Dear Chen,
I'm reaching out to you on behalf of the WikiIndaba Steering Committee (WISCom) regarding the next WikiIndaba Conference host country for this year 2023 and year 2024. After careful consideration we have decided that WikiIndaba 2023 will take place in Agadir, Morocco on 3&4 November and WikiIndaba 2024 will take place in Cape Town, South Africa on 1&2 November.
Going forward, we have adopted a system of selecting two host countries which will cover two years of the conference. This will ease the burden and save time of having to deliberate in a long selection process after each conference. It will also give time for the next host to prepare themselves for the conference. One needs to mention that this was advice from WMF’s CEO.
In order to ensure that we have regional rotation, we were deliberate with our selection process. We invited affiliates from Francophone speaking countries including Algeria, Cameroon, Morocco, Congo, Benin, Mali and Conakry Guinea to express interest in hosting the conference. This was followed by a selection criterion which looked at several factors including the capacity to host the conference, if there were elections this year in the bidding country, capacity of the affiliate as well as motivations they provided on why they wanted to host. We are happy to further meet with you to discuss the bidding process and criterion we’ve used.
We believe that both countries offer the perfect environment to host the Conference, and they both have the resources, infrastructure, and capacity to make it a success. Although we have not officially announced this to the wider community, we’ve already informed the hosts that they’ve won the bids. We are confident that both countries will be able to provide the necessary support and facilities for the event.
Despite all of these measures, we still want to find out from you if Wikimedia UG Morocco is cleared or fit to receive funds from the Wikimedia Foundation to run the conference for this year?
I’ve already addressed the issue of late submission on my other email and again would like to sincerely apologise for this oversight from our end. However, I would also like to reiterate that WikiINdaba is important because it provides an invaluable platform for African Wikimedia communities to come together and discuss projects, challenges and opportunities for collaboration. By convening Wikimedians from across the continent, WikiINdaba serves as a forum to identify potential new partners and synergies and provides an opportunity to strengthen the African Wikimedia community as well as ensures that the African Wikimedia movement is well connected and informed. So, we can’t have the conference halted this year because of poor communication between ourselves and you. Hence, our request for an extension of the due date.
Kind regards,
Bobby Shabangu
WISCom