Hi Erik (and whomever from WMDE),
For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for a chapter to take on? I think that most chapters* would be willing to help out in the software development space if we got a bit of direction on how we could be the most useful.
Cheers, Craig Franklin
Not exactly what you are asking for, but
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects
are thought to be projects that an intern could develop in about three months. We use this list for Google Summer of Code and Outreach Program for Women. It *might* be also a source of inspiration for Individual Engagement Grants.
I don't see why the chapters couldn't consider this list as a source of inspiration for software projects they could sponsor. They don't even need to have the technical capacity in house: we can help finding the right mentors for each project and we can also help selecting the right developer(s) - like we do for GSoC / OPW.
Chapters "graduated" at this level could consider embarking in bigger software projects. Pulling out a Wikidata team (or even a Kiwix project) isn't trivial at all and I'm personally impressed by these success tech stories lead by chapters. We should have more! (or at least try) There is no lack of work to do.