ESEAP Conference 2024/Report/EmpAhmadK

ESEAP Conference 2024 was my second attending a Wikimedia conference (the previous being Wikimania 2023), and my first as part of the organising committee.

My role in the conference

I was tasked to be a part of the communications team, where I was in charge of the social media. Although I was unable to do as much as we originally planned due to the need to balance the task with my studies, I am glad that I was able to do many things, most notably the posters and the Quokka appreciation post series, which saw Quokka preparing for the conference and sharing her stories around Kota Kinabalu. Although perhaps the part I am most happy of is the visual identity and logo of the conference, which was based on the nature in Kota Kinabalu, while merging the elements from the conference concept as well as ESEAP itself.

During the second day, I volunteered to interpret several sessions from English to Malay.

I also presented on the topic of uniting networks for free knowledge, where I discussed efforts conducted by Wikimedia Malaysia for the global Wikimedia movement by the means of wide extents of collaboration.

Things I learned at the conference

I learned a lot from the conference out of my participation. Through being part of the organising committee, among the things I learned are:

Better communication with the team in order to ensure smoother conduct of any particular project.
Communication with other parties, in this case being both the participants and the hotel staff in dealing with important matters.
Time management, especially when balancing between two very important tasks.
Crisis control during urgent moments in unexpected cases.
Translation & live interpretation skills.

As a participant, I learned, among others:

Understand further about the role and scope of ESEAP.
Networking & seeking opportunities, especially with other types of projects and different scopes.
Methods in approaching indigenous communities for programmes relating to their communities and culture.

Post-conference plans

Having seen the projects and different ways people conduct their programmes across ESEAP, I plan to take them into consideration for the future programmes which I will manage in Malaysia. I also will be making use of the skills and knowledge I gained from organising this conference into the programmes that we conduct in Malaysia, especially the planned Wikimedia Malaysia Conference next year, as well as our periodical programmes with the embassies. This would hopefully ensure a smoother process in all the programmes for a better result.

Comments/suggestions

ESEAP Conference is a wonderful opportunity for the people within this region to extend their network and learn further in pushing forward our shared interests.

Especially being part of the organising team, I would say that it is necessary to have more workforce to handle certain ground tasks, such as technical matters and also general floor coordination. Although this is possible to be done by the Wikimedia volunteers, however, most of us are busy with the managerial and coordination aspect of these tasks, that the tasks themselves are left undone or done by very few people, leading to lack of efficiency.