Community Resources and Partnerships/India Rapid Project/Wikipedia 25 Birthday Celebration (Wiki Club Tech India)/Final Report
Application type: Standard application
Part 1: Project and impact
1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
WikiClub Tech India organized Wikipedia's 25th Birthday celebrations across 6+ engineering college campuses between January and March 2026. Events were held at United University (Prayagraj), United Institute of Technology (Prayagraj), SHUATS (Prayagraj), Garden City University (Bangalore), NITTE NMAMIT (Mangalore), and Manipal University Jaipur. Each celebration featured cake-cutting ceremonies, "Why I Wiki" storytelling sessions, introductions to the Wikimedia technical ecosystem, and guided walkthroughs of Wikipedia content creation and maintenance.Results: 600+ students participated across all campuses. 6+ Meta-Wiki event pages were created. 5 Diff blog posts were published. 100+ chapter sign-ups were generated. Event photos were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, and LinkedIn coverage was posted by multiple campus chapters.The most effective approach was the Envoy Model. Rather than sending a central team to every campus, we trained local student leaders (Envoys) and equipped them with a standardized celebration toolkit containing event templates, branded materials, and a documentation checklist. Each Envoy was paired with a campus mentor and a faculty coordinator, creating a three-layer structure that ensured operational support, institutional backing, and accountability without stretching the core team. This model allowed simultaneous celebrations across 6+ campuses in 5 cities.The second effective approach was embedding celebrations within a contributor pipeline. Birthday events were not standalone. They served as the entry point for Road to Wiki Cohort 2 recruitment. Students who attended were directed to a structured application process, converting celebration energy into sustained engagement. The pipeline conversion rate from attendee to active trainee was approximately 20%.Diff post: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/04/19/6-campuses-one-birthday-how-wikiclub-tech-india-celebrated-wikipedia-turning-25/
2.1. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
Diff blog post (main):[1]
Additional Diff posts:[2]
South Asia Newsletter feature (March 2026):https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/South_Asia/Newsletter/March_2026
Campus event pages on Meta-Wiki:[7][8][9][10][11][12]
WikiClub Tech pages:[13][14][15]
[16] Impactful Stories
![[16]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Club_Tech_India_---_Student_voices.png){kind=link}
Photos [17]
Photos: [18]
Social Media
2.2. Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
Envoy Playbook:Standardized playbook for campus Envoys covering event structure, documentation checklist, post-event form submission, Meta-Wiki page creation, Diff blog post guidelines, LinkedIn posting templates, and Wikimedia Commons upload instructions.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdepacPBpr7QA1pjpgKbzdKWx37iUCcNP40FQFAPZIU/edit?tab=t.0
Branded event materials:WikiClub Tech branded T-shirts (distributed to participants and organizers across all campuses), event posters (printed centrally and shipped to each campus), selfie stands, and social media kits for consistent visual identity across 6+ campuses. [22]
Celebration toolkit:Each Envoy received a standardized kit containing: event run-of-show template, cake-cutting ceremony format, "Why I Wiki" storytelling session guide, Wikimedia technical ecosystem introduction slides, and Wikipedia content creation walkthrough materials. [23]
Presentation [24]
Campus chapter posters (samples):Customized chapter launch posters created for each partner college including Alva's Institute, Garden City University, NMAMIT, and others.
WikiClub Tech website (public resource hub):[27]
WikiClub Tech Impact documentation:[28]
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: Our project has three primary goals:
- Celebrate & Appreciate: To honor Wikipedia's 25th birthday and foster a genuine sense of community appreciation among our 8+ student clubs.
- Strengthen Community: To use this shared, positive experience to boost morale, identity, and engagement within our existing campus clubs.
- Outreach & Recruitment: To leverage the excitement of a global celebration as a powerful tool to attract new students / dev to our technical contribution pipeline.
We will measure our success using the following quantitative and qualitative metrics:
Quantitative Metrics:
- Reach: Successfully execute birthday celebrations at a minimum of 8 partner institutions.
- Attendance: Achieve a cumulative attendance of 500+ students across all 8+ events.
- Recruitment: Generate 100+ new member sign-ups for our local WikiClubs from students new to our community.
- Reporting:
- Upload a minimum of 50 high-quality photos and videos from all 8 events to the specified Wikimedia Commons category.
- Ensure all 8+ events are registered on the Events Calendar and use the Event Registration tool.
Qualitative Metrics:
- Reporting: Successful publication of a comprehensive Diff blog post summarizing the activities and impact across all campuses.
- Community Feedback: Positive feedback collected via a post-event survey from attendees and Wiki Envoys.
Our application outlined three learning goals: Celebrate and Appreciate, Strengthen Community, and Outreach and Recruitment. Here is what we learned from each when we implemented the project.
Celebrate and Appreciate: We learned that structured celebrations create deeper appreciation than casual events. The combination of cake-cutting ceremonies, "Why I Wiki" storytelling sessions, and Wikimedia ecosystem walkthroughs gave students a tangible connection to Wikipedia's 25-year history. The most engaged participants were those who heard personal stories from existing contributors during the storytelling sessions rather than those who only attended the technical walkthroughs. Going forward, we plan to make contributor storytelling the centerpiece of every WikiClub Tech campus event.
Strengthen Community: The Envoy Model proved to be the strongest community-building lever. By training local student leaders rather than sending a central team, we created genuine ownership at each campus. Envoys did not just run events, they became the face of WikiClub Tech at their colleges. The three-layer structure (Envoy, Mentor, Faculty) gave each campus institutional legitimacy that outlasts any single event. We achieved 6+ successful campus celebrations across 5 cities without stretching the core team. The key learning: community strength comes from distributed leadership, not centralized control. We plan to formalize the Envoy role further with a structured onboarding playbook and badge system for future cohorts.
Outreach and Recruitment: This is where the most significant learning emerged. We set a target of 100+ new sign-ups and achieved it, but the deeper insight was about pipeline design. Birthday celebrations alone generate excitement but not sustained engagement. We learned that embedding celebrations inside a contributor pipeline is far more effective than running them as standalone events.
Quantitative targets vs actuals:Events: Target 8, Achieved 6+. Attendance: Target 500, Achieved 600+. New sign-ups: Target 100+, Achieved 100+. Diff blog posts: Target 1, Achieved 5. Meta-Wiki event pages: Target 1, Achieved 6+. Wikimedia Commons uploads: Completed. Events registered on Events Calendar: Completed.
How we will use these learnings:
Scaling community building: Overall, this grant validated a scalable model for building communities within the Wikimedia technical ecosystem across Indian engineering colleges, which we can replicate and expand upon.Maintaining a self-sustaining cycle: We plan to continue using this exact pipeline design as a repeating cycle for future recruitment and training.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
Positive surprises:
Faculty coordinators at several campuses, notably SHUATS and Garden City University, proactively asked how they could integrate Wikimedia contributions into their academic curricula. This was not part of our original plan. We learned that institutional buy-in accelerates when faculty see students genuinely excited about a global project rather than just completing assignments.
The Envoy Model scaled better than projected. We expected to need significant central team oversight for each campus celebration. In practice, once Envoys received the toolkit and were paired with mentors and faculty, they operated with high autonomy. Several Envoys independently created meta page and birthday content and social media campaigns, Events that we had not specifically requested. This taught us that clear toolkits and accountability structures unlock initiative rather than just compliance.
Not all campuses delivered documentation at the same standard. Some Envoys completed Meta-Wiki pages and Diff posts promptly, while others required multiple follow-ups. We learned that the documentation checklist needs to include specific deadlines tied to reimbursement release, not just a general instruction to "complete after the event."
Key learning: Celebrations embedded inside structured pipelines produce better outcomes than standalone events, but the operational backend (documentation deadlines, financial accountability, single-point contacts) needs to be as structured as the event format itself. We are incorporating all of these learnings into the Envoy Playbook and WikiClub tech for future cohorts.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
We have already shared our learnings through multiple channels and have additional plans in progress.
Already completed:
Five Diff blog posts were published documenting the project methodology, campus stories, and the broader Road to Wiki pipeline. The main celebration post (published April 2026) covers the Envoy Model, campus execution, and results across all 6+ campuses: [29]
Additional Diff posts were published for SHUATS Prayagraj (February 2026), UIT Prayagraj (January 2026), and the Road to Wiki pipeline story (March 2026), making the full methodology publicly available to other Wikimedia communities.
WikiClub Tech's work was featured in the February 2026 EduWiki Newsletter, reaching the global Wikimedia education community: [31]
Six Meta-Wiki event pages were created with detailed documentation of each campus celebration, serving as replicable templates for other communities planning similar events.
The WikiClub Tech Impact page on Meta-Wiki documents the full program model, metrics, and outcomes in a format accessible to any affiliate or user group: [32]'
Part 3: Metrics
7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 100 | 600 | Tracked via Envoy Tracking Sheet and post-event forms submitted by campus Envoys across 6+ campuses. Each Envoy submitted attendance counts through a standardized Google Form after their celebration. 600+ students participated across United University, UIT, SHUATS (Prayagraj), Garden City University (Bangalore), NMAMIT (Mangalore), and Manipal University Jaipur. |
| Number of editors | 20 | 25 | Tracked via WikiClub Tech Dev Circle roster and Phabricator task assignments. This includes Cohort 1 graduates who are now active Dev Circle 2.0 mentors contributing to MediaWiki Core, Codex, WikiLambda, Huggle, and Parsoid, plus Envoys and mentors who created and edited Meta-Wiki event pages, Diff blog posts, and Wikimedia Commons uploads as part of the birthday celebration documentation. Original target was 20. Achieved 25 active editors across Wikimedia projects. |
| Number of organizers | 8 | 18 | 6 campus Envoys (one per campus), 6 campus mentors (paired with each Envoy), and 6 faculty coordinators. Each campus operated with a three-layer structure: Envoy (event lead), Mentor (technical support), and Faculty (institutional backing). |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 6 | 10 | |
| Wikimedia Commons | 40 | ||
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. State the total amount spent in your Indian Rupees. (required)
182180
11. State the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
1928.03
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Upload the financial report
12.1. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the project? (required)
No
13.1. Amount of unspent funds.
N/A
13.2. Explain the reason for unspent funds.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14. Are you in compliance with all applicable terms, laws and regulations as outlined in the project agreement? Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)