Dear Wikimaniacs,

we are now calling for the Scholarship Committee.

The Scholarship Committee is an important and diverse group of volunteers who help to run the scholarship program. We encourage people from all Wikimedia wikis to apply for this position so that the committee can handle applications in many different languages.

The main duties of the committee members prior to Wikimania 2018 are:
* Participation in periodic online meetings with scholarships program manager and other committee members.
* Review and edit communications material (e.g. application questions).
* Assistance in determination of scholarship applicant requirements.
* Assurance of due consideration and speedy response time to Wikimania scholarship applications in multiple languages.

For further information please visit https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Handbook#Scholarships and https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships.

We are looking for Wikimedians from all over the world, who are:
* fluent in written English and have good communication skills, or can name local community member(s) who help them with English translations.
* discreet and able to handle confidential applicant information, and objectively assess candidates.
* willing to review scholarship applications remotely in early 2018, estimated time is 30 hours. A review guide can be found on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars/Reviewer%27s_guide.
* having either or both:
** previously attended Wikimania,
** strong knowledge of the cross-project Wikimedia community.

Scholarship Committee members may not apply for a scholarship themselves but there is a small budget for supporting committee members to attend Wikimania. Please tell us if you need financial support in case you’ll be selected.

If you're interested in serving on the Scholarship Committee, please send us an email to  wikimania-scholarships@wikimedia.org. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us there as well.

Deadline to apply is Sunday, December 10, 2017. The organizers will contact all candidates and publish the list of scholarship committee members right afterwards.

Proposed timeline
* Nov 30–Dec 10: Call for Scholarship Committee
* mid-December: Selection of the Scholarship Committee and start of the submission time
* 5–26 February (estimated time frame): main review time

Before the start of the submission time, we are adapting the application process to take recent activities more into account than the years before, as proposed on wikimania-l. On the one hand we want to encourage returning Wikimania participants to share their knowledge, on the other newcomers to Wikimania to apply for a scholarship at all. Former scholarship recipients can help us with the latter by sharing their successful applications on MetaWiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships. In case you don’t have your text at hand, you can send us a confirmation mail to wikimania-scholarships@wikimedia.org where you allow us to publish it for you.

Above all, we want to support African community members with applying for scholarships. To achieve that, we are especially looking for volunteers who want help us with encouraging people, assisting with the application form, finding the right level of presenting one’s activities, etc. Please reach out to us if you'd like to help.

Many thanks,
David Richfield and Martin Rulsch
Wikimania 2018 Scholarship Committee co-organizers