Wikimedians!
The Wikimania Steering Committee is delighted to announce our recommendation for Wikimania 2020 to take place in Bangkok, Thailand, as a collaboration among chapters in the region. This is a new model we are exploring with a team of chapters and user groups from the East Southeast Asia and Pacific (ESEAP) region. We are looking forward to assist with organising one of the events we use as a platform to bring the sum of all notable and verifiable knowledge to the world and – most importantly – discuss, develop and dedicate ourselves to all things Wikimedia.
The Wikimedians in Thailand user group has been around since 2008 and recently applied for chapter status. In addition to this, ESEAP recently held a regional conference where they successfully emerged as a working cooperative. We are grateful for the continued work these combined teams are putting in, making this a genuine coalition in the ESEAP region.
We would like to thank the Wikimedians from Perth, Bali and Armenia, who offered to host Wikimania. Organising Wikimania is hard work, and for this we are grateful and appreciate anyone willing to do so. As always, we feel privileged being part of a movement where people competently step up to make this a successful convening. We believe that bringing together an ESEAP coalition to host the event will provide representation the region deserves. We believe they will do a great job.
The Wikimania decision process has been changing for some time and we will be taking steps towards more transparent and sustainable processes. Bangkok was not one of the original proposals received, but the committee felt this location represented an excellent opportunity to make Wikimania a regional and collaborative effort. The city was deemed a good location due to a number of factors: visa-friendly, travel-wise accessible, reasonably priced lodgings, plenty of universities and GLAM institutions are some of the characteristics that make this city a strategic location to welcome a large cohort and continue to expand our movement.
We are also happy that Joël Letang (event team manager at Wikimedia Foundation) and Isabel Cueva (events program manager at Wikimedia Foundation) will contribute to the organisation of the event. You can meet Joël and Isabel this August in Stockholm at Wikimania 2019.
We would like to congratulate and thank the ESEAP coalition team for the time and effort dedicated in making Wikimania 2020 a success!
Iolanda Pensa / iopensa on behalf of the Wikimania Committee and the event team at Wikimedia Foundation