Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Open Speaks
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Applicant information
edit- Organization name or Wikimedia Username for individuals. (required)
- Psubhashish
- Do you have any approved General Support Fund requests? (required)
- No, it is my first time applying for a General Support Fund
- You are applying as a(n). (required)
- Individual
- Are your group or organization legally registered in your country? (required)
- N/A
- Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
- Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
- Please provide links to the following documents if they are available
These documentation can be provided in your local language(s), no translations required.
- Organizational website
- Detailed financial reporting and/or audits
- Documentation of the governance structure, board list, governance processes
- Documentation of the general assembly decision on your plan
Main proposal
edit- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be a title for the Meta-Wiki page. (required)
- Open Speaks
- 2. Do you want to apply for the multi-year base funding for 3 years? (required) (only for returning applicants)
- N/A
- 2.1. Provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan? (required)
N/A
- 3. Proposed start date. (required)
- 2025-06-15
- 4. Proposed end date. (required)
- 2025-12-31
- 5. Does your organization or group have an Affiliate or Organizational Annual Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required)
- No
- 6. Does your affiliate, organization or group have a Strategic Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required)
- No
- 7. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
- Regional (more than one country in the same continent or region)
- India, Nepal
- 8. What are your programs, approaches, and strategies? What are the challenges that you are trying to address and how will your strategies support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
- Our programs
We founded OpenSpeaks in 2017 on Wikiversity to support language archivists document Indigenous, endangered and low-resource languages. The project has won a National Geographic Society award and support from Creative Commons, Mozilla, the Wikimedia Foundation, Online News Association and the Interledger Foundation. As a part of this proposed grant we will establish OpenSpeaks Archives, a digital language archive that will contribute to Wikimedia projects and the wider open knowledge movement. A Rapid Grant-supported pilot (July 2024–January 2025) helped us validate our theory of change, create a language documentation working model and a wishlist. We will scale up the idea with this proposed grant. OpenSpeaks Archives will a) grow knowledge depth about Indigenous, endangered and low-resource language on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, b) make such knowledge accessible and translatable by engaging Wikimedia as well as language speaker communities to disseminate further, and c) create tools, documentations and other resources through the parent project, OpenSpeaks, to help citizen language archivists preserve, protect and disseminate languages in audiovisual media.
Previously, we have identified and supported Indigenous, endangered and low-resource language speakers and activists. Collaboratively, we have documented over 20 languages, and some of the recordings have enriched Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in 20+ languages. At OpenSpeaks, we have published ten documentaries, all under Wikimedia Commons-compatible Creative Commons Licenses, and the largest South Asian-language audio archive (recordings widely used in Wikimedia projects), under a universal Public Domain release.
The recent OpenSpeaks Archives pilot helped bring nearly 20 videos solely from unpublished archival footage from our documentaries. These videos are in five native tongues (three languages and two dialects) from India and Nepal and have enriched Wikipedias in 20+ languages in addition to Wiktionary, Wikisource and Wikidata.
- Approaches
This proposed grant will help us expand OpenSpeaks Archives. It will expand knowhow on how community-based citizen language documenters and archivists can document languages, expand the depth of knowledge about several Indigenous language communities and their languages on Wikimedia projects. Such knowledge will be translated into multiple languages and made available in accessible ways. We will also create tools, different resources and documentation
We plan to identify multimedia content from our archive which is a vast media collection of 20+ Indigenous, endangered and low-resource languages. A small percentage of them are used partially in our documentary films. We own full rights of the media. Under this project, we will identify specific content that is useful for Wikimedia projects, professionally edit them, collaborate with respective language speakers and activists to subtitle them, at least in one regional dominant language and in English. This will ensure that the subtitles can be translated so Wikipedia/Wikimedia project readers in different languages can understand the meaning of spoken content. Secondly, people with deafness can We will edit the files to create short descriptive videos that will be useful for Wikimedia projects that will be fully accessible. By reaching out to Wikimedia language communities, we will then
Language, culture and community-related information dearly requires relevant audiovisual media depiction, for instance, a speaker speaking their language in a natural setting. Additionally, audiovisual media requires closed captioning/subtitles for accessibility as well as to provide information about the depicted media. There are significantly less number of audiovisual media available in language, speaker community, their community and other related articles, and much less of these files have subtitles. As subtitles written as text, they significantly make any audiovisual video more accessible to deafblind people as well as translations in multiple languages for non-native speakers. OpenSpeaks Archives brings audiovisual language media with accessible, multilingual subtitles, adhering to widely accepted international standards.
- Strategy
This project will contribute in a two-pronged manner: a) we will expand the scope of oral knowledge in low-resource languages by bringing high-quality, accessible, multimedia content to Wikimedia projects, b) we will collaborate with GLAM institutions to increase the citability of the content, thereby significantly increasing their permanent open knowledge value.
- Challenges
First, Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects were intended to have a diverse, multilingual and participatory design. However, they have a huge content gap about language from the global majority, the respective language speakers and their cultures. For instance, Wikipedia has in-depth articles about constructed languages created for movies, but articles about real languages and their speakers are missing or are in bad shape.
Secondly, widely existing citation practices are deeply problematic and enshrined in oppressive, post-colonial practices. While we contribute in challenging and changing such practices, their removal is slow and and gradual, and complicated.
- 9. What categories are your main programs and related activities under? Please select all that apply. (required)
| Category | Yes/No |
|---|---|
| Education | No |
| Culture, heritage or GLAM | No |
| Gender and diversity | No |
| Community support and engagement | No |
| Participation in campaigns and contests | No |
| Public policy advocacy | No |
| Other | No |
- 10. Please include a link to or upload a timeline (operational calendar) for your programs and activities. (required)
- N/A
- 11. Describe your team. (required)
- 12. Will you be working with any internal (Wikimedia) or external partners? Describe the characteristics of these partnerships and bring a few examples of the most significant partnerships. (required)
- 13. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select all that apply. (required)
Metrics
editWikimedia Metrics
edit- 14. Please select and fill out Wikimedia Metrics for your proposal. (recommended)
- 14.1. Number of participants, editors, and organizers.
All metrics provided are optional, please fill them out if they are aligned with your programs and activities.
| Metrics name | Target | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | N/A | N/A |
| Number of all editors | N/A | N/A |
| Number of new editors | N/A | |
| Number of retained editors | N/A | |
| Number of all organizers | N/A | N/A |
| Number of new organizers | N/A |
- 14.2. Number of new content contributions to Wikimedia projects. (recommended)
| Wikimedia project | Created | Edited or improved |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | ||
| Wikimedia Commons | ||
| Wikidata | ||
| Wiktionary | ||
| Wikisource | ||
| Wikimedia Incubator | ||
| Translatewiki | ||
| MediaWiki | ||
| Wikiquote | ||
| Wikivoyage | ||
| Wikibooks | ||
| Wikiversity | ||
| Wikinews | ||
| Wikispecies | ||
| Wikifunctions / Abstract Wikipedia |
- Description for Wikimedia projects contributions metrics. (optional)
Other Metrics
edit- 15. Do you have other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
Budget
edit- 16. Will you have any other revenue sources when implementing this proposal (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required)
- 16.1. List other revenue sources. (required)
N/A
- 16.2. Approximately how much revenue will you have from other sources in your local currency? (required)
- N/A
- 17. Your local currency. (required)
- 18. What is the total requested amount in your local currency? (required)
| Year | Amount (local currency) |
|---|---|
| Year 1 | N/A |
| Year 2 | N/A |
| Year 3 | N/A |
- 19. Does this proposal include compensation for staff or contractors? (required)
- 19.1. How many paid staff members do you plan to have? (required)
Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include them separately and mention their terms.
- N/A
- 19.2. How many FTEs (full-time equivalents) in total? (required)
Include the total FTE of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include their FTEs with the terms separately.
- N/A
- 19.3. Describe any staff or contractor changes compared to the current year / ongoing General Support Fund if any. (required only for returning grantees)
- N/A
- 20. Please provide an overview of your overall budget categories in your local currency. The budget breakdown should include only the amount requested with this General Support Fund (required).
| Budget category | Amount in local currency |
|---|---|
| Staff and contractor costs | |
| Operational costs | |
| Programmatic costs |
- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
Additional information
edit- 22. In this optional space you can add any other additional information about your proposal or organization that you think can help us when reviewing your proposal. (optional)
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- No
Feedback
edit- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.