Grants:Project/Rapid/Technical Update - User Group of Belarus grant application/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Technical Update - User Group of Belarus grant application.
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 rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

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

We met goals planned in early this year. The laptops were actively used in many workshops, regular meetings of User Group.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Regular Wiki-club (twice a month) where people will work on different contribution activities.	The Wikiclub was stopped in March.	So, these laptops were used in individual wiki session when wikimedians visited Falanster at least 5 times. As well as laptops helped for a month (3 times a week) interns who work with creation wiki-templates and launch wiki-bots.
Wiki-trainings (as it was in 2016) in rural area where often pupils have no laptops (during 2017).	The laptop was used by pupils from rural during the 6 days.	We plan some activities in this autumn as well.
WikiCamp-2017 for wiki-newcomers (mostly pupils and students) in the middle of this year.	100% done	The laptops helped not only during the Wikicamp for participants (around 6 practical sessions) but in preparation meetings of User group before and after the event (more than 10).

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?

The laptops were very actively used by community. It is important to announce the facilities on each meeting and provide easy access to them. Every person should know how (under what condition) they can use the tools. It is a good way to think how people can take or not the laptops outside the commons place and what is the size of possible recipients. And think what are you going to do with potential "free riders". We developed the zero interest loan contract and share the laptops for User Group members and aim each user declares. Every one can use them for wiki activities inside common place.

What did not work so well?

Not all events community members planed can be implemented actually. So it is necessary to think where community needs this tech stuff and to be ready provide it in an easy way without any bureaucracy (Be flexible).

What would you do differently next time?

More or less we considered all what will happens in the project in order to use the tech stuff by more efficient way. (1) May be next time we make one more session for formulate the software (python? web-server?) profile which should be installed on the laptops. This time we spend a bit more time (separate session) to install and config all software on each laptop. (2) including access level (guest session, admin user in the operating system).

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

4 laptops (like Lenovo IdeaPad 100-14IBY) - 2852.8 BYR = 1526 USD
5 mouses + rechargeable batteries for them = 165.35 = 88 USD
1 3G-router = 146.9 BYR = 79 USD
4 headphones = 116 BYR = 62 USD
Misc (cell phone charge) = 90 BYR = 48 USD

Total: 1803 USD

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

We had remaining funds and moved them to purchasing headphones (it reflected in previous point).

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

There are several useful links below: