Friday, September 5, 2008

Connect Pune meeting on 20 Aug 2008

The Pune wiki is at http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Pune

Actionable Items
1. Wiki training sessions are to be arranged by
- BIVEER (Katraj) Thanks to Dr Erach Bharucha and his team

- Seed Infotech (Erandwane) Thanks to Ajay Phatak, Narendra Barhate and his team and

- Zensar (Kharadi) Thanks to Lavanya Jayaram and her team
on Sundays.

Those interested in a training session on 31st Aug from 10 am to 1 pm are requested to send in their registrations in the following format to sanskriti.menon@gmail.com

Preferred location:

Name,Email, Phone number:

The wiki training is expected to train participants as trainers and provide the basics of:

- adding/ editing content - Devnagari content; images, video, audio, tables, etc;

- wiki etiquette;

- inappropriate content;

- categories etc.

The training will involve each person creating/editing a page of a vision for Pune Wiki

- What should Pune wiki accomplish? The training should also include a page seeding what you would like to accomplish.

2 If possible, volunteer to be wiki trainers, provide wiki training space etc - the Pune wiki will be as good as we can make it

3. All who attended - to spread the word amongst your friends and colleagues to contribute content to the wiki,

4. Puzzle and hypothesis on the Pune Wiki: Dr Madhav Gadgil will lead an effort to compile, collect and seed questions and hypothesis that could lead to general interest, involvement and even student projects on the wiki.

5. Vision dialogue on the Pune wiki to be furthered by Dr. Erach Bharucha and his team, particularly encouraging student visions. They will also help reach out and connect to other educational institutions.

Minutes
1. Presentations were made on possible projects (and some experiences) in waste, mobility, energy, biodiversity and how students might take these up (existing spaces in school and college curricula). These are being uploaded in pdf form on the Talk page of the Pune ENVIS wiki page. http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Pune_Environment_Information_System

2. There was discussion on the nature of educational projects and creating involvement, not compliance from students. This is an area for continued thinking. Some students may be more attracted to projects where they can see they are contributing to change or bringing about change; others may like to posit hypothesis and work in a 'research' mode. Thus, projects may be related to data collection feeding into a larger information system, hypothesis based leading to knowledge generation, action projects etc. Students should also be encouraged to do projects relating to visioning rather than only problem solving.

3. Will data lead to action or change? - data and information alone may not produce action or change but they are key ingredients, and data converted into useful information can spur action. The wiki will serve to connect people around key initiatives. It will enable share initiatives with others. This can lead to exciting ways to use the Pune wiki platform to connect and transform Pune.

4. Localized information models/ frameworks need to be developed - waste (KKPKP), transportation (Ashok), energy (Prayas), ecosystems (Dr Madhav Gadgil) are some that will be developed in the near future through a combination of physical meeting and then in a wiki mode.

5. Uploading existing information from student projects could also be undertaken- BIVEER and others to explore the possibility.

Dr. Anupam Saraph, Ph.D., Chief Information Officer, Pune City
url: http://www.linkedin.com/in/AnupamSaraphcell: 99237 56977