Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Annual plan of the Centre for Internet and Society Access to Knowledge/Final Report

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Final Learning Report

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 2023-08-30T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Final

Application Midpoint Learning Report

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General information[edit]

This form is for organizations, groups, or individuals receiving Wikimedia Community Funds or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their final results.

  • Name of Organization: The Centre for Internet and Society
  • Title of Proposal: Annual plan of the Centre for Internet and Society Access to Knowledge
  • Amount awarded: 131379.05 USD, 9915400 INR
  • Amount spent: 7855863.54 INR

Part 1 Understanding your work[edit]

1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.

During the proposal period 2022-23, the A2K team continued to focus on engaging with partner organisations and Wikimedia communities to further digitisation and relicensing efforts and enrich content on Wikimedia projects and capacity building across Wikimedia communities. The A2K team has undergone a major period of transition and institutional difficulties during this grant period. The team has started building internal capacity and building upon institutional partnerships to work on planned activities and programs.

A2K continued to collaborate with individuals and institutions, who created knowledge repositories, to make them accessible through relicensing and digitisation efforts. We have supported Wikisource communities across Indic languages through contests and skill-building activities. Projects that were developed during 2022-23 hold significance like the digitisation of magazines with rich archival value (like O Bharat, ACPR) and the digitising of rare old books (for example Partnerships with Marathi literary institutions in Hyderabad). A2K expanded its current activities with Wikibase projects. A2K worked to support skill-building and content development activities in Indian language Wikisource projects (Hindi and Gujarati Wikisource skill building) and conducted Indic Wikisource proofread-a-thons which involved over 10 Wikisource communities. A2K made efforts to collaborate with thematic interest groups within and outside the Wikimedia community and GLAM organisations to enrich content on Wikimedia projects.

A2K is experimenting with the Indian Community Capacity Development program to enhance capacities within Indic Wikimedia communities. (Like Wikidata Training Sessions for the Santali Community) A2K designed WikiConverse India and Indic Community Monthly Engagement Calls aimed to improve collaboration among the Wikimedia community members and leaders in South Asia and to provide a platform to enhance engagement with global movement.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?

A2K is trying to demonstrate successful examples of significant relicensing partnerships, including those with Sayajirao Gaekwad Research & Training Organisation and the Academy of Comparative Philosophy and Religion, to drive relicensing and digitisation endeavours. The approach of investing in partners to develop sustainable role models, which in turn attracted new organisations with similar missions, proved to be effective in scaling up. A2K's Senior Program Officer delivered talks at publishers' and writers' gatherings, promoting relicensing. Positive media coverage in Goa and Maharashtra amplified the momentum for digitising and relicensing.

Creating training sessions for underrepresented communities involving skilled volunteers encouraged cross-community collaboration and leadership as in Wikidata Training Sessions for the Santali Community. Indic community engagement calls and WikiConverse calls advanced community participation and leadership.

At the national level, the Wikisource Proofread-a-thons are bringing together various Indian language Wikisource communities. This platform allows for the exchange of diverse priorities and approaches. This helped a few Wikisource communities to come up with a quality assessment process for their community.

A2K's collaboration with thematic organisations, focusing on areas like rivers and birds, fostered content growth. These organisations and experts in their fields acknowledged Wikimedia projects as important resources for archiving and further consolidated the ongoing partnership with A2K. A2K experimented with collaborative partnership outreach with the West Bengal User Group, Wikimedia Deutschland, and Wikimedia France to build a network of partnerships in digitisation, GLAM, and Wikibase. This model proved to be feasible and continues to be expanded. The technical expertise of partners was complimentary with the organisational and facilitation inputs from A2K, thus creating mutually beneficial programs.

3. Would you say that your project had any innovations? Are there things that you did very differently than you have seen them done by others?

A2K formed partnerships with a diverse set of organizations, including research institutes and rural skill development groups, to digitize public domain and relicensed content for Wikimedia Commons.

A2K devised and refined a decentralised digitisation approach that caters to the diverse needs and focuses of various organisations. This allowed us to collaborate with a rural pedagogic institute, an urban library network, several thematic archives and an educational institution on digitisation projects tailored to their respective niches. This deepened their work and enhanced their digitisation and Wikimedia skills and capacities. Consequently, when A2K faced organisational challenges and couldn't support the projects for a few months during the last program year, these partners continued their activities independently. The decentralised nature of these activities is the right step in building an independent future of digitisation activities.

A2K initiated GLAM and digitisation projects in remote areas of the northeast region of India, where Wikimedia communities are yet to be formed. The cultural, linguistic and regional knowledge of this area remains underrepresented on Wikimedia projects. Partners in this region operate within remote and hilly areas, facing infrastructural challenges. A2K adapted various processes to align with their unique realities and needs.

4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.

Participants in a session during Hindi Wikisource Community skill-building workshop

Various language communities like Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, and Santali participated in activities conducted by A2K. Announcements were made on the India mailing list and local mailing lists to inform communities about these activities. We also used the Village Pumps of Indic language Wikimedia projects to notify communities regarding the activities.

A2K collaborated with the West Bengal Wikimedians User Group, Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia France, and Commons Photographers User Group as part of various projects and activities like the Women's Month Datathon on Commons, expanding projects like Lingua Libre and Wikibase in India, etc. We collaborated with the Wikimedians of the Santali Language User Group for a skill-building workshop for the Santali Wikimedia Community.

Additionally, A2K initiated a series of Advanced Wikisource Skill Development Trainings in partnership with various communities. One instance of this was the Wikisource Skill Development Training for the Hindi Wikisource Community, where the community also served as a co-host for the event. In the context of the Indic Proofread-a-thon, languages such as Assamese, Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu collaborated together.

A2K also provided support to the Punjabi Community to conduct a 15-day Punjabi Wikisource Community Proofread-a-thon aimed at assisting communities in organising their own proofread-a-thons.

ACPR & CIS-A2K Digitisation Project at Belagavi, India

5. Documentation of your impact. Please use the two spaces below to share files and links that help tell your story and impact. This can be documentation that shows your results through testimonies, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, etc.) social media posts, dashboards, etc.

  • Upload Documents and Files
  • Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

6. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.

Our efforts during the Fund period have helped to...
A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups 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 Strongly agree
G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement. Strongly agree

7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?

View of Anthropological Museum at Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Cherrapunji. A2K made progress in setting up partnership in this underrepresented region of India by collaborating with Institutional partners.

A2K worked closely with the partners and the communities in the underrepresented area to build content on topics like heritage, local history, culture biodiversity and literary history. We developed projects and communities from scratch in the North East region of India. The beginning was achieved in the area of relicensing and digitisation of content related to the Goa Freedom Struggle and valuable literature in the Konkani language. This has inspired many underrepresented groups and institutions active in similar sectors to initiate the dialogue on content creation with A2K members and the Wikimedia community.

Part 2: Your main learning[edit]

8. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?

  • Wikimedian in Residence: Regarding Wikimedian in Residence, we tried to identify volunteers in thematic organisations for WiR roles but faced challenges due to the part-time nature of the work and candidates' reluctance to work in rural or remote areas.
  • Post-pandemic event organisation and collaboration: There's increased enthusiasm among the community and partners for hybrid work modes, blending in-person and online activities for enhanced effectiveness and productivity. We held online demonstrations for digitisation and post-processing training and Zoom recordings are now commonly utilised for review and reference.
  • Partnerships and synergy: We facilitated discussions among partners on process-related topics and highlighted successful projects in other parts of the country. We realised that such interactions foster a sense of belonging to the broader movement, enable networking among like-minded institutions and initiate policy-level thought processes.
  • Sustainability: A2K encountered challenges, such as institutional issues, regulatory concerns and internal transitions in the last program year. These experiences have offered insights into sustainability, which we actively explore to support user groups and communities better.
  • A2K team was not able to work on learning projects like “Wiki editing, academics and personality”, “Learning and storytelling”, and “Topics of concern & impact” that we embarked on during the proposal.

9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?

  • During the last quarter of the program year, A2K unexpectedly encountered institutional difficulties. This period coincided with WikiConference India 2023, which infused energy into the community and provided an opportune moment. This situation presented a distinctive challenge and opportunity to the team. To address this, A2K initiated the Indic Community Monthly Engagement Call and WikiConverse India, aiming to capture community interest, facilitate reconnection and foster global engagement. Additionally, A2K developed cost-effective online community-building programs.
  • We initially approached the Sayajirao Gaekwad Research Centre to mediate our access to old publications from Baroda University. Progress was slow in the following months. However, after multiple meetings, the research centre recognised the potential of Wiki projects and began releasing their publications. The first batch of 60 publications is now available in the Sayajirao Gaekwad Archive.
  • Our partner in Meghalaya, the Jeebon Roy Memorial Trust, began digitisation independently with online training and scanner support. Challenges in retaining skilled personnel delayed identifying a Wikimedian in Residence. Execution was hindered due to unforeseen environmental and infrastructural challenges in this remote region.
  • The International Mother Language Day 2023 Datathon turned into an unexpected triumph, with highly active community participation resulting in around 53,000 edits.

10. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?

Image of Mula Mutha river confluence captured and added to Commons for "Mula Mutha Nadi Darshan 2023."

Drawing from the lessons and insights gained from our past grants, A2K aims to prioritize investment in sustainability, scaling up successful programs, enhancing collaboration, fostering diversity, and expanding capacity-building.

A2K is actively working to enhance sustainability across the program and partnerships. Additionally, we seek to explore avenues of support for the sustainability of affiliate work and the community. This involves building a long-term program, investigating opportunities for multi-year funding, building a sustainable team, collaborating with affiliates while forging external partnerships, nurturing cross-community connections, and supporting affiliates and community leadership in strengthening their capacities.

We are working towards scaling up our successful programs and partnership initiatives by building a network of community leaders, interested affiliates, and like-minded organisations. We would also approach an existing network of organisations which could potentially provide scaling opportunities.

A2K would continue conscious work on enhancing cross-community collaboration in various linguistic, project-based and thematic communities and user groups in South Asia. To continue this effort, A2K needs to build and explore ways to work with the South Asian communities and affiliates outside India.

11. If you were sitting with a friend to tell them one thing about your work during this fund, what would it be (think of inspiring or fascinating moments, tough challenges, interesting anecdotes, or anything that feels important to you)?

Implementing programs in remote areas can present numerous unforeseen challenges. We encountered such issues in India's North East region. Natural calamities and internet shutdowns forced us to extend timelines. Participants often travel great distances for workshops, with logistics consuming more time and energy than actual work. Establishing a community in such places demands patience and enthusiasm.

Old libraries are seeking A2K's assistance in digitising rare books. During a visit to a 125-year-old library, we discovered that many reference books had not been borrowed for over 20 years – a disheartening situation. However, for digitisation, the books' good condition due to minimal handling is a positive aspect.

12. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).

  • Upload Documents and Files
  • Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
  • * Wikidata Online Training Session Presentations -

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_Online_Training_Session_-_Introduction_%26_Module_1.pdf https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_Online_Training_Session_-_Module_2.pdf https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santali_community_Wikidata_Training_Session_-_Module_3.pdf https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santali_Community_Wikidata_Training_Sessions_4th_Session.pdf

Part 3: Metrics[edit]

13a. Open and additional metrics data

Open Metrics
Open Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants in Wikisource proofread-a-thon Total number of participants in Wikisource proofread-a-thon (count of participants in proofread-a-thon events) 150 163 Counted participants of two Indic Wikisource contests and this is a cumulative figure. Using Indic Wikisource Contest tool and Wikisource Contests tool
Total number of language communities served Total number of language communities served. For example if A2K supports Assamese, Marathi community and conducts/supports to conduct an event for them, the count will be two. However, individual participation will not be counted in the community metric. To clarify, if six Wikimedians from six language communities participate in an skill-development event, that would not be counted in this metric. Community here means existing Wikimedia community. 6 9 A2K supported Gujarati, Tulu, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Santali, Assamese, Telugu, and Urdu language communities, especially Wikisource communities in these languages. After going through community requirements, A2K considered communities participating actively in contests, edit-a-thons, and related skill-building activities into these metrics. Calculated from the A2K Events page
Total number of supports provided on the request page Total number of supports provided on the request page. This includes both individual and group support. This does not include internet support requests. We are not counting internet support, because we get many internet support request in a year, and counting that count would not help in the metric. 12 14 This includes 6 internet supports, 7 Event requests, and 1 Non-financial request. The A2K team paused the request page due to regulatory concerns. Calculated from Metrics page
Total number of geographical footprints Unique footprints across India. Events organised in cities/towns in different regions in India. This will be city/town level. If multiple events are organised in Pune, it will be counted once only. The metric will be reported both as a number and data visualisation (map). 10 14 Events were organised in 5 states of India. The cities/towns include - Ahmedabad, Pune, Pabal, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Aurangabad, Belagavi, Panaji, Madgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Shillong, Cherrapunji. From A2K Events
Total number of blog posts Total number of blog posts published on Diff sharing learning etc. This does not include event announcement. 10 2 A2K published two blogs about the GLAM partnership with ACPR organisation in Karnataka, and the Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949 Manually counted the blogs from our documentation
Additional Metrics
Additional Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities Retention after 7 days of an event (as suggested on the guide) 280 130 Due to the transition of one of the team members, it became difficult for A2K to capture these metrics for one of the major engagement activity happened in 2023. Average number of active editors who participate in the activities. We are manually tracking these members.
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities Number of organisers active on Wikimedia and continue to collaborate after activities 30 21 The members of the partner organisations, GLAM institutions and community mobilisers facilitated the programs. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability Partnerships with like-minded institutions 8 9 Major partnerships include - Sayajirao Gaekwad Research Organisation, Nayakwadi Trust, Konkani language institutions, Hyderabad libraries, SRT research institute, Meghalaya partners, ACPR, Pune River Revival and WMDE Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors Total number of unique feedback collected on different program 120 4 A2K could not roll out the intended feedback program that we planned to do on the scale of Indic language Wikimedias. Based on the Google Forms data
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications Number of digital footprints on social media posts, as per their analytics 4000 1300 This is the number of people who liked and visited our Facebook page dedicated to promoting our activities and campaigns. This figure is cumulative from overall analytics. Facebook page Analytics
Number of activities developed Number of events, programs, activities conducted 20 30 This number includes events, programs and activities like Digitization programs, Training sessions for partner organizations, digitization training sessions, awareness programs for partners, National level edit-a-thons, proof-readathons, data-thons, skill-building activities, community engagement calls, and photo contests. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of volunteer hours N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

13b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants Total number of participants— New participants + returning participants in different programs. The count will be unique in a program event. For example if User:Example attends two events in a program year, the count will be one. 2000 359 The number of participants in Wikisource proofread-a-thons is not included in this number as it is reported in one of the main open metrics Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of editors Number of editors with a Wikimedia account, and at least five edits. This does not include partners, content donors, institution faculty who may not edit directly. We'll get this metric using tools like Outreach Dashboard, event metrics etc. 1000 214 The Wikimedians engaged in edit-a-thons, proofread-a-thons, skill-building workshops and digitisation programs. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of organizers Number of trainers + number of institutional lead (such as professor, museum curator) who are directly getting involved in project planning and execution. This does not include the count of CIS-A2K team member. 52 54 These organisers include institutional members, community facilitators, resource persons and volunteers involved in the implementation of online as well as offline programs. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Wikimedia Commons Number of images uploaded 1000 958 This includes PDF files of the digitised books, photos from GLAM projects and the Photography campaign on Rivers. Tracked using categories on Commons for separate projects
Wikisource Total number of pages proofread in the proofread-a-thon events. A few communities prefer not to score or count "number of validated pages", similarly we are mentioning only proofread pages. Necessary attempts will be made to ensure quality proofreading. 10000 42957 Contributions from the proof-readathon Wikisource contest tool
Wikisource Number of books relicensed + Number of books scanned and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons (200+350) 550 1043 A total of 419 books were relicensed and 624 books were digitised and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. Tracked manually from the project documentation and categories in Wikimedia Commons.
Wikipedia Number of Wikipedia articles (in Indian language) created or improved. 1000 100 N/A Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Wikidata Number of edits during events, or as a result of collaboration with partners. A label, description edit/addition or data edit/addition will be counted as one edit, as per Wikidata log. Relevant noticeboards such as WikiProject India will be informed about the initiatives. 18000 92778 38,239 depicts added and updated under Womens' Month data-thon on Commons, 54,499 under International Mother Language Day Datathon, and 40 from Improve-a-thon Tracked using categories and quarries

14. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?

No

15. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future.

N/A

16. Use this space to link or upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., dashboards, surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, etc).

  • Upload Documents and Files
  • Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships[edit]

17. Organizational Capacity

Organizational capacity dimension
A. Financial capacity and management This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
B. Conflict management or transformation This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
C. Leadership (i.e growing in potential leaders, leadership that fit organizational needs and values) This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
D. Partnership building This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
E. Strategic planning This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
F. Program design, implementation, and management This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
G. Scoping and testing new approaches, innovation This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer) This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers) This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
J. Governance This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
K. Communications, marketing, and social media This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
M. On-wiki technical skills This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
N. Accessing and using data This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
O. Evaluating and learning from our work This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
P. Communicating and sharing what we learn with our peers and other stakeholders This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
N/A
N/A

17a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Peer to peer learning with other community members in conferences/events, Peer to peer learning with other community members in community/ies of practice* (structured and continuous learning and sharing spaces), Peer to peer learning with other community members (but that is not continuous or structured)

17b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Lack of staff time to participate in capacity building/training, Lack of training that fits contextual needs and interests

18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?

  • CIS-A2K has had a difficult time during the last programmatic period. Staff members of the A2K team had taken too much work on individual shoulders so as to overcome the lag and loss of enthusiasm that we saw during the pandemic.
  • As an organisation, CIS is constantly trying to improve and adapt to the realities (difficulties of running a community-facing program) of the A2K program. There are provisions made such as dedicated time allotment of the ED to work and contribute to the A2K program.
Sorting of rare and public domain books in Marathi Granth Sangrahalay, Hyderabad

19. Partnerships over the funding period.

Over the fund period...
A. We built strategic partnerships with other institutions or groups that will help us grow in the medium term (3 year time frame) Strongly agree
B. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to bring in more contributors from underrepresented groups Agree
C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups Strongly agree

19a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Permanent staff outreach, Staff hired through the fund, Partners proactive interest

19b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Difficulties specific to our context that hindered partnerships, Lack of staff capacity to respond to partners interested in working with us, Limited funding period

20. Please share your learning about strategies to build partnerships with other institutions and groups and any other learning about working with partners?

Our focus on partnerships with organisations having reliable knowledge repositories proved to be successful in bringing diverse content on Wikimedia projects. The collaborations were mutually beneficial as these partners also envisioned the accessibility of these resources. We tried to develop organic processes to sustain the programs in the long term.

We realised the importance of regularity in activities and review sessions with the partners. The issues get resolved in time due to these frequent meetings. Some of the partners have the potential to engage in policy deliberations on open content and access to knowledge. We need to develop the proper platforms to accelerate this dialogue.

Part 5: Sense of belonging and collaboration[edit]

21. What would it mean for your organization to feel a sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement?

  • The Access to Knowledge team has been an important catalyst in the growth of the free knowledge movement in general and Wikimedia movement in particular across the Indic communities. A2K team feels that its efforts are validated when the Wikimedians/Wiki projects that it has helped in mentoring/incubating flourish and gain recognition at a global level. The feeling is also reciprocated when the Wikimedians acknowledge the contributions of the A2K team in providing support to the free knowledge movement.
  • For A2K to be an active part of the Wikimedia movement it needs to be acknowledged as an equal partner not only in community programs and implementation activities but also strategic conversations such as governance and funds distribution. The unique/difficult position of a movement partner is not always conducive to the growth of the organisation and thus creates barriers to enhance the sense of belonging.

22. How has your (for individual grantees) or your group/organization’s (for organizational grantees) sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?

Somewhat increased

23. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.

  • It has happened because of the policy shift in the WMF as per our observation. The WMF has been consistently and intentionally trying to involve all parties including the movement partners for suggestions and way forward
  • The large gatherings are still controlled (not in an authoritarian way) by bigger affiliates around programs, speakers and design; this has made organisations like CIS-A2K take part as observers and not as contributors.
Bubble chart showing presence of languages of Indian filmi songs on Wikidata (after WD10 datathon)

24. How has your group/organization’s sense of personal investment in the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?

Increased significantly

25. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.

  • Over time, the A2K team has significantly contributed to The Centre for Internet and Society's sustainability. This has influenced institutional objectives, facilitated talent development, and identified growth areas for the organization.
  • Initially, Indian languages and knowledge production were not prioritized by educational institutions and government organizations when A2K began operating in CIS. However, we've driven the idea and momentum that open access knowledge in local languages is essential for the incoming higher education population in the Indian subcontinent.
  • A2K's ongoing GLAM sector efforts have positively transformed perspectives on knowledge access and dissemination in multiple regions while serving as learning opportunities for the Wikimedia community.

26. Are there other movements besides the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement that play a central role in your motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects? (for example, Black Lives Matter, Feminist movement, Climate Justice, or other activism spaces) If so, please describe it below.

Following movement and initiatives play a central role in shaping the strategy of CIS:

  • Intellectual property laws and WIPO proceedings
  • Freedom of speech
  • Accessibility and inclusivity
  • Feminist infrastructure for a safe internet
  • Digital cultures and pedagogic interventions

Supporting Peer Learning and Collaboration[edit]

We are interested in better supporting peer learning and collaboration in the movement.

27. Have you shared these results with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

Partially

27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?

We are sharing the learnings and lessons with community members and affiliates using platforms like capacity-building programs, regular newsletters and blogs.

28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?

We do this regularly (at least once a month)

29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?

  • This is not developed in a comprehensive manner. We share our learnings and insights when individuals/affiliates reach out to us with a specific query. The other way that our programmatic insights are shared with the larger movement is when we take part in movement-wide initiatives and our work is presented in these forums.
  • We have significantly improved our documentation and regularly contribute to diff and produce our newsletter that contains programmatic insights.
  • We have tried our best to reflect on our learning with the larger Wikimedia community including affiliates. We have organised a series of reflective and capacity-building sessions that provide the opportunity to share the results and challenges around our programs.

Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance[edit]

30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

7855863.54

31. Local currency type

INR

32. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

  • Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
  • Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
Final Financial report: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jheOPWnzfklqDyyJ3RbNOu2Wtp5zWpUbxdkPNqx_zK8/edit?usp=sharing

33. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.

N/A

34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?


34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.

INR 2,059,536.46

34b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?

B. Propose to use them to partially or fully fund a new/future grant request with PO approval

34c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.

N/A

35. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?


As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

36. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?

Yes

37. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.

Yes

38. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.

Concerted attempts to involve our organisation in strategic conversations from WMF’s side has built a sense of inclusive imagination and recognition of our work. On the other hand, most of the international conferences (Wikimedia Summit, Wikimania) have not offered a significant space to showcase the work of CIS-A2K. However established affiliates continue to hold key positions in deciding the program and flow in these events. Our outward and formal learning sessions aimed at sharing our work and learnings have not been consistent. Reduced staff capacity, limited appetite for learning sessions from communities, non availability of face to face events that can enthuse participants are all major reasons why our insights have not been shared well with the Indic communities. We are trying to address the challenges by organising events on a regular cadence, re-introducing the Train-the-Trainer program, supporting community events involving experienced Wikimedians and A2K members.

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