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hello and uh welcome everybody and good
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afternoon from sunny dubai to all the
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wiki wikimedians who are tuning in with
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us thanks for tuning in to learn a
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little bit about the uae user group
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experience
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i will jump in into we have only 10
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minutes so i'll jump into the
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presentation
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um
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so we are um a small
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user group that we just started um in
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2019 the group started at wiki arabia
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conference in morocco um it was uh
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you know
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during during that conference that we
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had this idea of starting the
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the user group in in dubai in uae uh the
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majority of the members now uh work for
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emirates literature foundation uh
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emirates literature foundation for um
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uh for all of you who don't know it's a
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non-for-profit organization that focuses
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on promoting culture and literature
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hence our focus at the beginning was on
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filling the gap in the arabic wikipedia
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regarding arab author pages
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and that's where our initiative and
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projects started
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we started an initiative called
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catamactube
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in arabic means a
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writer who writes something like that
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so um
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as you can see our
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our group is is basically very small
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we're like four um four members right
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now our leader is
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who is as well the the director of the
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um of the emirates airline festival of
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literature
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um i am hani akan the community outreach
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and data partnerships officer
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uh we have the our researcher uh trainer
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and content writer serene binbrahim
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and our advisor who is a
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very well known wikimedian uh reducer
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bush
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um i will ask ahlam to talk a little bit
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about our initiative cat at mctube
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thank you honey hi everyone it's a
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pleasure to be here speaking with you
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all today so as hani mentioned we
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we initially started doing this work
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because of the gap that
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existed online with arab authors
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organized data it was very difficult for
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us as a literary festival in the arab
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world and a literature foundation here
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to find arab authors let alone
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you know organizations and and readers
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all around the world finding arab
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authors arab authors were not being
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translated arab authors are not being
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invited to speak in global platforms
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and
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just very very difficult to find and if
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they're not existing in the digital
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sphere then they may as well
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not even exist because people aren't
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reading their work
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and when we uh tried to find the issue
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here we contacted the team at
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wikipedia foundation and the guys at
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google um
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and when and they advised us to go to
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the wiki arabia conference in morocco
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when we went there we found out that the
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data supported the issue that we've
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identified so at the time there was only
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1 400 pages on arab authors
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historically
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um
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[Music]
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ever you know any arab author that has
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ever lived basically dead or alive um
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and so this was a real issue and by the
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time we gathered um our resources we
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thought about a strategy how to form
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this group um how to how wikipedia works
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how the content uh works um a year later
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exactly in september of 2020 there was
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only an organic growth of a hundred arab
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author pages and so we started at that
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point this project the cats at mc2
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project which led to us becoming the
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wikimedians in the in the the user group
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in the uae and today the numbers are as
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such uh honey if you could present them
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so with our efforts of training many
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volunteers on how to create wikipedia
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pages
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um
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partnering with universities uh taking
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on interns and volunteers ourselves uh
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we were able to get that number up to
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eight thousand 8646
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arab author pages in arabic and 4 658
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arab authors in english which initially
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the english pages were only 800 when we
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started so we're very very proud of this
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achievement and now want to take this
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experience and spread
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wide beyond just author's biographical
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data
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and and just to put this in context as
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well um you know the compared to other
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wikipedia uh
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you know wikipedia english or or german
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uh which have like 15 to 18 000 or 19
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000 uh pages on on on authors uh so so
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now we have we have grown uh to to
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around 13 000 which is which is a big
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step in only one year
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i will ask as well
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to talk a little bit about the training
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hi everyone
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so before we have volunteers
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contributing on wikipedia we make sure
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that we train them first so
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therefore we we've structured the
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training to be over two days in which we
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cover
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the step-by-step on how to edit and
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create articles on wikipedia so in the
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training sessions we cover the following
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so we start with introducing the
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volunteers about the five pillars of
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wikipedia and then we start talking
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about the importance of quality and
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reliable information as well as the role
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of research how to research for
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information also then we
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teach the writing style of creating
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articles related to autobiography since
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now we're focusing on enriching the
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wikipedia content on arab authors and
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then we go through the step of creating
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an an account and then lastly we go
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through the thorough steps of creating a
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good quality article on arab authors so
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in total we have provided so far um 11
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training sessions to different
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educational institutions in the uae
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and the total number of training is is
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uh 175.
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107 yeah 175
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you know some of those institutions that
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we have provided training for um you
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know the ministry of culture and youth
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um dubai culture uh some youth um uh
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camps or youth uh organizations in
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sharjah called robert karen and
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lots of
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government and non-government
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organizations as well as universities
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um as well we have successfully just
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finished first round we we started a
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competition academic competition and we
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just successfully finished the first
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round of the competition uh to create
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articles on arab authors um the the
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competition or the first round was only
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for one month uh the month of june and
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uh the participants have created 1012
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articles in in one month
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um we have divided the the the
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competition into two categories so so
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the first category would be experienced
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editors and the second one would be for
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beginners which we we thought it is very
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important to give an opportunity for
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people to start you know for new users
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to to hop in on wikipedia and learn how
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to be editors and and contribute in the
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uh in the world of wikipedia
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um i will ask rita as well to talk about
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our current and future projects
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uh yeah a brief overview of the current
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event and our future project
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uh several affiliation uh as a several
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affiliation we have support at the
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wikilovics content contests and this
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year we have started with the wikilove
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earth in which we had more than uh 1000
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photos
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for our first edition and also uh we
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support uh the context wwe wp
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wp
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which i recommend everyone to do since
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it's a very important contest
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uh our future event will uh will we will
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organize
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a week youth camp will bring
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together the young people of the region
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of the uae in a camp and give them
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courses uh and of course for the future
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to have a future active contributor for
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the wiki projects
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and the biggest event that we hope to
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host is the original conference uh of
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the wiki arabia
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uh for the moment we are in discussion
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with the arab speaking community and we
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are the only candidate for this uh
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conference and they hope that the health
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of the health situation will let us do
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it in per in person event physically
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yeah and
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stay connected with us uh
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for more information thank you
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thanks riddle and and some of these
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initiatives uh like the wikiloves earth
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or wpwp these are all in you know and a
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global wikipedia initiatives that we
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have taken it into uh
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giving giving it a local dimension of of
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ui so so we we are encouraging people in
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the uae to
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to um upload the photos of monuments or
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places in in the uae um and giving us 20
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seconds
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oh
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so the last the last thing that i want
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to talk about is is partnering with
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universities in in the united arab
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emirates
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we have worked with
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university of sharjah university of afad
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american university of sharjah and new
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york university of abu dhabi
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we're training their their students
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[Music]