Community Resources and Partnerships/India Rapid Project/Lingua Libre SignIt 2026
Applicant
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
GonFreeaks
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
N/A
Main proposal
[edit]- 1. State the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Lingua Libre SignIt 2026
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2026-02-01 - 2026-04-01
- 4. What is your tech project about, and how do you plan to build the product?
Include the following points in your answer:
- Project goal and problem you solve
- Product strategy or project roadmap
- Technical approach (infrastructure, tech stack, key tools and services)
- Integrations or dependencies (if any)
Lingua Libre SignIt translate is an extension allows you to translate a word into French sign language on any web page. When you read a text and come across a word you don't know, highlight that word, right click and click on the Sign it icon: the sign in LSF and the definition of the word in French will appear on a window.
Project goal and Problem we solve :
- We want to increase sign language literacy among the general public and help build a more inclusive society. Basic knowledge of sign language would be beneficial to all, sign languages can be used in various noisy settings and by various groups (baby sign language, deaf, hearing impaired, elders) at various steps of their lives. The web extension SignIt eases and assist users to discover sign languages vocabularies.The project was one of the "Inspiring vision" lightening talks of Wikimania 2023. See [1]
- Also Wikimedia communities in Africa want to use SignIt, but they and we lack funding to finish it. WMF Rapid Grant can unlock that.
Product strategy or project roadmap :
In the scope of this grant, we plan to tackle our two major bottleneck (first two) :
- Finish coding
- Publish the extension Chrome and Firefox stores (90 and 5% of market share)
- Initiate a formal awareness campaign.
Following this grants, volunteer will continue on the long run with :
- Sustained awareness campaign by spreading news of the tool being available on Chrome and Firefox stores
- Sustained trainings toward WM groups (we already have requests) and others
- Contact identified sign languages video content creators for partnership, upload to Commons, and integration into the web extensions.
- Add support for more sign languages
- Participate occasional conferences to showcase the tools, as previously done'
Technical approach (infrastructure, tech stack, key tools and services) :
- We are primarily working with HTML , CSS , JS Chrome extension APIs. Check out our project here [2]
Project integration : This project integrates contents from Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia dictionaries, in multiple sign languages and written languages.
- 5. What is the expected impact of your project, and how will you measure success?
Include the following points in your answer:
- Milestones and progress tracking
- Project impact and success metrics
Immediate core measures of success at the end of the grant are :
- Code : finished extension with proper support for multiple wiktionaries,
- Chrome store : web extension present on Chrome Store,
- Firefox store : web extension present on Firefox Store,
- Announcement of the above to a dozen of wikipedias, chapters, and generalist WM telegram channels,
Long term measure of success by 2028:
- Multiple additional sign languages activated on the web extension, we look for +3~6.,
- Online users around 500~1000, according to both web stores,
- New sign language contributions to Wikimedia Commons, we look for +1~3,000 new videos,
- New sign language content contributor, we look for +10 content creators via Lingua Libre,
- Ideally, successful partnership with content creator for media imports, we look for 10,000 sign language video imports
- 6. Who is your target audience, and how have you confirmed there is demand for this project? How did you engage with the Wikimedia community?
Include the following points in your answer:
- Project demand and target audience description
- Links to interaction(s) with Wikimedia community
- Evidence from community consultation such as the [Community Wishlist]
Our audience are :
- First, wikimedian users and actually everyone interested to learn the basics of sign languages via Wikimedia-trusted content and web extension,
- Second, hearing impaired who, seeing sign languages on this web extensions, get interested to contribute sign language content. We guide them toward Lingua Libre video recorder which ease contribution of sign language content to Commons.,
Wikimedia communities occasionally contact us to know more about the project and how to contribute.
- 7. How will your team predict and manage potential user security and privacy risks, and what risks do you currently see?
Include the following points in your answer:
- The level of in-house or consulted security and privacy expertise you will have available to you during delivery of this project
- How your development, testing, and deployment processes mitigate the introduction of unnecessary security or privacy risks
N.A. There is no known security risk with our project : we do not store user data, only their preferences is stored in their web browser. This project has no political tone.
- 8. Who is on your team, and what is your experience?
Include the following points in your answer:
- Your experience as a developer, relevant past projects
- Wikimedia SUL (developer), Gerrit, Github, Gitlab or other relevant public account handles
- Other team members, their roles and expertise
- Kabir Singh : I am a JS developer.I am a former Google Summer of Code intern and I worked under the same project , Lingua Libre SignIt. You can check out my contributions here [3]. The grant will pay me15 workdays, no other income are perceived. My github : [4] , wikimedia : [5]
- Hugo Lopez : Project lead. Hugo gives guidance, handles administrative tasks and reportings. He will publish the web extension on 2 web stores : Chrome web store and Firefox web stores. Hugo is a long term wikimedians, former Wikimedian in residence, Google Summer of Code mentor and a referent for Lingua Libre. The grant will pay Hugo 8 workdays, no other income are perceived. Hugo's github: [6]. , wikimedia : [7]
- 9. How will the project be maintained long-term?
Include the long-term maintenance plan with maintainer(s) in your answer. If you expect the long-term maintenance to incur expenses, please list those and the plan for long-term expense coverage.
On the long term the project is volunteer-lead, see point 4 above.
As for the code, following this coding cycle, the code will be complete and stable enough for volunteer-based maintenance.The project have already been maintained this way, and the main volunteer developer still plan to be around
- 10. Under what license will your code be released, and how will you ensure the product is well documented?
Include the following points in your answer:
- Code license and compatibility with Wikimedia projects
- Documentation plan
License : MIT, see [8]
Documentation: README.md, see [9]
The documentation is already good and will be updated as needed.
- 11. Will your project depend on or contribute to third-party tools or services?
No
- 12. Is there anything else you’d like to share about your project? (optional)
Budget
[edit]- 13. Upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eSaeXV8ulu8HwtZP_13L6xfVUMJh-yiAfSDa7rDElaY/edit?usp=sharing
- 14. and 15. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
441677 INR
- 16. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
5000 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
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