English subtitles for clip: File:The experience of Emirati User group projects.webm

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[Music]

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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]