Wikimania 2022/Scholarships/Odia Wikimedians User Group/Report

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes, the Wikimedians in Odia and Santali are extremely happy about the local Wikimania celebration. We had a magnificent occasion that was brimming with enthusiasm. There were about 20 users, all from different regions of Odisha associated with either Odia Wikipedia or Santali Wikipedia. Mr. Manoj Kumar Mishra, the IT Secretary, State Government of Odisha, was our special guest for the event. For both the days we had sessions, schedules and conversations going on.

• 
  The Odia Wikigirls
• 
  Odia Wikimedians Dr. Subash Chandra Rout and his son Mr. Sitikantha Rout
• 
  Speicial Guest Manoj Kumar Mishra (left)and Odia Wikimedian Soumendra Kumar Sahoo (Right)
• 
  Celebration Cake
• 
  Odia Wikimedians at Bhubaneswar Wikimania 2022
• Dr. Subas Chandra Rout Signing on the Poster

More media files are at commons:Category:Wikimania 2022, Bhubaneswar

Detailed information can be found on the event page.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Local Meet Up	17 active and inactive volunteers joined	As per the plan, a total of 17 inactive and active volunteers from Odia and Santali Wikipedia joined the event at the venue and the rest joined us virtually.
Reactivating the inactive volunteers	A few of them started editing again	Some of the old volunteers who were not active for years due to their work issues, started contributing again to Odia Wikipedia and Wikisource.
Inviting Santali Wikimedians	2 participatiensts joined	As per the plan and confirmation, 6 volunteers from the Santali Wikipedia had to join the event. But due to heavy rainfall and travel advisories, only 2 of them were able to join.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?

1. We were able to gather in person to celebrate Wikimania. After four years, the off-line gathering took place for our community.
2. T-shirts, stickers and refreshments have gotten favorable reviews. Even after the official closing, we continued the communication.
3. We were able to spread the celebration and our message to the broader audience using online channels and the support of local media houses. Relevant references and links can be found here.
4. Inactive participants were welcomed back, and they have already begun editing. Learned a lot and continued to share.
5. Dr. Manavpreet Kaur had joined us at the event venue and shared information about MCDC, Wikimedia Strategy-2030 and other project initiatives. It gave a lot of insights into the annual plans and policy-level advancements of the Wikimedia Foundation. Etherepad has further information.
6. As Wikidata's birthday was approaching, with everybody’s presence at the event, we had the scope to make a short video for Wikidata's birthday. Link can be found here.
7. The overall meeting was very re-energizing and helped in re-initiating the stalled project ideas as well as other aspects of our wiki family.

• What did not work so well?

1. Due to heavy rainfall and other adverse situations, most of the expected participants were unable to join us at the event place. As a result, the event didn't even start on time and was delayed by almost one hour. (For the rest of the part, we prioritized everybody’s safe commutation to and from the event place.)
2. There was a plan to have an edit-a-thon during the event. We had to skip that time slot due to the lack of time.
3. There was this conversation started with a certain PR team regarding the media outreach part, way before we received the grant amount. There was an active thread of emails, regarding the essential information asked by the team, media and links, etc. for the mentioned reason but the outcome didn’t meet our expectations.

We’d take the above points as our learning and will spend more time to plan on this for future events.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Sl. No.	Description	Amount paid(INR)
1	Printing	24,250
2	Venue+ Accomodation+Internet	90,000
3	Gifts	3,250
5	Cake	1,800
6	Stationaries and Essentials	1,850
7	Food quality assessment	736
8	Post-event Dinner	2,582
9	Courior	950
10	Travel 1	15,738
11	Travel 2	50,450
12	Miscellanious	6,000
Total		197,606

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

The local Wikimania in Bhubaneswar was organized successfully. We would like to thank the Wikimedia Foundation for the grant and the Wikimania 2022 core-organizing team & volunteers, for assisting us throughout the process. Dr. Manavpreet Kaur joined us as a supporting staff from Wikimedia Foundation and deserves special recognition for all of her assistance in setting up and operating the program efficiently.

A special thanks to Rachit Sharma, Senior Global Movement Communications Specialist, South Asia for guiding and helping the organizers. Amid his professional commitments and busy schedule, he responded timely to all the queries and supported the best.