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-
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.