IIITH-OKI/Advance Train The Trainer 2025/Expression of Interest/Submitted/Gopala Krishna A

Basic Information

Wikimedia Username

• Gopala Krishna A

Wikimedia Project(s) you primarily contribute to

• Kannada Wikipedia
• Wikimedia Commons
• Tech and Product Part of Wikimedia Commons App
• Wikidata

Active in Wikimedia since (Year)

• 2014

Your Affiliate or Community Group (if any):

• Kannada Community

Languages you work with (on-wiki or off-wiki):

• Kannada

Have you participated in any Train the Trainer or similar Wikimedia training before? If yes, please mention the name of the event along with the year in which you participated

• Train The Trainer 2016
• Wiki Conference India 2016
• Wiki Graphics Bootcamp 2018
• Wiki Technical Training 2024

Are you currently involved in any leadership, facilitation, or mentoring roles within the Wikimedia movement? If yes, briefly describe the imitative and your involvement in it

• Yes. My primary leadership role is mobilizing a community of volunteer users, developers to build, improve, and maintain the Commons Android App. Separately, I also serve as a mentor, guiding new editors and contributors as they learn how to get involved with the Wikimedia movement.

Track Preference

Your preferred track during the workshop

• Track 1: Evaluation, Impact, and Data Storytelling

Which track are you most interested in and why?

• The Evaluation & Impact track aligns perfectly with my current responsibilities. While we currently use dashboards to monitor our campaigns, I believe there's a significant opportunity to better analyze our impact and communicate our results. I want to learn how to tell a compelling story with our data—not just for internal reporting but to shape future strategies and inspire others. I believe that by mastering the principles of Data Storytelling, we can go beyond basic metrics to showcase the true value of our work, which in turn can bring back veterans and attract new participants.

Tell us about one Wikimedia program, campaign, or initiative you’ve contributed to in a leadership role

• I served as a core team member for Wiki Conference India 2023 (WCI2023). My primary leadership roles were in Finance team, and other roles were in Operations team. The main purpose of my involvement was to ensure the event ran smoothly and within budget, creating a successful and engaging experience for attendees. Through this, I learned the importance of effective coordination and stakeholder management in large-scale events. Beyond WCI2023, I also lead community research into how Indian Wikimedians use Wikimedia apps, and I'm actively involved in improving the stability and features of the Commons Android App.

What skills or knowledge do you hope to gain from this training?

• From this training, I hope to master the art of data storytelling to better inform our community's work. My goal is to move beyond simple reporting and learn how to craft compelling narratives from our data. This knowledge will enable me to effectively showcase the impact of our campaigns, providing valuable insights that can shape future initiatives. This will not only make our work more effective but will also inspire new contributions and re-engage veteran members by demonstrating the tangible value of their efforts.

Based on your selected track, what is one challenge you have encountered in either evaluating Wikimedia programs or designing impactful projects? Please share your experience relevant to your chosen track.

• One of the main challenges I have encountered in evaluating Wikimedia programs is the difficulty in moving beyond simple, surface-level metrics. For example, in many of our campaigns, we primarily track outputs like the number of articles created, new editors recruited, or files uploaded. While these numbers are easy to collect and report on, they don't tell the full story.

• The real challenge is to measure the deeper outcomes and impact. For instance, how do we effectively measure the quality of new articles? How do we know if the new editors we recruit are retained and become long-term contributors? How can we quantify the actual social or educational impact of a campaign on a specific community? It is often difficult to establish a direct causal link between our efforts and the long-term, qualitative change we hope to achieve.

• This challenge has been particularly relevant in my work with the Commons Android App, where we can easily track uploads, but face a more complex task in understanding the app's true impact on user behavior and content quality. I hope to learn how to overcome this by developing skills in Data Storytelling to transform raw data into a narrative that demonstrates a program's true value, even when the most significant impacts are not easily quantifiable.

How do you plan to apply what you learn after the event?

1. Direct Application to Current Projects: I will immediately apply the new evaluation methods and data storytelling techniques to our ongoing community initiatives, particularly with the Commons Android App. I will start by shifting our focus from simply reporting on outputs (e.g., number of uploads) to analyzing outcomes (e.g., how the app is impacting the diversity and quality of content). I will use the principles of data storytelling to create a compelling narrative around our progress, which I can share with the developer community and other stakeholders to demonstrate impact and inspire continued collaboration.
2. Knowledge Sharing within the Community: I believe that the insights from this training will be valuable to a wider audience. I plan to organize and lead workshops, sessions for other Wikimedia leaders and contributors in my region. The goal will be to teach them the fundamentals of data-driven evaluation and storytelling, empowering them to better measure the success of their own programs and initiatives. I will also contribute a blog post or a case study to a relevant Wikimedia-wide platform to share my learnings and experience with the global community.
3. Long-Term Strategy and Mentorship: I will integrate the principles of data-driven decision-making into the long-term strategic planning for our community. Furthermore, as I mentor new editors and contributors, I will incorporate this knowledge into my mentorship approach, teaching them to think critically about the impact of their work and how to effectively communicate that impact to others.

(Optional) Are you open to mentorship (either receiving or offering it)?

• Yes. I am open to mentorship.