Dear Wikimedians,

Today I am excited to share a document [1] with you that I hope will help initiate the conversation around how to ‘innovate in free knowledge’. 

This document directly refers to recommendation 9 “Innovate in Free Knowledge” [2] of the Movement Strategy that calls for the exploration and expansion of free knowledge projects. The aim is to stay relevant and to serve our movement’s vision to give access to the sum of human knowledge. Building upon this recommendation, our team at Wikimedia Deutschland outlined different stages of innovation – taking into account the different structures, people, processes of support that innovators and innovations might require at each stage in order to grow. The paper maps out how each innovation stage is or isn’t existent within our movement. And uncovers what is still clearly lacking: While it is not surprising to see structures and processes in place to support the development of existing Wikimedia projects, there are only few support structures and resources to promote new free knowledge projects that are equally needed for the movement to evolve, grow and to become sustainable.  

The outlined examples are far from exhaustive, so don’t see this as the final and absolute version of the mapping. This map is one way to raise awareness and make ‘innovate in free knowledge’ become more relevant in our movement. 

Please have a look, and leave your comments and/or questions on the talk page. We are more than happy to engage in conversations and eager to hear additional perspectives, insights, and feedback from across the movement related to this topic. Please also reach out to me directly to explore ways to take the conversation forward. 

All the best

Kannika

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Innovation_Engine/Buildiing_an_ecosystem_to_innovate_in_free_knowledge 

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Innovate_in_Free_Knowledge

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Kannika Thaimai (she/her)
Innovation Engine - Strategy Lead
>> WMDE innovation engine strategy
>> UNLOCK Accelerator

Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de

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