WikiConference India 2016/Scholarships

Hashtag: #WCI2016

Main page

Hackathon

Programs

Edit-a-thon

Press coverage

FAQ

Sitemap

WikiConference India 2016 (WCI 2016) is being held on 5,6,7 August 2016 in Landran (Mohali), Chandigarh, India. WCI 2016 Scholarships Program is offering a limited number of scholarships to cover the cost of selected individuals' travel, conference registration fee and accommodation.

Important dates

The anticipated timeline for the WCI 2016 Scholarship Program is as follows:

• Scholarship applications open: 11 May 2016 Done
• Deadline for applying for scholarships: 31 May 2016 23:59 UTC Done
• Applicants are notified about final decisions: by first week of July 2016 Done
• The final list of recipients will be announced: 16 July 2016 Done

Goals

• To make WCI 2016 a successful and productive conference, by promoting experience sharing among participants on both on-wiki and off-wiki topics
• To enrich the conference by enabling a diverse group of participants from across the Wikimedia movement to attend
• To facilitate the broader enrichment of Wikimedia communities, by having contributors share their WCI experiences and lessons learned with their home communities
• To enable new collaborations, creations, and improvements

Scholarship details

The scholarship for WWCI 2016 will cover the following expenses:

• Round trip travel
• Shared accommodation
• Conference registration fee

We expect to support at least 103 individuals.

Eligibility to apply

Any active contributor to a Wikimedia project, or Wikimedia volunteer in any other capacity, from the South Asian subcontinent, is considered eligible for a scholarship. As the program supports volunteer participation, individuals whose participation is tied only to paid work do not qualify for a scholarship.

Activity within the Wikimedia movement will be the main criteria for evaluation. Participation in non-Wikimedia free knowledge, free software, collaborative or educational initiatives is a plus but is no longer a requirement; individuals who solely contribute to such areas are no longer encouraged to apply.

Selection process

1. Phase 1 – Eligibility assessment: All application will be reviewed by the Scholarship Committee, with a score of zero (fail) or one (pass) awarded on an application-by-application basis.
2. Phase 2 – In-depth evaluation: All applications that pass Phase 1 will be reviewed in more detail by the Scholarship Committee, with a minimum of two reviewers per application. Each reviewer will independently examine and score each application against the Phase 2 selection criteria, to reach a final score for each application.
3. Phase 3 – Final approval for scholarships: There will be an average final score generated for each applicant based on the Phase 2 reviews. The final awarding of the scholarships will be to ensure diversity regarding gender, region, language and Wikimedia projects.
   • Scholarships will be allocated based on these subcategories -
     • Communities and Projects - Each language and Wikimedia project irrespective of its size will have three scholarships awarded. For technical involvement, six seats are assigned. 20 different language communities and five Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Commons and Tech) had these allocations.
     • General - This category will be open to all applicants after above community allocations are assigned.
     • Female Participation - To ensure diversity in gender, about one in three scholarships in both categories above will be awarded to female applicants.

Selection Criteria

Phase 1 - Eligibility assessment

Applications will fail Phase 1 if any of the following failing criteria apply:

1. The application entirely or primarily consists of content which is off-topic or abusive.
2. The applicant has failed to make a reasonable effort to answer the questions on the application form.
3. The candidate has been permanently blocked or globally banned in any Wikimedia projects and does not have significant contributions to other projects.
4. The applicant has failed to demonstrate any significant Wikimedia contributions or activities which may merit the awarding of a scholarship.
   • Examples of "significant Wikimedia contribution or activities" are as follows:
     • Active contributor to a Wikimedia project (e.g. Wikipedia, Commons or Wikisource), with at least 100 contributions (edits)
     • Mediawiki code contributor, gadget or other tool-builder for Wikimedia projects
     • Wikimedia CheckUser, Admin, Bureaucrat, Steward or OTRS volunteer (current or former)
     • Wikimedia Foundation Grantee or Researcher
     • Organizer of Wikimedia events (e.g. WLM, edit-a-thons)
     • A very solid history of contributions to other Open Source or Free Knowledge organizations that would warrant an exception to the above

Phase 2 - In-depth evaluation

Each reviewer will grade the applicants on a scale of 0-10 based on value addition regarding Collaboration, Leadership, Impact, and Potential. These will cover many aspects of one's activity as seen below:

• Contribution to Wikimedia projects
• Demonstrated collaborated activities online and offline on Wikimedia projects.
• Role within most active Wikimedia community (editor, sysop, bureaucrat, etc.,)
• Offline work related to Wikimedia projects, including contests, weekly collaborations, etc.
• Demonstration of blogs, reports, etc. that show valuable contribution back to the community.
• Role in organizing WCI 2016 and participation in WCI 2016 (paper, talk, workshop, hackathon, panel, discussion, etc.,)

The review team closely followed the universal best practices adopted in Wikimania Scholarships.

Decision

Scholarship decision for WCI 2016 participation has been finalized.

We received 450 applications among which 209 were shortlisted. Now, we have offered 103 scholarships covering 20 language communities and five different Wikimedia projects. Among them, 25 recipients have identified themselves as women. Each community and project was allocated at least three seats to ensure that we abide by our Code of Conduct guidelines for diversity and inclusion.

The recipients have been informed about the decision through email. Please check your email inbox (or even spam folder). It is likely that we may be able to offer some more scholarships when there is a vacancy, or additional funds are available. We will publish a final list of scholarship recipients here on 16th July 2016.

We wish that we could send every applicant to WikiConference India 2016, but we are only able to support a small percentage of those who applied. Given the high quality of applicants overall and the diversity and inclusion policy, sometimes even a strong application will not make it through, so please don’t let this discourage you from applying for future scholarships.

If you can make other arrangements to attend WikiConference India 2016, we strongly encourage you to do so! Conference registration and program details will be available soon. We also strongly encourage you to present a paper, workshop, poster, lightning talk or participate in any manner. Call for Participation is open now here.

We value your participation on Wikimedia's projects and encourage your future participation. If you need help finding out what you can do to contribute, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your interest in WCI 2016 and for your involvement in the Wikimedia movement.

Scholarship Team

• Biplab Anand (Nepali Wikimedia Community)
• Dineshkumar Ponnusamy (Tamil Wikimedia Community)
• Jim Carter (English Wikimedia Community)
• Parveer Grewal (Punjabi Wikimedia Community)
• Ravishankar A. (Tamil Wikimedia Community)
• Sailesh Patnaik (Odia Wikimedia Community)
• Satdeep Gill (Punjabi Wikimedia Community)
• Soni (English Wikimedia Community)
• Tito Dutta (English Wikimedia Community)
• Viswa Prabha (Malayalam Wikimedia Community)
• Yohannvt (Wikimedia India EC member)

Recipients

List of scholarship recipients who have accepted the offer (sorted by alphabetical order).

We have offered a total of 105 scholarships including travel support for four speakers.

1. 01tonythomas (Travel support for speaker)
2. Abha S Pradhan
3. abhinav619
4. Abhinavgarule
5. Adv.tksujith
6. Afifa Afrin
7. Akbarali
8. Akhilan
9. AKS.9955
10. Aliva Sahoo
11. Ananth subray
12. Aniket
13. annakoppad
14. Anup Sadi
15. Atudu (Travel support for speaker)
16. balajijagadesh
17. Balurbala
18. Bhadani
19. BHARATHESHA ALASANDEMAJALU
20. Bhaskaranaidu
21. Bijay chaurasia
22. cherishsantosh
23. Chinmayee Mishra
24. chinmayisk
25. Csyogi
26. Danish47
27. Dhanalakshmi .K. T
28. dhiruraghuvanshi
29. Diptanshu.D
30. dittymathew
31. Drcenjary
32. fotokannan
33. Fredericknoronha
34. Gangulybiswarup
35. Hasive
36. Hibayathullah
37. Hindustanilanguage
38. Ibrahim Husain Meraj
39. info-farmer
40. Jameela P.
41. Janak Bhatta
42. jayantanth
43. Jim Carter
44. Jnanaranjan sahu
45. Jugni
46. Karthikndr
47. Kasyap
48. kiranravikumar
49. madhulika123
50. Mahalakshmi Prasanna
51. mahi29
52. Manojk
53. Masum Ibn Musa
54. MKar
55. Moheen Reeyad
56. Mouryan
57. Nabin K. Sapkota
58. NahidSultan
59. Nandhinikandhasamy
60. naveenpf
61. neechalkaran
62. NehalDaveND
63. Nilamkarn
64. Nrgullapalli
65. Palagiri
66. Pavanaja
67. Pmlineditor
68. pranayraj1985
69. Priya Hiregange
70. ravidreams
71. Rehman
72. Rohini
73. Rsrikanth05
74. Saileshpat
75. Sandaru
76. sankoswal (Travel support for speaker)
77. SantoshiWiki
78. Sayant Mahato
79. Shanmugamp7
80. Shyamal
81. sidheeq
82. Strike Eagle
83. Sumita Roy Dutta
84. tejgavate
85. tahmina.tithi
86. Thamizhpparithi Maari (Travel support for speaker)
87. Th3snehasish
88. Tinaj1234
89. Titodutta
90. Tshrinivasan
91. Tulsi Bhagat
92. vinayaraj
93. Vinitagangurde
94. viswaprabha
95. yohannvt
96. Zeetendra
97. अजीत कुमार तिवारी
98. बिप्लब आनन्द
99. राजु सुथार
100. राम प्रसाद जोशी
101. ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ
102. கி.மூர்த்தி
103. தமிழ்க்குரிசில்
104. రహ్మానుద్దీన్
105. విశ్వనాధ్.బి.కె.

Scholar responsibilities

Like other Travel and Participation Support grantees, WikiConference India scholars are asked to share something that results from their participation at the conference with the Wikimedia movement after the conference has ended. This brief report is typically due 21 days after the end of the conference, and includes the scholar's choice of one of 3 options:

Option 1: Shared Experience: What is one way you shared something from your experience with your community (either locally or globally)?

Add a link here to a blog post or newsletter you wrote about your participation, or to a meet-up you organized to share your experience with your local community.

Option 2: Learning Pattern: What is one useful learning pattern you can share with the Wikimedia movement?

Add a link to a learning pattern - either a new pattern you created with insights from your participation, or an existing pattern to which you added your endorsement and some significant new "considerations" or “examples” from your experience.

Option 3: New Creation: What was one useful outcome of the event for the Wikimedia movement?

Add a link to something new that was created as a result of your participation in this event (for example, you might link to new articles, tools, or collaborations).

Ready to create your report? Use the input box below to name your page and click the button to get started.