Grants talk:PEG/Abbas Mahmood/Wikipedia for Schools Launch/Report

A few questions about your event

Hi, Abbas.

Thanks for the report. Please take a moment to respond to a few comments:

Hi Winifred. My apologies for the delayed response. See my comments in-line.

1.I'm a little curious about this budget line item: "Ting's treat" :) Was this the budget item "delegates' gifts" you included in your original request? What did you end up getting for him?

We bought him some artifact that was culturally connected to Kenya. I don't remember exactly what it was, since I had sent someone to go buy the gift. I'll ping Ting so that he can personally say what the gift was. Other than that, Ting was once taken for lunch and to the National Park as well.

I've found a picture of Ting being given a gift: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ting_gift.JPG

2.Nice description of the event. If you happen to have any pictures from the event up on Commons, it would be great if you could include a few links to them from your report.

I found 2 pics on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_10_Nairobi.jpg and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SDC10084.JPG -- I'll check my archives for more pics and upload them to Commons and the report as well.

3.Regarding impact, you said, We got some attendants who joined the Wikimedia Kenya mailing list and participated in the Wikipedia for Schools project. We also got some interested organizations that were willing to partner with us. Did this satisfy your goal of establishing longterm partners and gaining local support?

Yes, one of our longest standing partners has been the Kenya ICT board. We even had a meetup with them right after Wikipedia 10 (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SDC10084.JPG). The ICT Board was interested in partnering with us in organizing a photo contest, but the process stalled after we didn't manage to get local sponsorship. Another corporate attendant was Google Kenya -- with which we've had several partnerships, most recently the Setswana Wikipedia Challenge in Botswana.

Out of those attending, about how many people joined your mailing list and about how many people ended up participating in Wikipedia for Schools? What did those people contribute to Wikipedia for Schools?

We had lots of subscribers to the mailing list, but I'm sorry to say that I can't put a figure to it. One of the most dedicated people we got is Isaac Kosgei, who participated (did training & installation) in the Wikipedia for Schools project in Mombasa and also attended Wikimania 2011.

Because this project is connected to Wikipedia for Schools, I'd also be interested to hear about how you think this successful launch might have had an impact on the outcome of that project (Wikipedia for Schools).

IMO, the launch in itself was not so much about the Wikipedia for Schools project. We were planning on Wikipedia 10 and thought, "hey, why don't we use this opportunity to launch one of the projects we were doing?" It more of an outreach event (hence Ting's presentation on editing Wikipedia) followed by a long Q&A session where we were clearing any misconceptions about Wikipedia with the attendees (mostly University students). We had initially thought of inviting some of the schools which we had aimed to carry out this project, but we found it logistically difficult/expensive. Does this answer your question?

Thanks again for the report and look forward to your comments! Sounds like it was a great event.

Wolliff 21:39, 12 January 2012 (UTC)