Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Wikimedia Conference in democratic republic of congo

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Comments and Questions from SMalik (WMF)[edit]

Hi Mbunzama, thank you so much for submitting your proposal. It is incredibly exciting to see your plans, as this will be our first rapid grant from the DRC. I hope this will be the beginning of continued events for the DRC and we are happy to help aid you in the process.
There are a couple of questions and clarifications that I would like to ask to help better understand your project and potentially assist you in your project goals.

Conference Agenda[edit]

  1. Can you elaborate more on the wiki courses and leadership programs you will be using in your activities?
    The wiki courses will give a global overview to participants in the conference on the wiki, the historic of wiki, the importance, how to use wiki and how they can become good wiki editors and bring positive contributions, etc. The leadership course will give them necessary skills and make them able to lead a wikimedia commmunity in their specific regions and communities,finally to create a strong wikimedia community in the democratic republic of Congo.
  2. Do you have links to the media and/or ads that you'll be using to promote the conference?
    Once, the project is accepted. We will spread out the information about the event through TV, radio, face-to-face mobilization and develop a website, social media page with the event and the data, venue and other ads materials will help us to reach a larger audience of people.
  3. What wiki-related experience do the people on your training team have? Could you list their usernames or have them endorse this project proposal?
    The training team has good software development skills and we worked together since 2015 to train people in IT and software development programs in Democratic republic of Congo. Some of our team members are active leadership trainers to local Open street map community and other are active in Humanitarian Open streetmap. However, there's not a Wikimedia community in the democratic republic of Congo. Our project is a wikimedia community cultivation.
  4. Do you have a preliminary program for the conference (list of activities, how long you'll spend on each activity)
    Yes, we have a preliminary program for the conference.
    July 11, 2017 : Meeting of conference committee
    July 15, 2017 : Call for participation open
    July 23, 2017 : Selection of participants
    July 27, 2017 : Conference Kick off
    08:00 - 18:00
    - Registration
    - Panel discussion on WIKIMEDIA
    - Workshop on Wiki Editor with participants
    - Leadership and Networking building courses
    - Evaluation of participants
    July 28, 2017
    08:00- 18:00
    - Wiki edition competition
    - Training on Wiki Editor
    - Discussions and presentation on WIKI role to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in DRCONGO
    - Training and capacity development on building a Wiki community
    - Evaluation of participants
    - END OF CONFERENCE
    AUGUST 4, 2017
    - Final report sent to grant donors

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mbunzama (talk) 12:41, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Budget[edit]

  1. Suggestion - you might want to check with your venue location and see if they'd be interested in having a partnership with you usergroup. If you plan on having more events, they might be able to offer you a discounted rate.
    Exactly there is a small discount for the room but it requires that we pay the room before July 14, 2017, in this case we will pay $ 180 per day instead of $ 200.
  2. We do not typically pay per diems, is there a reason for this need?
    In fact, it is not really a per diem but rather is a lump sum that will allow them to cover the local transport costs during the days of the conference and during the conference preparation.
  3. Can you elaborate more on the administrative and "other" costs?
    According to Congolese law before organizing such a conference, we should pay to have authorizations from the authorities, the fee for these licenses for a conference of more than 50 people is valued at $ 50. Other is the cost that we will use for face-to-face mobilization, Ads in local media to inform people about the event. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mbunzama (talk) 12:41, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]


As I said before, I am very excited to see your project grow and be executed. Looking forward to your responses and helping you move forward. Let me know if you have any questions yourself.

Best, --SMalik (WMF) (talk) 22:21, 27 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mbunzama: Hi Narcisse. In order to fund this proposal, it's important that the sessions you've noted for capacity development on building a Wiki community, training editors, and the panel discussion on Wikimedia projects are being led by individuals with a nontrivial degree of on-wiki experience. It's great to see there are many people involved who have more general backgrounds in IT and open-source projects, but I am concerned about your ability to achieve your goals (specifically, in recruiting new editors and providing them with appropriate training) if there aren't any conference leaders or session leaders who have strong experience contributing to Wikimedia projects. You've said that there isn't a Wikimedia community in the DRC; this is not a problem with the grant proposal, and I agree that this conference could be a good way to begin to develop a community of contributors. But based on what you want to do, it's important that individuals with on-wiki experience are involved. If you need help identifying such individuals, we can help you reach out to user groups and individuals who might be able to become involved or help advise you. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mbunzama: Hi Narcisse. I haven't heard from you in a few weeks, so I'm going to place this grant back into draft status given the concerns I've expressed above. You are welcome to contact us anytime if you need help finding contributors to help recruit and conduct training as planned in this proposal, or move this request back to proposed once you have identified individuals with the right experience for these tasks. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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