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Report accepted
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Grant Report


Project name: Turkic Wikimedia Conference 2012

Project team: "WikiBilim" Public Foundation

Time and Place: 20-21 April 2012, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Amount of Grant: 16 600 USD


Background

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Turkic Wikimedia Conference logo

Turkic Wikimedia Conference (TWC) - is the first regional wikimedia meetup and conference hosted in Central Asian region and Kazakhstan. TWC was organized by WikiBilim Foundation and volunteers from Almaty. TWC was initiated by Jimmy Wales during the Annual Wikimedia Conference in Haifa, Israel, 2011. Jimmy Wales suggested organizing regional meeting for wikimedia community in order to share experiences, problems and success projects.

WikiBilim Public Foundation - is a nonprofit organization operating in Kazakhstan. The mission of organization is developing and promoting educational content in Kazakh language. WikiBilim has Trademark License Agreement with Wikimedia Foundation till the 1st of January, 2013. And also acting as the local affiliate team of Creative Commons Europe in Kazakhstan.

Team

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WikiBilim Foundation mobilized own paid stuff (10 people) and around 30 volunteers to help and participate in organizing the TWC. The good news is that many of them are new people for wikimedia community. It is also good to mention that TWC received support from the Office of Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, academia, media, business and nonprofit organizations. There more than 60 were published materials in online media and traditional media.


Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?- Yes

Activities

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The TWC program consisted primarily of workshop, panel discussion and presentations submitted by community members and specially invited speakers.

Most of participants didn't communicate with Wikimedia Foundation before. So it was great opportunity to get information from right person. Amir Aharoni native russian speaker introduced mission, goals and activities of Wikimedia Foundation and other wikimedia chapters worlwide. He explained how local teams of volunteers can communicate with foundation and receive grants.

Creative Commons Europe was presented by Jonas Obberg. He intiduced the audience with CC licenses and other works created under the CC. Most of participants heard about CC first time.

Head of WikiBilim Foundation Rauan Kenzhekhanuly presented own activities in promoting Wikimedia Movement, free knowledge and CC licenses.

Google Europe was presented by Tlek Mamutov (BDM for South and Central Asia). He delivered presentation about Google Translate and how small turkic languages can be added to this service. He mentioned Wikipedia and Wiki Dictionary as the main tool of adding material to Google Translate Toolkit. So, you can do both, write an article to Wikipedia and add translated material to Google for further analysis. This was excellent example that shows how online content can push other services.

Another interesting presentation was from Dr. Daniel Mietchen. He presented how scholars can share their ideas and works by using the Wiki. There was big discussion about copyright and money earning from publishing own research work. This presentation helped to underline once more the importance of public domain and free access to knowledge.

  • Turkic Wikimedia Conference
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    Murat Abenov, Parliement Member (Kazakhstan)
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    Mamay Ahetov, Head of City Department of developing languages
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    Sholpan Erbolavna Zhamanbalayeva, Deputy Rector of KazNU
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    Tlek Mamutov, Google BDM South and Central Asia
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    Jonas Oberg, Creative Commons Europe
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    Daniel Mietchen
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    Talk with David Tallbot, Google Translate Team
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    Volunteers
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    Registration
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    Translatewiki.net training
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    Participants from Turkmenistan
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    Organizers and participants of TWC
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    Training
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    Amir Aharoni

Partners

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Several organizations participated in TWC as the partners and provide assistance in financial and organizational matters. The main sponsorship for organizing this conference has been provided by Samruk-Kazyna National Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Folllowing the list of partners and sponsors:

№ Name of Partner Participation Actual Comments
1 Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 16.590 USD (after conversion 2.443.375 KZT) Travel scholarships, accommodation, meal, transport additional buttons (300), t-shirts (50), stickers (300)
2 Samruk-Kazyna Foundation Online broadcasting, Travel and Accomodation expenses for experts, Laptops for WikiContest winners (100), Stuff
3 Open Society Institute Travel and accommodation expenses for Turkmen participants (6). Transport, Training, Meal, Visa support
4 Beeline Pads (160), Folders (160), T-shirts (60), internet (Hall) and mobile phone (30 numbers and 30 000 KZT/units)
5 Kazakh National University named after al-Farabi Conference Hall and additional rooms, conference equipment
6 Kazakhstan Hotel 50% Discount for accommodation and meal


Project goal and measures of success

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Project goals

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Discuss problems in development of local community for small languages.

  Achieved. We discussed commons issues such as support from society, promotion of free knowledge and local project realised in other countires. There were great ideas to promote wiki projects offline.

Share experience and tools from successful WM projects

  Achieved. Participants were interested about the experience of working with the Natioanal encyclopedia, other cultural business institutions performed in Kazakhstan. Others interesetd in learning to organize such kind of offline wikimedia event.

Share information and ideas related to common language, culture, history and geography

  Achieved. TURKSOY and national chamber of UNESCO informed that they are glad to work with Wikimedia Community related to Turkic Culture (as example for WikiLovesMonuments).

Organize First big event and face to face meeting for Kazakhstan Wikimedians

  Achieved. Kazakh Wikimedia community meetup and discussed issues related to translation of new terms, translation technique and templates used in KKWP.

Learn new features developed in MediaWiki software

  Achieved. Some of participants have been involved in Translatewiki Workshop by Amir Aharoni.

Establish strong team of volunteers to work further as the Local Wikimedia chapter in Kazakhstan

  Achieved. More that 30 volunteers involved in organizing TWC. Most of them are students and new for Wikipedia. We are planning to organize small meetup of them in September in order to start small seminars and trainings.


Measures of success

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Establish strong link between the participants from different wikimedians in order to help each other develop to grow up small languages;

  Achieved. This measure was achieved as the people from different wikimedia communities meet each other, discussed common problems, shared and learned experience related to online and offline promotion of wikimedia movement and free knowledge. Participants obtained deeper understanding of Creative Commons licenses and Translatewiki.

Gather people from other provinces of Kazakhstan in order to establish strong communications and work activity of Wikimedia Chapter on National level;

  Achieved. KKWP participants from Karaganda (2), Kyzylorda (2), South Kazakhstan (1), Astana (3), China (1), Turkey (1) and Almaty (150) took part in TWC. Therefore scholars from Natioanl Academy Institute of Language Education, Institute of History and professors of al-Fraabi University.

A rise in the growth rate of other Turkic editing communities following the event (six months after the event; a year after the event) would be a success;

  Not achieved. This measure is not monitored yet.

Lessons learned

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


Strength

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This is our first time when we organized international conference such Turkic Wikimedia Conference. We tried to involve as much people as we can. Generally, we think TWC went very well. We received welcome letter to TWC participants from the Prime-Minister K.Masimov and the Governor of Almaty City. State agencies also participated in TWC. The leading university of Kazakhstan planning to use wikpedia as the assessment tool in education process. A lot of thing have been done with 10 people of WikiBilim and more than 30 volunteers. We obtained good experience in organizing big events, planning and performing.

WikiBilim Foundation received support from business companies. Samuryk-Kazyna Foundation (SMK) acted as the sponsor of the TWC. SMK provided financial support in organizing contest amoung KKWP users (100 laptops) and cover other expenses.

Academia. We planned to involve more people for academia in order to start WikiPedia Education Program in Universities. There were only 10 professors and it would be great if we can start this program with some of them.

There were additional participants from Bashkortostan and Kyrgyzstan who came to conference by their own finance. OSI helped us to bring 6 person from Turkmenistan.

Weakness

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Participant selection: We experienced some difficulties in selecting the participants to TWC. There are several reasons of that. First, the most of Turkic speaking wikimedia communities are not very active and there no feedback to the invitation. Second, Wkimedia communities could select available person for participation, others cancelled their participation very close to the event. We could't rebook that tickets again. Due to late confirmation we could get flight tickets more expensive that we planned.

Local ethnic cultural centers participation: We expected to involve all local ethnic communities. Most of them confirmed their participation, however not come to the event. We think that most of administrative personal of such groups are not good familiar with Internet and Wiki Projects.

Technical Development. Due to small activity in Turkic Wikimedia projects it was not possible to shcedule deep technical topics.

Language. Also we experienced problem with common language for participants. Our intention was to gather communities very close regionally and culturally. However most of participants are from post Soviet countries and mainly speaks only in Russian. Meantime participants from the Turkey doesn't speak in Russian or English. Our experts mainly spoke in English and Kazakh. But it was good step to better understanding of each other.


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

TWC had good support from mass media. A lot of people were inspired by the idea of access to sum of human knowldge in own language. Turkmen participants edited wikipedia first time. more than 20 kazakh volunteers edited wikipedia first time, more than 70 participants listened about Creative Commons for first time. more than 15 participants took part in Translatewiki Workshop.


Reporting and documentation of expenditures

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Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.

A request for reallocation of remaining funds has been submitted by the grantee. You may view its current status here.

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of US$471.

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

Yes. All documents related to expenditures have been sent to WMF.

Details of expenditures:

Item of expenditure Sum
Travel scholarships 943 016 KZT ($6415)
Accommodations 430 000 KZT ($2925)
Meal 439 670 KZT ($2990)
Bages 9 000 KZT ($61)
Transport 79 000 KZT ($537)
Communication cost 0
Translation and equipment 250 000 KZT ($1700)
Promo actions 25 000 KZT ($170)
Banners 9x6 m 116 430 KZT ($792 )
Cartridge for Printers 9 600 KZT ($65)
Stationery 12 330 KZT ($84 )
WP and CC Flyers, Posters 48 110 KZT ($327 )
Bank charges (includes conversation) 60 000 KZT ($340 )
Total 2 374 046 KZT ($16 149)

Will you be requesting re-allocation of remaining grant funding? Yes. 69 329 KZT ($ 471)


We will request allocation this amount of remaining grant funding for collecting media materials for Commons.


Will you be returning unused funds to the Wikimedia Foundation? Answered above.

Media

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Here are shown some media links related to Turkic Wikimedia Conference from different countries. I tried to select more in English. Materials in Kazakh and Russian are much more.

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Will you be requesting an extension or were you granted an extension? - No

Please link to related grant proposals here:

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