My experiences at WikiConference India 2016

After I left Tata Steel in 2005 (worked in Electronics hardware and software) I turned into housewife and not join any job. In 2015 started contributing voluntarily in Wikimedia Commons(more than 11000 edits mostly adding images) , Bengali Wikipedia (editing existing pages,new pages, translation from other languages).

Sometime contributed in English and Hindi Wikipedia. Contributed in other Indic langauages and International languages( mostly to add images) , little bit in wikidata too.

In feb 2016 had started contributing in Bengali wikisource (Mass OCR using linux and python based software by T.Srinivasan, til now more than 400 books / 1lakh 20000 pages) OCRed and done proofreading of some books(I am greatful to Dr Hrishikes Sen) , uploading books to commons from public domain, indexing etc.

When I had applied for scholarship to attain Wikiconference 2016 in Chandigarh , was not so hopeful. But finally I had got scholarship (greatful to scholarship commitee). I was so happy but annoyed too because that time I was at Kolkata for 6months to look after my unwell mother. How will I manage to attain the conference!(which I wanted to attain desperately) . My husband Goutam act as saviour, he took responsibility in home-front and opted not to attain the conference(by that time he started to contributed and had more than 500edits) and help me to attain the same.

Biswrup Gangulida who has contributed in commons more than 50000 images clicked by him took pain to accompany me during to and fro jouney from my home to airport. Since I do lots of photography, I wanted window seat in flight . Goutam's nephew Arijit Dutta Roy had done booking for Kolkata- Delhi, Delhi -Chandigarh, Chandigarh -Delhi and Delhi -Kolkata... imagine all window seat! So I uses that, as opportunity to do aerial photography with my DSLR Canon 550D and Redmi 1S smart phone and uploaded images in commons. Link. Goutam helped me a lot to locate places and important buildings in images and for annotation.

Organiser put up most of the lady volunteers in CGC girls hostel. I liked the idea because it was nearest stay to the venue and I never have the opportunity to stay in a student hostel in my 52 years of age and enjoy this 4days stay very much with warden Anitajee and wikipedian Harriyat from Mangalore, Annapoornima and Mahalaxmi (I was spellbound too see her talking fluently in Sanskrit) from Bangaore. Pankakjmala, Abha,AlivaSahoo from Odia wikipedia commmunity and others. In Chandigarh Airport got opportunity to be introduced to Tina ( technical contributor in media wiki) and others.

Evening programs waere full of joy and entertainment. Dances from all over India. Dance about integrity. Staffs from wikimedia foundation, Professors of CGC college and editors all participated in dance.

Since I am a vegeterian and eat less spicy foods was curious about the foods and everydays four times foods was excellent and sufficient, arrangement of dinning hall was well maintained. Enjoyed special lunch for women and interacted with other women regarding gender gap, etc.Volunteers (specialy ladies volunteers) was totally dedicated to fulfil all our need like providing wifi in hostel as well as all locations of classes and other things.

Classes were well arranged(I would suggest to keep presentation copy in harddisk too if there is some problem in wifi connetion presentation can be continued without interruption. but sometimes consecutive classes of same interest was overlapping or in same time with other interesting classes. They have overcome that by puting video of all classes in commons and social media . I missed important classes in photography, Wikidata but hope to learn some through videos and future training program or conference.

The classes I liked

1.Offline wikipedia,Mediawiki (hope to learn more ),

2.OCR(which I am using from Feb'16)

3.Open street map(have hands on experience of marking the venue in OSM with the team)

4.Topic how to appy diff type of grant .

5.Workshop on editing wikisource - from beginners to mid level

Images by participants-

Day1

Day2

Day3

There was meeting between editors of Bengali wikipedia from India and Bangladesh regarding

1.In Bengali , how people search about which topics most and to complete those on priority basis, 2.Whether to complete pages about small villages ( all geographic loctaions are equally important but searchwise not ) too or not etc.

Group photo session was another fun. Lots of type in groups 1.Total participants. 2. Languagewise. 2.Ladies wikipedian. 3. With new friends etc etc.