Wikipedia Academies

I'm starting a thread around Wikipedia Academies (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Academy) simply because they're an easy and powerful way to communicate the ways of the Wikimedia World to people yet to enter it. They've been staged in the past both by the Wikimedia Foundation (and by it's chapters) as well as by individuals with no official affiliation.

This seems like an easy way to get started in South Asia.

Absolutely. Recently, we (along with User:HPN did a 'sorta' Wikiacademy in Mangalore. It was attended by quite a few college students in Mangalore and the interest we could generate among them was amazing. One of the topics that came up actually was smaller town articles of India and we did publicly 'reveiw' some of the articles for content accuracy etc. I really dont know how many of the ones who showed enthusiasm during the event went on to content contributions, but I am convinced that this is an effective way. Hopefully the India chapter could encourage wiki academies in smaller towns and institutions.

In the same line, I strongly feel that there are a number of subject experts, librarians and others with access to literature and books who can and want to play an active role. Most of them are unsure how to do this and such wiki academies if held in bigger research institutions such as IISC, Bangalore would be helpful. One good way to begin is to create a resource base and materials pool that volunteer wikipedians could use to conduct small-scale academies in their towns and cities. We also need to immediately have access to the contact details of editors who would make themselves available for such an event.