Wikimedia Thailand/WikiGap: Girls in Digital World

The event was organized on Thursday June 9, 2022 at Mahidol University International College in collaboration with UNESCO Bangkok and Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok. This is a subproject under ITU Internal day... This page is to document the event.

Schedule

Time	Content
14:00-14:05	Welcoming speech by MC
14:05-14:10	Speech by Dr Bunchongchit and MUIC Sigma Club's President
14:10-14:15	Speech by a representative from the Embassy of Sweden, Bangkok
14:15-14:20	Speech by a representative from Wikimedia Thailand
14:20-14:50	Introduction by UNESCO Bangkok Presentation about digital transformation and the engagement of women in the digital space Interactive discussion
14:50-15:15	Wikimedia Thailand's activity 1: The Wikipedia Adventure
15:15-15:30	Wikimedia Thailand's activity 2: Trivia Questions
15:30-15:45	Wikimedia Thailand's activity 3: The Wiki Game
15:45-15:50	Wrapping up and closing remarks by UNESCO Bangkok and Dr Bunchongchit

List of usernames

There are a total of 31 particpants. The list of the usernames of the participants are listed in the table below.

Usernames	Status
Usernames	The Wikipedia Adventure	Contributions
577isxiaomaomao	Not finished	-
AllNighters247	Not finished	-
Alpacasinorita	Finished	-
Alyzacadelina	Not finished	-
AN7252	Not finished	-
Arisara_ploy	Not finished	-
Burinint	Not finished	-
Chamonpaat	Finished	-
Cherlyn Sine	Finished	-
Coolcatjinniebunnie	Not finished	-
IcyBoiz	Not finished	-
Jitsopinkat	Not finished	-
Kars jojo	Not finished	-
Karunacchi	Not finished	-
Krits.w	Finished	-
Linda Lavigne Potter	Not finished	-
Llwdllpm	Not finished	-
LOKI568	Not finished	-
meener2547	Not finished	-
natthapong.kan	Not finished	-
Pakk11	Not finished	-
Pititaras	Not finished	-
PopKorn05	Not finished	-
ProductiveBird	Finished	-
PuttChoon	Not finished	-
Ssarrcha	Not finished	-
StillLuvMing	Not finished	-
tjjaycollector	Finished	-
Vigu21	Not finished	-
xxary	Finished	-

Remarks: The participants who joined the sessions but did not fill in the evaluation form will not receive a certificate and any rewards from the activity.

Rewards and prizes

Rewards during the sessions

During the session, Wikimedia Thailand held two competitive activities: Trivia Questions and The Wiki Game. The winners of the activities are each given a water bottle by Wikimedia Thailand as a souvenir. A total of 7 participants won and received their souvenirs. Their usernames are Karunacchi, AN7252, Burinint, IcyBoiz, AllNighters247, Pititaras, and xxary.

Trivia Qustions

Trivia Questions was an activity asking customized questions regarding women, women's right, Wikimedia Thailand, and Wikigap to the participants. There were 9 multiple choice questions employed using Kahoot! platform. The participants who correctly answer a question quicker will receive more score from the question. Of 34 participants playing, top three participants were awarded by Wikimedia Thailand. The usernames of the winners are as follow.

The Wiki Game

The Wiki Game is a game which the participants need to click the internal links within a Wikipedia article from the start page to the end page. Six rounds of the game were launched. The usernames of the winners of each round are as below.

Round 1: From UNESCO to Women's right

IcyBoiz

Round 2: From UNESCO to Women's right

Round 3: From UNESCO to Women's right

Round 4: From Government of Sweden to Feminism

Round 5: From Nakhon Pathom province to Sexism

There was no winner in this round.

Round 6:From Cyberbullying to Gender equality

Remarks: Three rounds of UNESCO to Women's right were launched to demonstrate the players how to play and let them try to play.

Certificate

The participants will all receive a certificate with the signatures of UNESCO Bangkok, International Telecommunication Union, and Wikimedia Thailand.

Souvenirs

The participants with at least 2,000-byte contributions to either creating or editing Wikipedia articles will receive some souvenirs from Wikimedia Thailand. The examples are an umbrella, a flask, a T-shirt, etc.

Prizes

Top three contributors with at least 2,000-byte contributions to either creating or editing Wikipedia articles will receive prize money from MUIC Sigma Club as follow.

First prize = 2,000฿
Second prize = 1,500฿
Third prize = 1,000฿

Conclusion

There were 37 participants in the Zoom session, comprising 15 female and 22 male undergraduate students. Of 37 students, 29 students were from Dr. Banchongchit's class and 8 students pre-registered to join the session.

Participants and organizers of the event were invited by ITU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific to participate in the Girls in ICT Day Thailand 2022 Closing Ceremony on 6 July 2022, at the United Nations Conference Center. Five representatives, comprised of four participants and one organizer, attended the event.

Presentation at UNESCO's regional meeting

Representatives from Wikimedia Thailand were invited to UNESCO's regional meeting titled "Bridging digital divides and empowering youth and educators with digital competencies in the Asia-Pacific", at Pullman Bangkok King Power, Bangkok, 7-8 November 2022. In the Session "Youth engagement and joint effort for MIL education in Southeast Asian countries", a youth representative gave a presentation titled Strengthening Tech Skills with WikiGap: Girls in Digital World and participated in the panel discussion. Transcripts of the presentation and panel discussion are below.

Presentation

Ladies and gentlemen, truly grateful for the opportunity to speak here today. I have been a part of the organizing team for WikiGap: Girls in Digital World that was held on the 9th of June at my college, on the occasion of Girls in ICT Day. The event was a collaboration between UNESCO Bangkok, the Embassy of Sweden, Bangkok, Wikimedia Thailand and MUIC Sigma Club. I represent Wikimedia Thailand and Sigma club today to share my experiences in the event.

In Sigma club, we promote critical reading, writing and analysis amongst students at MUIC. For the past few terms, we have been hosting a writing activity called “Sigma Writes”, which is a writing competition that serves as a platform for our members to share their knowledge, ideas and interests in the form of writing. We appreciate and aim to achieve all forms of diversity in the works of our members. Our efforts have been considerably strengthened by the collaboration with Wikimedia Thailand. Together with UNESCO Bangkok, the embassy of Sweden, Bangkok and ITU, we organized a Wikipedia training workshop to strengthen the information literacy and technical capabilities of our members to participate in the WikiGap campaign, an edit-a-thon on Wikipedia. This episode of the campaign, WikiGap: Girls in Digital World, serves as a small yet important step in closing the gender gap.

While being involved in Wikipedia writing and editing, we are aware that the digital divide is of significance on Wikipedia. For instance, the gender bias is quite apparent both in the content and the participation, whereby only 19% of 1.5 million biographical articles in 2021 were about women and the majority of Wikipedia editors are male. This causes the content to not be representative of our population. With this being said, it is valuable for us to be and continue to be a part of this small step in addressing these gaps and biases. We are grateful to all our participants, organizers, sponsors for taking part in this journey, with an aspiration towards a diverse and inclusive community of knowledge sharing in the digital world.

Panel discussion

The Wikimedia Movement aims to provide free access to the sum of all human knowledge. What is the greatest barrier in doing so and what is the role of your group in overcoming the barrier?

Firstly, yes, there are barriers/divides to be overcome to pursue our vision. In the past, the most prominent barrier has been the limited access to the right infrastructures - hardwares and internet services - due to socioeconomial and geographical divides, leading to unequal access to information and resources. However, today, this problem has tremendously been downscaled with advancements in technology.

What we now see as a very prominent divide is rather the language barrier. We see that the English Wikipedia is full of content, has great coverage, of high quality and quantity. However, many Thais, as well as people all around the world, are not able to benefit from this availability of resources, due to the language barrier.

So, what are our roles? Since inception, and for the past two decades, Wikimedia Thailand and the Thai wikimedia community has dedicated the majority of their efforts to translating articles, from English and other languages to Thai. The Thai wikipedia is now the most visited Wikipedia in Thailand, and sometimes, even in Laos. Nevertheless, this manual translation is hard work for our community, and with a limited number of writers and editors, we still have a long way to catch up with the growth of English wikipedia articles. Therefore, our efforts have also been put into the expansion of this community of producers or providers of information to meet the demand of the consumers.

You mentioned earlier that there exists a few gaps/biases in the content of Wikipedia. How are gaps in the physical world reflected or exacerbated in the digital world, and how do you overcome them?

Yes, there are gaps and biases causing limitations in the content of Wikipedia. This is simply because the content on Wikipedia is collaboratively built by humans, and for the most part, from the interests of the writers. However, the demography of our writers, whether its age, gender, race and so on are not representative of our whole society. Even more so, most of the content are created by a small group of writers - similarly to social media platforms whereby most of the content are created by a small group of internet users.

We have been putting our efforts into addressing both the barrier to access and the limitations in content. For instance, on the occasion of Girls in ICT day, we launched campaigns with an objective of bridging the gender gap. We encourage underrepresented groups to become Wikipedia editors and promote contents on women biography, with an aim of improving both the quality of content, by reducing the gaps and biases, and the quantity of content.

Through existing and future collaborative efforts, we can reduce the knowledge divide and pursue the rights to knowledge for all.

Sponsorship

MUIC Sigma Club
sigmadomain.wordpress.com
Prize money

Organized by

Wikimedia Thailand Facebook

UNESCO Bangkok Website

ITU Website

Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok
Embassy of Sweden, Bangkok Facebook

Main coordinator: Tanapatjms
Advisers: Myesd, U6181299, and Karto1
Supporting team: Taweetham, Teetee_taw, 2ndoct, and Athikhun.suw