Grants:PEG/Sudhanwa/CMDA IT Expo, Pune/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2011-12 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/Sudhanwa/CMDA IT Expo, Pune.

You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement? Not completely.

Activities

CMDA organises IT expo every year. This was 14th year of the expo and was held during 15-18 Dec 2011. As per CMDA organisors, the no. of visitors this year was about 40000.

During the 4 day expo, we had various volunteers at our stall. They were interacting with people coming to the stall, telling them what Wikipedia is, how you can use various language Wikipedias and how people can edit it themselves. Handouts were given to the visitors. They had lots of queries regarding Wikipedia. Volunteers were busy all the time answering them and giving more and more information to them about Wikipedia.

The expo gave a very good opportunity to interact with the people directly and get a feel of what the common people understand/know about Wikipedia.

A more detailed informal report to the community is available here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-in-pun/2011-December/000299.html

Project goal and measures of success

Project goal

Main objective of participating in the expo is to reachout to common people and make them aware of Wikipedia and related projects. Giving additional information about Wikipedia to existing users was also the objective. Finding and meeting existing and promising editors was also achieved during the expo.

Measures of success

According to the organisors, no. of visitors for the expo were about 40000. Even if we calculate as 10% of these people turned up at our stall, that itself is a pretty big number. As per our estimates and consumption of the handouts and other material given to the visitors, the number of people visiting our stall was about 3000. Reaching out to so many people in a short span of just 4 days is a sign of successful event.

Lessons learned

What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects?

Finalising our participation in the event at a very late stage causes problems. It becomes very difficult to gather volunteers and co-ordinate with them. In this case, confirmation came very late by the organisors as the stall was to be given to us for no-cost. In future events like this, we can afford to book a stall in advance and plan our activities well in advance.

Scheduling of volunteers managing the stall could not be done well. As such, some of them had to stay back for a very long time and could not take a break. That was very hectic and tiring. Some volunteers joined and stayed back for quite some time. That helped others a lot. Meeting existing users and editors who came to visit our stall was the happiest time. All of them were very happy to see the activities at the stall and also about the monthly meetups etc.

What impact did the project have on WMF mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation?

This was a great way to do outreach and to connect to common users. Lot of opportunities to make new editors were created just by talking to the newbies and existing users.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.

Did you send WMF documentation of all expenses paid for with grant funds?

Yes

Details of expenditures:

Because of lack of proper co-ordination as things were done at the last minute, getting bills for all the volunteers and for all expenses is difficult. Some bills are misplaced and/or not available.

Expenditure Details

Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.

A request for reallocation of remaining funds has been submitted by the grantee and approved by WMFon the discussion page of this grant report.

Remaining funds have been used or will be used for other approved mission-aligned activities. This use has been requested in writing and approved by WMF.

Item	Budgeted Amount in	Budgeted Amount in $	Actual expenditure in INR	Actual expenditure in USD
Flex banner printing, size 4' x 4'. This can be used for all future events	160	$3.06	278	$5.37
Generic handout A4 size printing on both side. Qty 5000 @ 1.25 Rs.per handout	6,250	$119.51	1,053	$20.36
Specific handouts for Marathi wikipedia, wikiacademy, feedback etc. Qty 1500	1,875	$35.85	Included above	Included above
PC rental for 4 days of CMDA expo	2,000	$38.24	PCs were not arranged	PCs were not arranged
Refreshment for volunteers across 4 days	1,000	$19.12	1,160	$22.43
CD/DVD creation of offline Wikipedia for distribution in the expo.	2,000	$38.24	1,550	$29.97
Miscellaneous	Not mentioned	$Not mentioned	10.00	$0.19
Total			4,051	$78.30

Actual currency conversion is $1 = INR 51.7200

Will you be requesting re-allocation of remaining grant funding? Yes. The remaining amount will be used for next events for printing of handouts, booklets, preparing goodies like stickers etc.Details coming up soon.

Will you be returning unused funds to the Wikimedia Foundation? Either we can use the funds for future events or they can be returned to WMF if they need it back. Prefer to use them for future events.

Additional requests and related proposals

Will you be requesting an extension or were you granted an extension?

No

Please link to related grant proposals here: