Dear Wikimedians,

We are delighted to announce that the registration for the Wikimedia Summit 2020 [1], which will be held in Berlin from Friday, April 3, through Sunday, April 5, is now open!

Following Katherine’s and Abraham’s invitation, we would like to provide you with important information regarding the eligibility for participation, participant number regulation, registration procedure, specifics in regards to the travel and hotel booking as well as the visa application process.

== Eligibility criteria and participant number regulation ==

The eligibility criteria for participating in the Wikimedia Summit 2020 are aligned to the Affiliates’ Agreements with the Wikimedia Foundation. Chapters, Thematic Organizations, and User Groups must have shown signs of recent activity (within the past six months as of September 30, 2019) and be up-to-date on their reporting by the eligibility deadline (December 1, 2019). [2] Moreover, affiliations need to have been officially recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation before January 1, 2019. Before registering for the conference, please check the eligibility and status overview of your affiliate as well as the participant number regulation on meta [3].

== Registration information ==

We invite all eligible Wikimedia Affiliates to take part in the Wikimedia Summit. To ensure that we use the in-person time as best as possible, we ask Affiliates to only send delegates who will come with a good understanding of the movement strategy process and the draft recommendations, and are ready to take agency and responsibility to design and implement the recommendations in collaboration with every part of the Movement and our partners.

People, who are selected by their organization to represent them at the conference, need to register via the registration form.[4] The registration deadline is Monday at midnight CET, December 16, 2019. Please note that we won’t be able to accept and process registrations

after this deadline.

We are looking forward to welcoming members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and staff as well as the Affiliations Committee in Berlin. We see a huge advantage in having their representatives participate on site. Please also register via the registration link [4].

In addition to the core-conference, a post-conference “Train the trainers” is organized by the WMF Community Development team. Should you be interested in participating in this event, you can indicate your interest in the registration form.

Further information on the registration process can be retrieved from meta [5].

== Hotel and travel booking ==

The Wikimedia Summit will take place at the Seminar Campus Hotel in Berlin’s green neighbourhood Dahlem.[6] A high number of hotel rooms directly located in the same building  have been reserved for the conference participants. Based on WMDE’s great experiences at WikidataCon and following our aim to reduce the environmental impact of this event, we will provide vegetarian catering only during this event.

Representatives of affiliates with an annual plan grant (group 1) will need to book and pay for their hotel rooms as well as travel individually. Our hotel group code and price information can be found on meta [7].

Affiliates, which don’t receive funding via an annual plan grant (group 2), will be supported by WMDE for their hotel needs and travel booking.

Members of the WMF Board, AffCom or WMF staff (group 3) receive travel and hotel booking support by the WMF travel department.

As for additional participants specifically invited by the Program Curator, Cornelius, to complement the conference program (group 4), WMDE will assist you with your hotel and travel booking. 

We advise you to check meta [3] to which group you belong to.

== Visa information ==

Please visit the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Berlin [8] to find out whether you need a visa for travelling to Germany. In case you are in need of a visa, we advise you to register until December 1, 2019, so that WMDE can assist you with the application process and send you the required visa documents sufficiently in advance. All relevant information and necessary steps to undertake are also described on meta [9].

Wikimedia Deutschland is looking forward to welcoming you in Berlin in April!

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us any time via

wmsummit@wikimedia.de should you have any questions or comments.

Best regards,

Jana, Florian, and Cornelius

Wikimedia Summit Organizing Team

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020 

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports 

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Eligibility_Criteria 

[4] https://forms.wikimedia.de/apps/wmsummit2020/form.html 

[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Registration_Information#Preparing_for_registration 

[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Venue_and_Hotel 

[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Travel_and_Hotel_Booking_Information 

[8] http://wmde.org/germanyvisa