Global Reach/AEE

New Partnerships

Discussions with a State Government in India for Skill Development [Awareness] [Government]

A State Government in India is interested in partnering with WMF to promote skill development. We recognize that Wikipedia both as a platform and resource can play a crucial role in web literacy skills. See 21st-century web literacy skills identified by Mozilla Foundation here. The key factor here would be to understand each other's goals and find an area of mutual interest to pursue.

Status Updates

• November 2016: Conducted email correspondence with the Principal Secretary of the State Government to understand the requirements of the Skill Development program. Requested and scheduled an in-person meeting.
• December 2016:
  • Smriti met the Principal Secretary’s team member in Pune. Talked to the Principal Secretary on the phone and we now have a much better understanding of their needs.
  • Ravi met the Principal Secretary in New Delhi. We have established an understanding of what WMF brings to the table (i.e. content); at this point, the plan is to sign a general MoU to agree to work together. As the Principal Secretary’s Skill Development portal comes together, we will get more specific about how to include WM content.
• January 2016: The Principal Secretary shared a proposed draft for MoU.

It is under internal review now.

Digital India Initiative with State Government of Tamil Nadu, India [Offline] [Awareness] [Government]

Tamil Wikimedia community (officially represented by Wikimedia India Chapter) has an ongoing partnership with Department of Information Technology, State Government of Tamil Nadu. We have reached out to the Dept of IT seeking possibilities to bring Wikimedia projects under the Digital India narrative. Senior bureaucrats have responded positively welcoming proposals to distribute Wikimedia projects offline to students, schools and village councils. This initiative will be pursued further once we formulate our strategy for enabling offline access to Wikimedia content.

Status Updates

• November 2016: Ravi contacts senior bureaucrats working for the State Government of Tamil Nadu with a proposals to distribute Wikimedia projects offline to students, schools and village councils and gets a positive response. It was decided to follow-up further once we formulate our strategy for enabling offline access to Wikimedia content.
• February 2016: Ravi and Smriti finalize Global Reach team’s Financial Year 2017-18 annual plan for India.

Discussions with large media houses [Awareness] [Media]

Description

We want to build partnerships with international, national, and regional media houses in India to build awareness for Wikimedia projects. Sheree's initial discussions with two leading international media houses have presented an opportunity to work with them in India. We have created a partnership opportunities proposal that can be pitched to the contacts in those media companies. Based on the reaction, we will build further next steps and loop in the wider New Readers team.

Status Updates

• November 2016: Built the media partnership opportunities proposal for two leading international media houses. The proposal is specific to the outreach channels that these media houses have in India. For example, the proposal for print media will be different from electronic media.
• December 2016: Discussed the proposal with Sheree and she will be pitching it to the media houses in this and next quarter respectively.

Potential content partnership with an Indian language news aggregation app [Awareness] [Private Sector]

Description

Held discussions with a leading Indian language news aggregator app. A partnership would allow us to integrate Wikipedia content as back-stories/deep-dive stories in the current news.

Status Updates

• February 2017: Reconnected with the app’s founder about a potential partnership. Held discussions with their tech team to identify possible models for content partnership

Wikipedia on TV for India [Affordability] [Non-profit Sector]

Description

A curated internet-on-TV program steered by a non-profit organization is running a pilot targeting rural and semi-urban households. Presenting suitable content from Wikimedia projects would be useful for the program’s target audience. Our first objective would be to establish a pilot/proof of concept and then encourage the community to create specific content for emerging opportunities like these.

Status Updates

• December 2016: Ravi meets their country lead and learns more about the program. We were given a live demo of their Internet-on-TV program. The non-profit organization sends us a draft partnership agreement.
• January 2017: Ravi and Smriti discuss with the non-profit organization’s tech partner. We suggest a two phased content proposal. The first phase would be to establish a pilot/proof of concept. During the second phase, we can encourage the community to create specific content for emerging opportunities like these. We also present a short guide about our API structure. Anne Gomez and Dan Foy participate in internal discussions to clarify about our API structure and usage.
• February 2017: The non-profit organization’s tech partner is exploring our content proposal and APIs. Legal has reviewed the draft partnership agreement and provided its feedback.
• March 2017: The non-profit organization agrees in principle to amend the contract based on legal team’s feedback. We have requested the legal team to implement these changes.

Wikipedia for Skill Development and Arts & Culture [Awareness] [Non-profit Sector]

Description

A non-profit Indian social welfare organization based in Hyderabad and working across two Telugu speaking states in India namely, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. They are interested in working together with WMF in promoting cultural and literary awareness, and Skill Development through Wikimedia projects.

Status Updates

• October 2016: Ravi reaches out to the organization with an inquiry about potential partnership opportunities.
• December 2016: Ravi and Smriti discuss with their CEO and explore possible partnership avenues. They agree to share a draft MoU and more information on their proposal for Skill Development through Wikimedia projects
• February 2017: They are unable to engage us due to their other prior commitments.
• March 2017: The CEO puts us in touch with his colleagues who can take this project forward. They have assured to send a MoU draft.

Wikipedia Zero

Case study with an industry association [Affordability] [Private Sector]

We have been working with an industry association to publish a case study about Wikipedia Zero (WP0). Since we are focusing on doing partnership outreach in six key countries, the case study would help in creating incoming WP0 requests from across the emerging communities. Moreover, the case study will show the impact of Wikipedia Zero in tackling data cost as a barrier to access to free knowledge.

Status Updates

• November 2016: The industry association and Global Reach teams committed to completing the case study by December 2017. The Global Reach team has to provide some background information about WP and WMF for the case study, and hence we have requested the Comms team for the relevant text.
• December 2016: We provided the WP and WMF related language to the industry association. It is working on finishing up the case study. We have asked them to let us know when it's ready for final review from us.
• January 2017: Looped in the Wikimedia Bangladesh community and accommodated their feedback in the case study.
• February 2017: Case study text is ready. The industry association is working on case study design and plan to publish the case study in early March.

Renewal with IPKO, Kosovo

Description

We are renewing the Wikipedia Zero contract with IPKO Kosovo.

Status Updates

• January 2017: IPKO confirmed that they would renew the Wikipedia Zero contract.
• February 2017: Entered the contract in our contract management system. It has been approved by WMF. Need to get IPKO's signature next.

Renewal with Timor Telecom, East Timor

Description

We are renewing the Wikipedia Zero contract with Timor Telecom.

Status Updates

• January 2017: Timor Telecom confirmed that they would renew the Wikipedia Zero contract.
• February 2017: Entered the contract in our contract management system. Waiting for WMF approvals.

Ending contract with Ncell, Nepal

Description

Ncell does not plan on renewing the Wikipedia Zero contract. We will end the partnership in March 2017.

Status Updates

• February 2017: Ncell confirmed they would not renew the contract. We plan on terminating the banners in March 2017.

Renewal with Gmobile, Mongolia

Description

We are renewing the Wikipedia Zero contract with Gmobile.

Status Updates

• January 2017: Gmobile confirmed that they would renew the Wikipedia Zero contract. They signed the contract but need to resend a couple of corrected pages.
• February 2017: Waiting for the corrected pages from Gmobile to enter the contract in our contract management system.

Retune the Telenor relationship [Awareness] [Private Sector]

Description

Historically, Telenor has been a good Wikipedia Zero partner. They have launched Wikipedia Zero in most of the Asian and Eastern European countries that they cover. But with the change of our strategy to focus on specific countries, we need to reset the relationship with Telenor. This means finding ways to work with Telenor in these specific countries that go beyond Wikipedia Zero. The reset would require high-level discussions with Telenor executives and get them onboard our new plan.

Status Updates

• November 2016: Reached out to Telenor to ask for a call between our team and their Partnerships team. Response pending. Due to some personnel changes on Telenor side, it might take some effort to get them to talk.
• December 2016: Reached out to Telenor again. No response so far. We are working out a plan to visit them in Oslo to show our commitment and restart conversations.
• January 2017: Telenor responded, and the new team is willing to talk. We recommended meeting Katherine at MWC, and the Telenor team agreed.
• February 2017: Fixed the meeting between Telenor and Katherine at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. To be held on Feb 28th.

Deployment with a South Asian telecom company [Affordability] [Private Sector]

Description

Discussions are on with a South Asian telecom company to provide Wikipedia Zero to their subscribers. They have tested zero-rating Wikimedia content as an initial sign of engagement.

Status Updates

• November 2016: Sent the Wikimedia IPs to the telecom company. Connected with a Wikipedian who works there to understand the current status of things.
• February 2017: The telecom company tested zero-rating the Wikimedia IPs, and the testing went well. Waiting for them to give us more details about the trial and to tell us whether they plan to implement Wikipedia Zero.

Other ongoing projects and activities

Wikipedia on TV [Awareness] [Affordability] [Private Sector]

Description

A company in a Southeast Asian country wants to put Wikipedia on their TV boxes so that people in rural regions can easily access knowledge. Their target demographic is mothers in rural households helping their children with homework. They have created a simplified WP interface with English and the native language. This is not a partnership since their current setup does not meet all of our Wikipedia Zero operating principles, but given their target demographic, we are helping them navigate our trademark/legal rules because their purpose is to spread Wikipedia to those who need it most.

Status Updates

• November 2016: Clarified the rules around the use of Wikimedia/Wikipedia marks, and made recommendations on how they can proceed while stating the fact that they are sourcing content from Wikipedia.
• January 2017: Initiated an internal discussion recommending an intermediate branding mark based on similar use cases from all our focus regions.

South Asian Office Hours [Communication] [Community]

Description

Office hours is a standard practice across the movement to get in touch with the Wikimedia communities. Global Reach team’s office hours for this region was kickstarted with a focus on South Asia. There are more than 25 active Wikimedia language communities present in India, Pakistan, Srilanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Office hours for South East Asia and Central Asia/Eastern Europe will be held separately; given the size of communities, we needed to break down the regions. We plan to hold these office hours at regular intervals.

Status Updates

• January 2017: Office hours for the South Asian region was held on 19th January 2017. Community members from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh participated. Agenda and meeting notes can be found here.

Movement Strategy

Description

Track "D" of the 2017 Movement strategy process is intended to focus on research, discussions, and input from new and existing readers and partners in low-reach global regions, meaning in countries or languages where the movement is not well-known. Outreach to readers or prospective readers will focus on those regions where we have limited reach regarding awareness and usage. We will also talk with like-minded organizations and experts knowledge, communities, and technology associated with the movement now, and those outside the movement.

Status Updates

Publisher Aazhi Senthilnathan from Chennai, India asks the Wikimedia movement to become truly global

• October 2016: Global Reach team proposes a research plan to be part of the Movement Strategy consultation in our focus regions.
• November 2016: Priority contacts/organizations for conducting 1:1 interviews are identified for the Indian region.
• February 2017:
  • WMF's ED updates about plans for Movement Strategy recognizing Global Reach's plan as Track D.
  • Request for proposals are sought from market research firms based in Indonesia.
  • Proposals from nine firms are received until Feb 28.
• March 2017:
  • Scheduling of 1:1 expert interviews in India planned.
  • Shortlisted proposals and scheduled interviews with design research firms in Indonesia.
• May 2017:
  • Design research conducted in Indonesia. Initial findings published here.
  • WMF-led strategy discussion events held in Chennai, India (watch an expert's opinion).
  • June 2017:
  • 34 1:1 experts interviews conducted
  • 10 affiliate-led salons under planning in India, Indonesia, and Nepal.
  • Insights and findings from the Asian region is presented in the June Metrics meeting and office hours with the Asian Wikimedia communities (see Youtube recording).

Strategic Partnerships plan for India FY 2017-18

Description

As the second most populated country in the world, India has always been a focus region for Wikimedia movement's growth. While earlier attempts targeted editorship growth, recent findings from India by New Readers research highlights the need to promote usage and awareness of existing Wikimedia content. Towards achieving this goal, Global Reach team aims to increase its activities in the Indian region by exploring new strategic partnerships with governments, non-profits, media houses and private entities. Our annual plan for the financial year 2017-18 will have a Partnerships for Reach program with India as one of its focus countries.

Status Updates

• November 2016: Planning for strategic partnerships in India for FY 2017-18 starts
• December 2016: Potential partnership discussions and progress regarding each of these opportunities can be seen elaborated individually here.
• January 2017: Discussions with legal team initiated to draft MoUs, contracts specific to these partnerships.
• February 2017:
  • Discussions with Dan initiated to identify technical & analytical requirements for implementing and evaluating this plan.
  • Goal, budget and KPIs for the plan finalized. A slide deck is being prepared to present the plan internally for New Readers and Global Reach team.
• March 2017
  • India plan is presented as focus work in the GR team's Annual Plan for FY 2017-18 under the Partnerships for Reach program.
• April 2017
  • India plan is presented to the New Readers team.
• June 2017
  • India Partnerships plan is published on Meta.