Dear all,

Thank you for your patience in these unique times. The good news is: there will be a virtual Wikimedia Summit. We need time to plan, design, and work with you all on preparation. We are currently looking at dates in May, and will keep you informed as we move forward. This means, you can let go of the blocked dates in your calendar, 3-5 April.  

The virtual Wikimedia Summit will be the first in a series of virtual events that move from engaging with the recommendations and closing phase 2 of Movement Strategy and transitioning into implementation, phase 3. These events will be held over a period of 30-60 days after the Summit.

For the virtual Wikimedia Summit, we won’t change the participant structure. We would like to use the Summit framework to engage with movement organizations and groups, and work with them on creating an understanding of the recommendations, taking their local or thematic contexts into account. The following virtual events after the Summit will be focusing on implementation, and will be tailored to meet the needs of different movement stakeholders. We will work with experienced facilitators and co-design the events with the respective target groups from across the movement. 

We have never hosted such a virtual conference – so it’s something completely new for us, and maybe also for you. We aim for a program that is focused on interaction and participation, and not one-directional. I want to give you some insights into what we are thinking about: 

• To use the “virtual in person” most efficiently, we will ask participants to prepare beforehand;

• To accommodate different time zones, we aim to hold repetitive sessions at different times of day; 

• To accommodate language difficulties, we are looking into subtitling or language specific break-out rooms; 

• We want to pay special attention to engaging everyone equally, and find ways to support the diverse contexts and habits of people working together online. 

Please understand that’s all we have to share at this point, and we will keep you all updated with news and next steps. We hope you and those around you are well. Please all take good care of yourselves. 

See you on the Internet :)

Cornelius