienna Hackathon
• we recently integrated 4 volunteer developers from Germany, Israel and India at this same event

More can be done. Wikimania would be the perfect place to scale up our outreach.

Applicants

LinguaLibre as a solid team of about 8 contributors. 5 of them submitted a workshop proposal to Wikimania, with realistic expectation that travel grants would come from the French chapter. As of now, we request a core delegation of 2 people to be sent :

• Nicolas (Zmoostik) is the core developer of LinguaLibre. Initially an open source activist within the field of open audio recording not related to Wikimedia, Nicolas got hired 3 months by WM-fr in 2015, with the mission to create the current massive open audio recording system. His contribution is mostly on coding and linguistic. He has critical knowledge to lead deep on boarding of other volunteer developers.
• Hugo (Yug) is a former Wikipedia administrator, team builder, and former PhD student on Chinese language and mobile learning. As such, Yug co-initiated the LinguaLibre project, gave frequent feedback, and currently lead the community outreach for LinguaLibre. In May 2017, Yug went to Vienna's WM hackathon introducing LinguaLibre to other volunteer developers and Wikimedia communities.

Both Nicolas and Hugo are articulate speakers, willing to lead the planned workshop on LinguaLibre. Nicolas would then focus on development and on-boarding developers. Hugo will do advocacy for the project, search full time for language lovers, multilingual contributors and communities, set up one-on-one training sessions and build our international network for long term growth.

Goal and expected impact

What will happen ?

As explained above and in the successfully submitted workshop proposal, we are confident that we can provide good value for money to the Wikimedia's community. This by maintaining our planned workshop, promoting the tool to curious wikimedians, train contributors who will then become ambassadors spreading the new toll accross the globe. Onboarding 4-8 developers to the project, twice as many as for the Vienna Hackathon, seems a realistic objective.

On the contrary, without the support of a TPS grant, no representative of the LinguaLibre's team can travel to Montreal. The announced workshop will have to be cancelled, wikimedians will not be reach nor trained, the LinguaLibre project as well as the Wikimedia community will lose one valuable year of contributions on audio recordings.

Satisfaction of criteria

As for the Wikimania, our team of 5 volunteers successfully submitted a workshop proposal this spring. The community and reviewers already validated the solidity and validity, namely :

1. promoting LinguaLibre fits Wikimedia strategic priorities due to its contribution to language conservation and learning via mass production of clean audio recordings
2. level of demand, support, and participation are good. See the workshop submission and the Vienna Hackathon.
3. potential impact is clear : as the tool is now in production, promotion is needed so wikimedians can start to using it, developers can start to add sugar on it
4. the cost of investment we request today to the WMF TPS seems to us reasonable

Budget breakdown

This budget is for both the hackathon and the Wikimania (08/09-10 and 08/11-13).
This budget would allow 2 skilled contributors to promote LinguaLibre among the global wikimedia community for 5 days.

Item	Price / grantee	For 2 grantees	Comment
Hotel	480€	x2= 480€	80€ x 6 nights with 2 single beds in Montreal, for 08/08-08/14
Flight	1050€	x2= 2100€	Paris-Montreal-Paris
Train	150€	x2= 300€	Dax to Paris Airport
Registering	290€	x2= 580€	$415 CAD / participant, deadline: July 31th
Food	0€	x2= 0€	we take this on ourselves, as normal days.
Others	100€	x2= 200€	flight variation, metro, bus, etc.
TOTAL (est.)	2,070€ ($2,400US)	3,660€ ($4,200US)

Grant asked : 3,660€ ($4,200US) for 2 representatives of LinguaLibre.

Other instructions

• We can book the plane tickets ourselves (please tell us if you have better prices)
• We don't need advance disbursement
• Suggestions to lower costs are welcome.
• Please note while we do have enough time to handle this grant request, time is also short. Also, please feel free to contact me as needed by email.

References

Since 2017, see also :

• Grants:Project/0x010C/LinguaLibre (2018)
• LinguaLibre.fr
• Presence at Wikimania 2018, Cape Town.

Endorsements

See also the Wikimania Workshop proposal > Lingua_Libre: Massive Open Audio Recording #Interested attendees section.

1. Lingua Libre need to have an international community to become a very great projet, with horizontal development and a using all around the world where the languages in danger are to be recorded. The fact is Wikimedia France can't supply the team to go to make the presentation to Wikimania, so I endorse this request for an urgent help for the team. Lyokoï (talk) 20:16, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
2. Lingua Libre is a wonderful project that need to spread and be presented at Wikimania. -- Envlh (talk) 21:17, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
3. It would be a pity that this project, useful and already very advanced in terms of progress, would not be presented in detail at Wikimania by the very people who know about it the most, only because a Wikimedia chapter is currently financially unsound (« unsound », it's a pun, get it ?! ;-p ) and unable to give a grant for them to actually attend. As such, I fully endorse that grant request. Alphos ^{[bother me]} 21:37, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
4. Obviously, i endorse this request. Lingua Libre need to become an international project and Wikimania is the best place to allow it. Xenophôn
5.  Support As said before, Lingua Libre is becoming an international project and a presentation of the project at Wikimania would be a great boost for it. Pamputt (talk) 15:37, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
6. Strongly  Support, yet another project with no frontier, at the very core of our movement's philosophy. Cordialement, et Hop ! Kikuyu3 (talk) 09:46, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
7.  Support Very good project that must be presented in Wikimania. Pymouss Tchatcher - 12:41, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
8.  Support --Psychoslave (talk) 09:51, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
9. Great project which have to be known. Trizek ^{from FR} 07:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Feedback

NOTE: The Grants:TPS/Yug/Wikimania request failed due to procedural rules.
WMF provided alternative for which I'am very thankful. See Grants_talk:TPS/Yug/Wikimania:
[…] this applicant has been referred to the Wikimania organizing committee for help with this request. Funding for Wikimania travel is processed outside of TPS -- Marti

Finance

Vendor/Merchant	Expense Type	Expense Description	Currency	Code Amount
SNCF	transport	Train ticket	EUR	122.00
ebooker.com	transport	Flight ticket	EUR	1,018.21
Bus Airport-CA	transport	Bus to airport double way.	EUR	21.00
Metro	transport	Metro ticket	EUR	2.98
Bus Airport-CA	transport	Bus to airport double way. NO RECEIPT => 0$	-	$0.00
Hotel	housing	Taken in charge by the WMF. NO RECEIPT => 0$	-	$0.00
Total			EUR	1,164.19

Impact summary

Hello all,

The 5 days rush of Wikimania 2017 Montreal ended up on Sunday 13rd August, 2017.

In Montreal, I focused my energy on communication, bringing the news to other Wikimedian's communities. This email staying a short and approximative overview, I think I achieved the following :

• +60 brief introductions of the project to various people, now aware of key features and specifics of the project, lead by WM-France
• ~15 people trained via 1-on-1 session
• ~15 people trained via the group presentation, oriented as a brutal DIY demo.
• 1 new referent for Canada (jpbeland), and possible ones for Cote d'Ivoire, Argentina and few others
• 1 first nation started recording its language, the Atikamekw

Presentation (English)

Others

I also collected various UX feedbacks, sub-project ideas and contacts for supports. Reported to github.com/Lingua-Libre/issues.

Also, a big thanks to all the people who added a stone to LinguaLibre to make it what it is today : an open source project moving to the global stage.

Best regards and my sincere thanks to you all !
-- Yug