Dear Mr Yadava

Unfortunately, I am in Pune today and tomorrow. I'll SMS you my contact details - and I look forward to catching up with you.  I'll call you tomorrow in any case.

I look forward to taking this initiative forward.  It's incredibly exciting.

Warmest Regards,

hisham

On Sep 8, 2011, at 9:44 PM, M K Yadava IFS wrote:

Dear Jessie,
Thanks a lot. I am currently in Delhi for a day. Pl pass my mobile number
(099541-90280 & 09435012458) to Mr. Mundol. Though I am very badly
preoccupied, I am available at Assam Bhawan, S.P. Marg, New Delhi (at the
crossing of SP Marg & Kautilya Marg) from 8.00 Am to 11.30 AM. He is
welcome during this period. Just request him to send an SMS. I will be in
Room No. 106.

Regards,
Yours,
MK Yadava
---------------------------
Please exchange editable Office documents only in ODF Format. No other
format is acceptable. Sending such information in other formats is at your
own risk. Please be assured that non ODF formats will not be opened.

To get a free editor supporting ODF, please visit http://www.openoffice.org/
---------------------------------------
Visit my blogs at http://letsbetteroursociety.blogspot.com/
------------------------------------------------

Well, thank you for the resonse: certainly better late than never! And in
this case, though the deadline is upon us, it is fortunately not *too*
late!

The work you are doing is very incredible, and we would be happy to be a
part of it. I think our content would be an invaluable addition to your
suite of materials provided, and we'd love to make that a reality.

Currently, the solution we can offer you is two-fold:

  - Kiwix <http://www.kiwix.org/>: a reader of the Wiki content that can
be
  installed on your Ubuntu system
  - English Wikipedia Offline
Edition<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WPRV>:
  this is a set of  ~45K articles which are filtered for both quality and
  "importance."

If this is of interest to you, we can provide you with a package bundling
these and indexing them etc. This would only give you a couple weeks to
test, of course, but we trust you will find it incredibly useful.

I will pass these instructions along to you in a separate email so that
you
can begin prototyping. Meanwhile, Hisham Mundol - the head of our India
Programs, who is based in Delhi, would be happy to meet with you in person
to talk through any questions regarding the project. Please do let us know
what you would prefer!

Thanks and thrilled about the potential here!
Jessie

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 10:25 AM, M K Yadava IFS <in@amtron.in> wrote:

Corrigendum:
Please insert "NO" appropriately after "been" in the following sentence
"There has been carry home stuff for students who are
aspiring to become economists, historians, psycholo..."
---------------------------
Please exchange editable Office documents only in ODF Format. No other
format is acceptable. Sending such information in other formats is at
your
own risk. Please be assured that non ODF formats will not be opened.

To get a free editor supporting ODF, please visit
http://www.openoffice.org/
---------------------------------------
Visit my blogs at http://letsbetteroursociety.blogspot.com/
------------------------------------------------

Dear Jessie,
I am sorry for responding almost more than a week late as i had been
mostly traveling and attending a series of meetings. I wish I could
responded little earlier.

We distribute free computers (all based on GNU/Linux, currently on
Ubuntu), and from last two years, laptops, to meritorious students of
the
State of Assam (India) who secure >=60% marks in the 10th standard
examination. Every year about 15-20,000 systems are distributed. So
far,
we have distributed 92,000+ system, and this year about 19000+
students
are about to get benefited.

The current year's scheme is scheduled for launch on the 23rd of
September, 2011. Along with Ubuntu we bundle a host of application
software and content for the benefit of the students. Mostly, so far
we
have ben very successful in providing rich application level content
for
science students. There has been carry home stuff for students who are
aspiring to become economists, historians, psychologists,
anthropologists,
English literature etc.. Further, broadband penetration being poor in
the
remote areas of the state (a survey tells that 58% of the recipient
students belong to remote areas and come from poor families), we have
been
thinking how we could provide wiki kind of content to the students
offline
on the laptops to be distributed.

We shot an email several months back, and it has generated lot of
enthusiasm. However, my programme is to start from the 23rd of
September,
2011. I am not sure whether, this year also we shall be able to
provide
some offline content. As a language, ENGLISH is okay. We can think of
translation at a later date.

Pl tell us how to proceed further on the issue. We have now very
little
time to organize...

Yours,
MK Yadava IFS,
MD, AMTRON

---------------------------
Please exchange editable Office documents only in ODF Format. No other
format is acceptable. Sending such information in other formats is at
your
own risk. Please be assured that non ODF formats will not be opened.

To get a free editor supporting ODF, please visit
http://www.openoffice.org/
---------------------------------------
Visit my blogs at http://letsbetteroursociety.blogspot.com/
------------------------------------------------

Hi MK Yadava -

Thanks for passing along this email!

I am the project manager for the Offline Wikipedia work. I'm very
interested
in supporting your efforts in content circulation, and I am eager to
learn
more about your project referenced below. Who are you distributing
your
computers to? What sort of software are you looking for? Where
exactly
are
you hoping to distribute?

Thanks so much; I'd love to help out with this as much as possible!
Jessie

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 2:26 AM, M K Yadava IFS <in@amtron.in> wrote:

Dear All,
Sounds great! If we have sizeable content for school children from
standard V-XII in humanities, science and mathematics in English
alone,
it
will be a great service for bridging the digital divide. We shall be
glad
to put such a content in our PC distribution program and make it
operational by middle of September, 2011.

Regards,
Yours,
MK Yadava
---------------------------
Please exchange editable Office documents only in ODF Format. No
other
format is acceptable. Sending such information in other formats is
at
your
own risk. Please be assured that non ODF formats will not be opened.

To get a free editor supporting ODF, please visit
http://www.openoffice.org/
---------------------------------------
Visit my blogs at http://letsbetteroursociety.blogspot.com/
------------------------------------------------

Thanks Manuel!

I think this will be a good group. I just put together a brief
presentation
with kind of the general overview of Offline and how all the
pieces
fit
together, but I can go through it quickly and allow the different
pieces
to
fill in the blanks throughout?

I'm attaching it in case others want to take a look. I put it
together
quickly so if there are errors please forgive me (and correct me!)
:)

Jessie

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 1:45 AM, Manuel Schneider <
manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:

Hi offline folks,

we will have our Wikimedia Offline session today at 15:15 in room
Tavor
(in Beit Hecht, 1st floor)


http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikimedia_Offline

The session was planned as an interactive workshop for all people
interested in the offline issues. This means that YOU are invited
to
present your project, your ideas and ask your questions.
Interesting topics are selection of content, publishing, storage,
reader
applications... and what you think is.

There will be at least three people talking today:
* Jessie Wild from Wikimedia Foundation
* Shiju Alex from Malayallam Wikipedia
* me from openZIM

See you there! If you have questions or want to coordinate in
advance
-
please contact me.


/Manuel
--
Regards
Manuel Schneider

Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge
www.wikimedia.ch

_______________________________________________
Offline-l mailing list
Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l




--
*Jessie Wild
Global Development, Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
*
_______________________________________________
Offline-l mailing list
Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l



_______________________________________________
Offline-l mailing list
Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l




--
*Jessie Wild
Global Development, Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
*



_______________________________________________
Offline-l mailing list
Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l





--
*Jessie Wild
Global Development, Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
*



_______________________________________________
Offline-l mailing list
Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l