Grants:PEG/Wikimedia TN User Group/Wiki-Arabia-2015

Funded

This submission to the Project and Event Grants Program was funded in the fiscal year 2014-15. This is a grant to a group.

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This Wikimedia Foundation grant has a fiscal sponsor. Association CLibre administered the grant on behalf of Wikimedia TN User Group.

statusFunded

Project & Event Grants

Wikimedia TN User Group/WikiArabia-2015

WikiArabia 2015 will be the first annual conference for Wikipedians and Wikimedians from across the Arabic world. The first edition of the conference is planned to take place in Monastir - Tunisia on 03-04-05 April 2015.

targetWikimedia projects in Arabic

strategic priorityIncrease reach

start dateJanuary 5

start year2015

end dateApril 25

end year2015

budget (local currency)75500 TND

budget (USD)41,945 USD

grant typeGroup

non-profit statusYes

creator• Vivaystn

contact(s)• tounsi.yassingmail.com• bousrihyamenyahoo.com

organization• Wikimedia TN User Group

website• http://www.wikimedia.tn

created on22:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

friendly space expectations

view all PEG requests

Following the meeting of Wikimedia Arabic community in Wikimania London 2014, a plan to have an annual conference is set in order to exchange experiences between local communities and discuss the ways to collaborate and promote Wikipedia in the Arabic world.

Wikimedia TN User Group, with support of Arabic Wikipedians and planned user groups in the Arabic countries, is intending to organize a 3-days Wikiarabia conference in Monastir, Tunisia in April 2015.

In spite of the great evolution that Wikipedia Arabic has known during the last years, this still doesn't reflect the real potential of the Arab community. Furthermore, developers and editors in the Arab world are working in isolation and have no support from local structures. Thus, this conference will be a good opportunity to enable information sharing, encourage initiatives and establish a common goal, strategy and collective voice. Hosting such a conference, would make our user Group emerge and get wide recognition from local communities and the government (by inviting delegates and decision makers).

We plan through this conference to gather around 50 participants from at least 10 different countries, organisations that support Arabic language, GLAM partners,Open Education and the aligned movement practitioners on the Arab world. The requested grant is mainly for venue costs and scholarships for travel and accommodation.

Goals and measures of success

Mission

The mission of WikiArabia is to strengthen the existence of wikipedia in the Arab world through the collaboration of local communities. A serious discussion will take place to analyse the situation, exchange ideas, set a strategy, and find ways of support and cooperation.

The Need

The Arab world counts more than 20 countries with a population around 360 million, however, the number of active contributors to the open encyclopedia is very few. Therefore, it is extremely important to launch and support Wikipedia and Wikimedia structures across the Arab world. Thus, more people, either from organisations, local governments or independent volunteers, will be encouraged to get involved and to contribute. We have conducted a google form survey to find out the challenges faced by Wikimedia Arabic community and their vision on how to tackle them. The information gathered from the survey (survey results in Arabic) are served to elaborate the provisioned program illustrated in the next chapter. This regional conference would be the first in the Arab world where Wikipedia is not well known and open knowledge spirit of Wikimedia movement is blurred.

Community Input and Endorsements

The idea was first proposed in the WikiArabia meetup, organized in Wikimania London 2014. The idea of the conference was unanimously approved by the 19 participants.

Goals

WikiArabia aims to empower Wikimedians in order to enrich the content of the Arabic projects and share awareness about Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement in general. Through the creation of a regional network, local communities and groups will get more support and new user groups or chapters could be created in the near future.

Our specific goals for the conference are to:

• Have at least 50 attendees
• Fund the attendance of 35 participants from across the Arab world (excluding Tunisia) through scholarships, with a priority given to the established/planned Usergroups and active Wikipedians
• Encourage the participation (through part-funding) of 15 Tunisian-based Wikipedians, mission aligned individuals and organisations, researchers, academics, etc.
• Make campaigns that aim to encourage people to participate in existing and new projects such as “Wiki Loves monuments” and “Wiki Loves Earth”.
• Share management skills and experience and how-to list for encouraging and activating community engagement and sustaining contribution in the Arab world.
• Shed some lights on next year's conference.
• Maintain detailed accounts of keynotes, workshops, and panels for remote online viewing, documentation, evaluation and report.

Measures of success

The conference will be considered successful in case it permits to:

• Find solutions for the common issues of Wikipedia Arabic and the other wikimedia projects in Arabic language
• Establish a collaboration relation between the three Arabic Wikimedia Usergroups (Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria), the planning groups (Jordan, Saudi Arabia), and active Wikimedians throughout the Arabic world.
• Encourage active Wikimedians to establish a Usergroup in their countries.
• Exchange best practice of promoting wikipedia in the Arabic world
• Create a common strategy concretized by a working plan of activities and campaigns; such as Wiki Loves Mosques and Wiki Loves Monuments.
• Set goals in the participation of Arabs in Wikimania Mexico 2015
• Plan for the next version WikiArabia 2015.

Project scope and activities

WikiArabia will be a 3 days conference, where participants from different Arabic countries will interact to share their experiences and their activities, discuss organisational problems and solutions within the broader Wikimedia community and yet within regional context. The conference will be a good opportunity to meet and debate about a clear collective strategy

• for Wikimedians from the Arab region.
• for a sustainable GLAM activities
• for regional outreach campaigns with a special focus on the Educational program

Provisional Conference Program

The program will cover the following sessions & topics:

Keynotes: leaders and notorious activists from the Open movement will be invited by the organizers as keynote speakers to inspire and inform attendees.

Attendees will be given opportunities to sign up to give talks on their challenge, projects or case study which will allow participants to have an exciting snap shot of the landscape, challenges and opportunities that currently exist across the Arab region.

Strategy sessions: The Conference is organised to allow for a collective understanding of the key issues that need to be overcome, and to establish clear actions and solutions that will drive contribution to Wikipedia forward on the region.

Panels and Workshops: Panels and workshops will be organised around the following topics (this not a final list):

Thematic Workshops and tracks could include, but not be limited to the following:

User Groups Workshop

Aim: to share experiences and build a sustainable framework and networks for User Groups across the region To cover:

• Presentations from current user groups; what can be done to support existing ones; what is needed to create new ones.
• Funding and administration of an organisation
• Project proposals, evaluations and metrics
• Communication & PR
• Toolkits, Training and Translation / Adaptation
• Outreach

Expected result: Chapters, established and new, fully equipped and resourced to grow community; creation of Arab-wide network.

Educational program

Aim: Build a sustainable Educational Program and inspire educational institutions (universities, schools..) to be part of this program and to publish OER

• Examples of working with Universities
• Open Education and OER
• Campus Ambassadors
• How to get started
• Step by step, toolkits, value proposition, etc

Expected results: creation of working groups with agendas and outputs.

Problem solving sessions

Aim: to find lasting and practical solutions to problems faced by community and the movement across the region

• finding adapted solutions to problems faced by community
• Community issues
• Tech, access and interface issues
• Accountability, funding and taking ownership
• Local Language Wikis
• Translation
• Evaluation and metrics

Expected result: creation of working groups with agendas and outputs

GLAM

Aim: to inspire partners, and provide ways for institutions, to donate digitised media and text about culture, heritage, media and other layers of information

• Examples of working with local heritage
• Licensing and permissions requirements
• Conflicts of interest, declaration of interest
• How to get started
• GLAM workshop for partners
• Step by step, toolkits, value proposition, etc

Expected results: Working on a key national heritage partners to the project as an example

Community Building

Aim: To allow insight into the future of Wikipedia in the Arab region

• Problematising Local Language Wikis
• Establishing priorities for your community
• Getting started
• Step by step, toolkits, value proposition, etc

Expected results: Give guidelines and understanding for editors wishing to work on local language editors

Engagement with larger populations

Aim: to provide feedback to user groups on low level, easily accessible competitions

• Wiki Loves Monuments
• Wiki Loves Africa
• Wiki Loves Earth
• Local wikis...

Expected results: Provide a clear year-long plan for chapters and usergroups to roll out community engagement activities, provide toolkits and templates to assist with these events.

Possible sister project activities Wikinews Workshop – with local journalists and media houses Wiki Voyage Workshop – with travel journalists, or tourist bureaus Wiki Data Workshop – with Stats, Census and other data holders.

Please note: more details will be available on the website.

Planned outreach

Looking forward to organize WikiArabia in excellent conditions, Wikimedia TN User Group has started to setup partnership with other NGOs and local open movements from Tunisia such as:

• The Association for free numeric culture CLibre
• The Junior Chamber International
• Tunisian Open source movement
• Tunisian Open Knowledge movement
• Local cultural groups and organisations

Travel scholarships

Wikimedia TN User Group will be awarding travel scholarships to bring in attendees from throughout the Arabic countries. Scholarships will be awarded based on several criteria related to the experience of the applicants and attitudes on Wikimedia projects. Applicants who will receive a scholarship will be assessed during and after the conference based on their participation and the impact of the conference on their involvement with the Wikimedia projects Travel scholarships are expected to be attributed via the following means:

• Wikimedia TN User Group = 5 (5 national travel)
• Tunisian based wikipedians = 10 (10 national travel)
• Usergroups and other arab delegates = 5 (regional travel)
• Arab-based Wikipedians= 25 (regional travel)
• Aligned organisations = 5 (5 regional )
  • TOTAL: 50 Scholarships

• International attendance from WMF and Other chapters outside of Arab region not included in the budget

Documentation, evaluation and reports

Media A dedicated team will be appointed and will make sure that the conference will be covered and extensively documented: -before the conference date -during the conference -after the conference The Media Team will publish photos, updates, and insights on the conference blog. An offline and online media strategy will be adopted in order to ensure that the conference - and the subjects covered at the conference - gets maximum coverage Conference materials, including flyers, presentations, and video will be compiled for online documentation during and after the conference.

Public relations A spokesman will be appointed in order to be the key contact with media partners.

Reporting and evaluation Potential attendees have already been surveyed as to their expectations around WikiArabia. The draft programme will be posted for comments and input in a similar way. During and post event, all delegates will be invited to evaluate the conference experience.

Beyond The Conference

After the conference the Wikimedia TN User Group will make sure that the following actions are fulfilled:

• Generate a report to evaluate the conference and check whether expected objectives are met
• Follow up the activities of the working groups formed during the conference
• Coordinate with the Wikimedia User Group that will organize the second edition of the conference.

Tentative Agenda

The following agenda is tentative and subject to changes.

Proposed Submissions

The organizing team invited the Arabe community to make their propositions for intervention. In almost two weeks more than 30 propositions are inserted (check proposed submissions here). The interventions are prpositions and they will be treated by the organizing team when WikiArabia is approved.

Budget

Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines. Grantees are subject to line-item scrutiny of expenses. Changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

Bill No. 1: Preliminaries and General

		Qty	Rate	Total (TND)	Total (US Dollars)	Notes
1.1	Project Management	2	750	1500	833.33
1.2	Conference documentation & stickers & badges	50	10	500	277.77
1.3	Press Kits	20 10	25	250	138.88
1.4	Communication costs (website, banners, etc.)	1	1000	1000	555.55
1.5	Printed T-shirts, for the conference participants	50	30 20	1000	555.55
1.6	Incidental costs & contingencies	1	5000	5000	2,722.22
	TOTAL BILL Number 1			9250	5,138.88

Bill No. 2: Conference Days

		Qty	Rate	Total (TND)	Total (US Dollars)	Notes
2.1	Venue and Conference room
2.1.1	Track conference room @ 200 TND per day	3	200	600	333.33
2.1.2	Flipchart table	1	150	150	83.33
2.2	Catering
2.2.1	Opening ceremony dinner @50 @40 TND per person.	50	50 40	2000	1,111.11
2.2.2	Coffee stations for 3 days @20 TND per day per person.	50	60	3000	1,666.66
2.2.3	Dinner and lunch for 3 days @100 @40 TND per day person.	50	300 120	6000	3,333.33
2.3	Amenities
2.3.1	Water and sweets	1	100	100	55.55
2.4	Social Events
2.4.1	Opening ceremony (Traditional Tunisian music band)	1	300	300	166.66
2.4.2	Trip expenses (museum, logistics)	2	500	1000	555.55
2.5	Others
2.5.1	Transportation (1 x Hired bus for 5 days @ 600 TND per day)	5	600	3000	1,666.66
2.5.2	Miscellaneous (Printer, paper, pens, staples, etc.)	1	200	200	111.11
	TOTAL BILL Number 2			14750	8,194.44

Bill No. 3: Travel Scholarships

		Qty	Rate	Total (TND)	Total (US Dollars)	Notes
3.1	International Scholarships:
3.1.1	Flights (Average)	35	1000	35000	19,444.44
3.1.2	Visa Assistance (Countries that require Visa)	10	100	1000	555.55
3.1.3	Accomodation + breakfast + lunch: (@55 @65 TND/night per person for 4 nights)	35	260	9100	5,055.55
3.1.4	Transportation	35	30	1050	583.33
3.2	Local Scholarships:
3.2.1	Transportation	15	30	450	250
3.2.2	Accommodation + breakfast + lunch: (@55 @65 TND/night per person for 4 nights)	15	260	3900	2,166.66
3.3	Keynote/Expert speakers:
3.3.1	Accommodation + breakfast + lunch: (4 days @55 @65/night)	5	260	1300	722.22
3.4	Travel Agency company:
3.4.1	Arranging and booking of flights	1	1000	1000	555.55
	TOTAL BILL Number 3			51500	28,611.11

Country	Estimated Price USD
Algeria	240
Bahrain	795
Comoros (via Paris)	1656
Djibouti (via Dubai)	1461
Egypt	350
Iraq (via Amman)	1017
Jordan	636
Kuwait	720
Lebanon	870
Libya	282
Mauritania	640
Morocco	430
Oman (via Dubai)	908
Palestine (via Amman)	800
Qatar	1033
Saudi Arabia	421
Somalia	?
Sudan (via Egypt)	600
Syria (via Istanbul)	600
Tunisia	0
United Arab Emirates	981
Yemen (via Egypt)	822

Bills Subtotals

	PROJECT BILL OF QUANTITIES PRICE SUMMARY PAGE	Total (TND)	Total (USD Dollar)
1	BILL NO. 1: PRELIMINARY & GENERAL	9250	5,138.88
2	BILL NO. 2: CONFERENCE DAYS	14750	8,194.44
3	BILL NO. 3: TRAVEL SCHOLARSHIPS	51500	28,611.11
	TOTAL BUDGET PRICE	75500	41,944.44

• Above dollar totals were calculated at an exchange rate of 1.8 TND for dated 30/10/2014 see historic exchange rate. Recent exchange rate to be applied on total value in TNDs of this budget.

Summary

Total project budget

86450 TND or $ 48,027.77 75500 TND or $ 41,944.44

Total amount requested

86450 TND or $ 48,027.77 75500 TND or $ 41,944.44

Are there additional sources of revenue that will fund any part of this project? List them here.

No

Non-financial requirements

None

Resources

Team members are:

1. Vivaystn (talk · contribs) -- Yassine Tounsi - Conference coordinator
2. Yamen (talk · contribs) -- Yamen Bousrih - Program coordinator/Accounting expenses of the conference
3. Emnamizouni (talk · contribs) -- Emna Mizouni - Communications
4. Hamed gamaoun (talk · contribs) -- Hamed Gamaoun - Communications coordinator assistant
5. Ghabara (talk · contribs) -- Wael Ghabara - Conference social-events coordinator
6. Touzrimounir (talk · contribs) -- Mounir Touzri - Conference travel coordinator
7. Dyolf77 (talk · contribs) -- Habib M’henni - Conference graphic designer

For more information on project team members and the local organizing committee visit:

1. Meeting page
2. Team members, WikiArabia website
3. Meta page

Partners

The following Organizations have expressed interest in helping us undertake this project:

CLibre is the Fiscal Sponsor.

JCI ENIT

Carthagina

Impact

In the sections below, please describe how the project is related to the Wikimedia mission and Wikimedia's strategic priorities.

Fit to strategy

How will this project support the key organizational objectives of the Wikimedia Foundation

• Increase participation and reach
• Design and deploy catalyst teams to pilot activities spurring growth in readership and editing in the Arabic-speaking areas of the Middle East and North Africa.
• Encourage the health and growth of Wikimedia communities and the projects they sustain, as well as supporting community leaders who are eager to serve as recruiters, guides and mentors for newer volunteers.
• Facilitate community efforts to create organizational models and structures that support the Wikimedia projects.
• Support volunteer initiatives that fuel the growth of communities and projects around the world

This statement should address at least one of the strategic priorities listed here specifically. See Project and Event Grants program criteria for decision making

Wikiarabia's goals, as presented above, specifically fit to the Wikimedia Foundation's strategy. Wikiarabia is a conference that aims to promote wikimedia projects in Arabic and raise collaboration between local teams across the Arabic world. The conference will achieve the Foundation's following strategic goals by:

• Increasing reach - The conference is a step to reach out to Wikimedians across Arabic world who have little to no access to Wikimedia activities (Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, etc.); in addition, it aims to support and foment the growth of Wikipedia Arabic thematic group. This conference will support mainly benefit Arabic WIkipedia as well as wikimedia Arabic projects. We will try to set some goals during the event and monitor them till the next year “Wikiarabia 2016” where results will be evaluated.
• Increasing participation - After the conference, the delegates will be more empowered to lead activities in their countries. The participation will consequently increase even in countries where Wikipedia as a free collaborative encyclopedia is almost unknown. Since the conference will be hosted in Tunisia, flight fares will be reasonable to visitors of the Arabic countries, especially north Africa. Visitors could also come from Europe since Tunisia is very close too.

Benefits

The project will have the following benefit to local communities in the following ways

• Local communities will be empowered since they will focus only on topics related to Wikimedia during the days of the conference; it will be like an intensive training.
• Sense of leadership will be raised among delegates due to the exchange of experience that will take place.
• Wikimedia TN User Group and other groups in the future will gain experience on organizing events and make campaigns.

Please provide a brief statement about how the project is related to other work in the Wikimedia movement. For example, does the project fit into a work area such as GLAM, education, organisational development, editor retention, or outreach?

• The conference tries to bring together active Wikipedians in each country. They have different backgrounds and skills and they tries to share their knowledge to reach the ultimate goal which is promoting the Wikimedia movement.

If successful, will the project have the potential to be replicated successfully by other individuals, groups, or organizations? Please explain how in 1–2 sentences

Yes, the project can be replicated successfully by the nascent groups in the Arabic countries. Based on the support we get from local communities, we think that the conference will evolve in the future and cities will compete to host it. It is hoped that in the first 5 years, 5 different countries will host the event.

Please list other benefits to the movement here

• There will be local and regional media and press coverage of the event (Example: Watania, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, DW Arabic, BBC Arabic, Asharq Al-Awsat, Al Quods, Al Hayat, etc.)
• WikiArabia will be very positive to Wikimedia TN User Group since it permits to be more known locally and attract more engaged members.
• This yearly conference will be hosted in different countries in the future and this will permit WMF to monitor efficiently all challenges in the Arabic communities and project them to the other communities around the globe.

External Portal and discussions

Discussions on this project and further information can also be found here:

1. Conference home page

Discussion

Community notification

You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a village pump, talkpage, mailing list. Please paste a link below to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

• listswikimedia.tn
• Wikimedia Tunisie

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project and Event Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

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• Create a request for an extension of the approved project completion date.
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