[Wikimedia-l] Selection of winning bid for Wikimania 2013: Hong Kong

[Kul Wadhwa]

Congratulations to Team Hong Kong!

Looking forward to dim sum in 2013 ;)

--Kul

On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 4:52 PM, James Forrester <jdforrester at gmail.com> wrote:
> On behalf of the Wikimania 2013[0] selection Jury[1], I can announce
> that we have awarded the conference to Hong Kong. Congratulations to
> the bidding team, and to the London team who also did a particularly
> excellent job.
>
> There were five official bids: Bristol, Naples and Surakarta, as well
> as the two finalists of Hong Kong and London[2]. The Jury and the
> bidding teams discussed them in three public IRC meetings in April. We
> determined that Hong Kong and London were the strongest contenders,
> and decided to focus on these two as the finalists. After further
> e-mail enquiries, and considering evaluation by Wikimedia Foundation
> staff, a final, private meeting was held to reach a final decision.
>
> The Jury was pleased by the high quality in both the final bids, and
> required over three hours' discussion to reach the final verdict. We
> considered each bid according to the criteria[3], focussing on
> following factors: Venue, Program, Geo-location & Logistics, Local
> Opportunities, Accommodations, Team & Chapter, and Budget & Finances.
> We found consensus that the Hong Kong bid was the stronger, especially
> because of their strong advance planning; solid support by the local
> Wikimedia Chapter, the community, local government, and a partner
> organisation that is experienced in planning conferences; and their
> good combination of venue and accommodation.
>
> The Jury has confidence that the Hong Kong bidding team will pull off
> a magnificent Wikimania, and we are pleased for our global community
> to return to Asia once again. With a motivated group of volunteers who
> have experience in organizing smaller Wikimedia activities, and a
> partner with experience in organizing larger-scale events, they have
> found a good mix to create a successful conference. The Jury did also
> identify some weaker points in each the bids, and will be happy to
> share those privately with the teams so that the Hong Kong team can
> use that to their advantage in organizing Wikimania 2013, and the
> other teams can use the feedback to improve their bids for a future
> year.
>
> We thank all candidate teams - the process is gruelling and requires a
> very substantial time investment. They are all to be commended for
> their submissions.
>
> To use this soap-box for a moment, as Moderator I would like to remind
> the community that we hope that this time was the last that we use
> this ad-hoc process to decide on the Wikimania venue, and encourage
> everyone to engage with the discussion on Meta[4] about how we might
> select Wikimania 2014 and beyond in a more open, community-led way.
> Please, do join in the discussions.
>
> Yours,
>
> James Forrester
> Moderator, Wikimania 2013 Jury
> For the Wikimania 2013 Jury
>
> [0] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013
> [1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013_jury
> [2] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013_bids
> [3] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013_judging_criteria
> [4] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Advisory_Group
> --
> James D. Forrester
> jdforrester at wikimedia.org | jdforrester at gmail.com
> [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
>
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