CIS-A2K/Strategic plan 2024-2027

Over the past decade, CIS-A2K has played a pivotal role in advancing free knowledge, promoting diversity, forging partnerships and nurturing leadership within the Wikimedia community, particularly in the tapestry of Indic languages communities. We are now at the juncture of reimagining our strategic direction to accommodate the change in our contexts and the needs of the projects and our community. The following are the thematic areas we intend to engage with and explore in our journey ahead.

Building and Advocating for Inclusive Tech in the Wikimedia Movement

CIS-A2K has contributed to fostering tech leadership within the Indic Wikimedia space through various collaborations, initiatives, and support. In line with its commitment to fostering inclusive tech within the Wikimedia movement, moving forward, CIS-A2K would focus on User Research and Infrastructure Enhancement, Promoting and contributing to Inclusive Tech, and Capacity Building in Indic Wikimedia:

The following initiatives are part of our broader strategy to create a more inclusive and diverse tech ecosystem within the Wikimedia movement, empowering communities to contribute effectively and sustainably:

Conducting thorough user research and stakeholder engagement to understand and improve Wikipedia mobile applications for Indic Wikimedia projects, prioritizing action items for enhancement and developing a long-term improvement plan based on user feedback.
Defining and establishing Inclusive Tech to foster diversity and inclusivity in tech communities, including understanding the priorities and needs of the Global Majority,^[1] collaborating with experts to develop guidelines, and organizing awareness campaigns for diversity and inclusion.
Conducting needs assessments to address infrastructure and knowledge gaps, designing capacity-building programs, partnering with local organizations to build sustainable developer communities, and providing ongoing support for Indian language Wikimedia contributors' tech infrastructure development.
Contributing to and advocating Global Majority Wikimedia Technology Priorities

By focusing on these strategies, CIS-A2K aims to create a more inclusive and diverse tech ecosystem within the Wikimedia movement, empowering communities to contribute effectively and sustainably.

Building Strategic Partnerships

Our strategic vision for partnerships is centered on three core values: sustainability, creativity, and inclusivity. We aim to establish diverse, interdisciplinary networks that benefit all partners, enabling us to invest in innovative and important ideas. In the past, our partnerships have played a crucial role in sustaining our efforts during periods of capacity challenges, providing valuable resources, abilities, and experience.

To build upon this foundation, A2K aims to invest in strategic partnerships with vision-aligned organizations, emphasizing sustainability. We will diversify our partnership efforts both geographically and thematically, focusing on contributing to our strategic goals of promoting diversity and inclusion, innovating in content creation, community engagement, and community growth, and fostering the Free Knowledge and Open Data movement. A2K aspires to contribute to building a network of vision-aligned organizations and communities, currently working in silos, to further catalyze the growth of the Open Knowledge movement.

A2K is committed to investing in strategic partnerships over the next three years, building on existing partnerships with educational programs, development sector institutions, GLAM and digitization initiatives, and diverse stakeholders like government departments, media houses, and gender studies organizations.

Promoting diversity and inclusion

For the past decade, CIS-A2K has been committed to advancing the open knowledge movement in India, with an emphasis on promoting diversity and inclusivity, particularly for gender.

A2K took various approaches to bridge the gender gap in Indian Wikimedia projects. These included organizing multilingual edit-a-thons, understanding barriers to women's participation, developing tools and partnerships, and raising awareness within the Wikimedia community to increase female leadership. A2K continued to measure its impact on increasing gender diversity in its activities over several program years, alongside metrics such as community engagement and content creation. Our focus on women's leadership continues through initiatives like She Leads which we will continue building upon. Moving forward, we aim to reimagine and expand our diversity efforts to include queer communities and explore various intersectionalities.

By collaborating with stakeholders and implementing innovative strategies, CIS-A2K envisions a more vibrant and inclusive open knowledge ecosystem in India, celebrating voices from South Asian communities and empowering them to reclaim agency.

In the future, CIS-A2K aims to:

Strengthen its efforts in bridging the gender gap by building on its work in leadership, research, and community health, and exploring deeper diversity quotients and understanding within gender.
Enhance its contributions to underrepresented languages by drawing from its experience during 2012-17, focusing on structured efforts, increased resources, and dedicated support for language Wikimedia projects, recognizing the unique needs and methods of each language.
Collaborate with global leaders and communities advocating for equity and with other Global Majority affiliates and movement entities to contribute to knowledge equity, discourse, and capacity-building initiatives that align with global majority priorities.

Invest in advancing strategy and Leadership building

For the past decade, A2K has been a significant contributor to leadership development within the Wikimedia communities. A2K has been actively involved in designing and implementing leadership training programs and fostering collaboration among Wikimedia communities. Our initiatives include preparing Indic Wikimedia representatives for the Wikimedia Summit, supporting the formation of user groups, building community-facing partnerships, anchoring projects such as Project Tiger, supporting funding requests both internally and those made to the WMF, and offering scholarships and internships for participation and incubation of projects. However, there is still room for improvement in our engagement with Wikimedia's global strategy conversations, both at the A2K level and within the Indic communities.

Moving forward, A2K aims to continue innovating and amplifying its efforts in nurturing leadership within the Indic Wikimedia communities, focusing on both qualitative enrichment and widespread influence. We plan to explore opportunities to showcase the skills and contributions of community leaders, invest in innovative approaches to nurture thought leadership from Wikimedia communities and emphasize diversifying leadership.

Furthermore, A2K is committed to improving its engagement in the implementation of Wikimedia Strategy 2030. We are building up our efforts to collaborate with various stakeholders within India and globally to meaningfully contribute to the growth of the Wikimedia movement.

Innovate in content creation, community engagement, and community growth

As A2K moves away from earlier successful models of Community engagement and content creation, such as edit-a-thons, label-a-thons, and content competitions, we recognize that several stakeholders within the Indic communities are now capable of and interested in organizing these events independently. In our role as a catalyst, we have consistently supported communities to gain skills and experience to organize these events. On the other hand, we have experimented with various models, we have yet to establish a successful playbook for sustainable community growth. To address this, we are exploring innovative approaches to community growth, including leveraging artificial intelligence for Indian languages, improving content using structured data, and focusing on opportunities within the education system. To stay ahead of the curve, we are committed to investing in innovative efforts and exploring new models for recognition, community engagement, and growth.

Promoting and fostering the Free Knowledge and Open data movement

The open data movement in India can be ascertained as an extension of the West’s imagination of the ‘open’. The educational and research scenario in India has and continues to be skeptical of free and open knowledge ecosystems like wikipedia. However, the increasing demand and acceptance for MOOCs in the post-pandemic academic world presents the possibility of more.

CIS-A2K has, over the past decade, done remarkable work in building and facilitating local open-knowledge communities and user groups. Looking ahead, there is an undeniable need for CIS-A2K to position ourselves within the larger free knowledge and open data movement and charter a course of impact that best suits our resources. We will be focusing on increasing awareness and taking up high-visibility projects to garner public interest for the free knowledge and open data movement.

While knowledge and understanding of free licenses and the open knowledge movement have yet to reach critical masses within the Indian language ecosystem, CIS-A2K plans to explore and learn from various ways and ideas around disseminating knowledge by Indian knowledge creators and organizations. We will build on past and existing work, utilizing research and communications to promote and foster free knowledge within India. A2K will be open-minded in its approach to understand and adopt various other ways of building open and free knowledge which were built in the Indian context by other players.

CIS-A2K aims to form and sustain strategic partnerships with other players/partners within this space. The last decade was about facilitating local community networks. Now we aim to explore, engage and foster the larger open data movement through the wealth of our expertise and the strength of our community.

Conclusion

In conclusion, all of these thematic areas of inclusive tech, strategic partnerships, diversity and inclusion, leadership building, innovation in content creation and community growth, and promoting the free knowledge and open data movement are deeply interconnected. CIS-A2K has been able to navigate evolving contexts and community needs for the past decade. As we embark on reimagining our strategic direction, these interconnected themes will continue to guide our efforts, fostering a more inclusive, and diverse open knowledge ecosystem within the Wikimedia movement and beyond.

Notes and References

↑ Global South represents Global Majority

[1] Global South represents Global Majority

[1]