Hello everyone, 

Following the recent news that 2021 Wikimania will be virtual [1], the Wikimania Steering Committee[2] wanted to follow up with some updates and opportunities to be involved in the planning for Wikimania 2021. 

==Hosting Wikimania 2021==

As there’s no physical location for this year's Wikimania, there are no geographically based hosts. Instead, the Wikimania Steering Committee and the Core Organizing Team (details below) will serve as an international team of community organizers for Wikimania 2021. The Foundation will be providing infrastructure, logistics and organizational support. 

We invite you to join us and help produce this event for the community, by the community. 

==What we've done== 

In order to help imagine and design a virtual event, in January 2021 the Wikimania Steering Committee engaged in a series of design sprints that were facilitated by event design experts. The goal of our design sprints was to collaboratively start designing a few formats for a virtual Wikimania experience to bring back to the wider community. You can read more about the process, the people involved, and the outcomes of our design sprints here.[3]

==Theme & Dates==

Since this year marks the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia, and celebrations are ongoing, Wikimania 2021’s theme will also celebrate 20 years of Wikipedia. We’ll look back at our history and imagine our future. 

We’re planning for the conference to be held in August 2021, following the precedent set by past Wikimanias. Exact dates will follow soon. 

==What about scholarships?==

Since an in-person event scholarship cannot be awarded for a virtual event, there is an opportunity for us to look into repurposing the scholarships program to enable participation and promote accessibility. A feasibility study will be completed to develop how the scholarships program can be repurposed, and the Core Organizing Team will help decide on the best course of action. 

==How to get involved==

For supporting the organization of Wikimania, we will need help from community members around the world. To begin, we've identified roles that will be part of the Core Organizing Team.

We are inviting nominations and self-nominations for the Core Organizing Team for Wikimania 2021. This team will help lead the development and production of the overall event, focused on the conference program, and will be supported by technical and project staff at the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimania steering committee. Volunteers will need to commit time each week between now and August to make the event a success.

There will be additional calls for volunteers in other roles in the coming months as well. If you have an idea for how you might be able to contribute to Wikimania organization in other ways, please let us know by filling out the application form. 

If you have organized past events in person or online, or are interested in hosting international Wikimedia events in the future, we need you! Planning Wikimania is an amazing way to meet and collaborate with other Wikimedians from all over the world. This group will need people who are strong collaborators, communicators, and solution-oriented and who are able to be consistently involved through the conference. 

==So what are we looking for?==