Dear Wikimedians,
For all of you who enjoy creating tools and solving issues, the below information could be
of interest to you.
Warm wishes,
Flor MECHAIN
Wikimedia CH
E: flor.mechain@wikimedia.ch<mailto:flor.mechain@wikimedia.ch>
M: +41 78 811 35 86
W: Flor WMCH
Wikimedia CH is a Swiss non-profit organisation which supports Wikipedia, the free online
encyclopedia
You can support us here<https://donate.wikimedia.ch/en/index.html?fromindex=1>.
________________________________
De : Léa Lacroix <llacroix-ctr(a)wikimedia.org>
Envoyé : lundi 5 décembre 2022 12:45
Cc : Melinda Seckington <mseckington(a)wikimedia.org>
Objet : Wikimedia Hackathon 2023 & scholarships
Hello! Here’s Léa with my WMF hat, in charge of coordinating the Wikimedia Hackathon in
2023 :)
As you may know, we are bringing the Wikimedia Hackathon back onsite, it will take place
on May 19-21 in Athens, Greece. The Wikimedia Hackathon aims to bring Wikimedia's
active technical contributors together, to build community, connections and software.
On December 7, we’re opening the registration form that will also include a scholarship
application form.
I’m reaching out to you today to ask if your chapter would be interested and able to
support volunteers from your local community to travel to the event. If so, I would love
to discuss with you about how we could connect the international scholarship process to
your selection - similar as done for the onsite Hackathons until 2019, or in scholarship
processes for Wikimania.
WMF’s scholarship application process will run from December 7 to January 10, after which
we will have a review period until January 31. Our goal is to have scholars selected and
their travel booked at the beginning of February, so people who need to request a visa can
proceed.
If you would like to join the effort on supporting participants to attend, we could work
together and support you in running your own, independent process. Ideally, it would start
at the same time or shorter after the global one, so your community gets clear
communication about which process to follow. However, it could close later than January
10, to allow more flexibility to you and your community.
Our collaboration could look like this:
* In December, you announce your scholarship process to your community and give them
guidance on how to apply (independently from the hackathon registration form)
* On January 10, when we start reviewing the global applications, we will inform you
in case people from your country applied
* On January 31, we finalize the selection of the global scholars, without including
applicants that you decide to support through your own process
* In January or later on, you can conclude your own process and select your scholars
* While you are running your selection process, it would be useful to have check-ins
to align on selection criteria and make sure that the key technical contributors from your
community can be supported
* Your organization is in charge of reaching out to them, asking for their wishes and
requirements regarding travel and accommodation, booking and managing the rest of the
process. The hotel, for example, would be booked by you and not by WMF.
Although we would run processes independently, it would be good to align on the selection
criteria.
This year’s Wikimedia hackathon is focusing on bringing people together who are already
active technical contributors, therefore we want to apply a criteria of at least one year
of activity on technical projects. It would be great if you could also include such a
criteria in your own process, so we are aligned with the audience of the event. If needed,
we could also help you assess who are the key technical contributors in your community.
What do you think? Would this process work for you?
Do you have an estimate of how many people you could support to travel to Athens and stay
for 3 or 4 nights?
If you have any questions or would like to discuss the process further, feel free to reach
out to me, I’d be happy to schedule a call with you or your colleagues. Feel free to
transfer this email to anyone else in your organization who would like to be involved.
I’m looking forward to working with you on supporting the tech contributors to attend the
hackathon!
Best,
--
[
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Wikimedia-logo_bl…]
Léa Lacroix (she/her)
Hackathon Event Coordinator
Wikimedia
Foundation<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
