Fwd: [Wikimedia Summit 2020] No virtual Wikimedia Summit - Wren

12 May 2020

Hello everyone,

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend our call tomorrow. As the original WREN
representative for the planned Berlin summit, I wanted to share this update with you
regarding the 2020 virtual summit. Unfortunately, it looks like the summit will not be
held. I will share more details with the WREN group about the expected series of virtual
events if and when they are shared with me.

Best,
Esther Jackson

...
  Begin forwarded message:

 From: "Cornelius Kibelka" (via wmsummit-list Mailing List)
&lt;wmsummit-list(a)mailing.wikimedia.de&gt;
 Subject: [Wikimedia Summit 2020] No virtual Wikimedia Summit
 Date: May 12, 2020 at 6:27:20 AM EDT
 To: Wikimedia Summit Participants mailing list
&lt;wmsummit-list(a)mailing.wikimedia.de&gt;
 Reply-To: wmsummit-list(a)mailing.wikimedia.de

 Dear all, 

 I know you have been waiting for our follow up from my previous announcement, and I thank
you all for your patience on our response. 

 Wikimedia Deutschland will not host a virtual Wikimedia Summit in 2020. We hope we will
be able to welcome you all in Berlin again for the Wikimedia Summit in March 2021 as
planned, if the global health situation allows.

 Together with Ryan Merkley, members of the movement strategy core team, and external
consultants, we have been exploring options to move the objectives and content of the
three days in Berlin into a series of virtual events. Planning and co-design for this is
starting, but takes a lot of time, and careful consideration, including also what was
learned during the last 1.5 years of drafting the recommendations.

 The objectives and audience groups of the Wikimedia Summit will be addressed and involved
in different ways and parts of the series of events. To reduce the level of complexity,
and to be able to design such a series of events from scratch, we decided together to let
go of the idea of hosting one of the events under the Wikimedia Summit framework and
brand. 

 On a personal note: The Wikimedia Summit 2020, be it the physical or the virtual one,
would have been my last conference to organize in my position at Wikimedia Deutschland.
I’m incredibly sad that I could not realize this last part of my job, which besides a lot
of stress means also a lot of joy and passion for me. I trust Ryan and his team to
co-create a great series of online events, and in the remaining time of my job, I’ll
support them with my experience of organizing the particular and peculiar conference since
2015. 

 Of course, I won’t “leave” the Wikimedia Movement (can you actually do that?), and will
continue in my volunteer capacity as a Wikipedian and Wikimedian.

 Best wishes,
 Cornelius  

 -- 
 Cornelius Kibelka
 Internationale Beziehungen | International Relations
 Vorstandsteam | Office of the ED

 Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
 Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
 http://wikimedia.de <http://wikimedia.de/>

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