Global Open Movement/Context

Short analysis of the current Wikimania and other events of the open movement to identify element to consider for Wikimania 2029.

SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis of Wikimania
Strengths	Weaknesses
Almost 20 years of experience. Regular yearly event with its passionate communities. Support of the Wikimedia Foundation for the logistics with experienced staff. Development of a collaboration with FOSSAsia for the online open platform. Scholarships to support participation from many different countries. Members of the Wikimedia communities involved in other like minded organisations. Already extensive programme with many sessions and 5 days of events. Already wide programme with sessions in many areas: tech, education, GLAMs, advocacy, open science... Already collaboration with like-minded organisations at Wikimania. Experience in experimenting ;-) A wide team of previous organisers of Wikimania with extensive experience and interest in supporting the event.	Desire to organise a global event in collaboration with like-minded organisation never fully achieved. Limited number of in-person participants. The maximum number of participants was in London with around 2'000 participants. Normally the event range from around 600 to 1'200. The event addresses essentially the Wikimedia communities with limited impact on other open communities. Some experiments in providing general presentations designed for non-active users (in local languages), but with limited number of participants and impact. A lot of other events in the Wikimedia movement: regional, thematic, hubs... Expensive event organised in formal venues (often in hotels and conference centres), which do not represent in the best way a collaborative and open atmosphere. Limited experimentation in the last years. The communication of the event is very limited since it is essentially a tribal event.Limited social impact. Need of more technical contributors in the Wikimedia projects.
Opportunities	Threats
Good relationships with like-minded organisations. Interest in collaborating with like-minded organisations, stakeholders and partners. Interest in increasing outreach, engagement, involvement of new contributors and impact. Selection of the venues ahead of time (even 3 years). Growing importance of the hybrid component. Previous organisers of Wikimania can actively contribute to a large-scale complex event with their experience, network and active engagement.	Very difficult to scale from 1'200 participants to 10'000 unless the event is organised with partners which already involve a large number of participants A wide and global communication about "the power and value of the open" can only be achieved with a large-scale event or an innovation.

Overview of some major events contributing to the open

Current topics in the different events dedicated to the "open"
	Wikimania (article with issues)	FOSDEM (article with issues)	Creative Commons Global Summit (no article)	State of the map (no article)	International Open Access Week
Promoted by	Volunteers and the Wikimedia Foundation	Volunteers		Volunteers and OpenStreetMap Foundation
Period	August	First week of February		July / September	October
Participants in person	600-1'200	11'000
Number of tracks
Website				https://stateofthemap.org/	https://www.openaccessweek.org/
Open Content	It is the core topic of Wikimania
Open Software	It is the infrastructure of the Wikimedia projects and there are already many conferences about its technical needs. Wikimania also traditionally hosts an Hackathon. There is also a specific need of technical contributors in the Wikimedia projects	It is the core topic of FOSDEM with conferences and stands.
Open licenses and legal tools	Open licenses and tools are central to all content and projects presented at Wikimania	Open licenses and tools are central to all projects and services presented at FOSDEM	It is the core topic of Creative Commons Global Summit
Advocacy	Conferences devoted to legislations	Dev rooms devoted to European legislation
Open Education and OER Open Educational Resources	The Wikimedia projects are OER and there are many sessions at Wikimania about education, training and the use of Wikimedia projects in schools and universities
Open science / Open research	Conferences devoted to open access, open science and research. WMF implements research and there are communities of researchers engaged in the Wikimedia projects	There is a dev room devoted in particular to research infrastructures			It is the core topic of the Open Access Week
GLAMs and their open repositories and content	Many events about how to develop and support partnerships. Synergies with Creative Commons		Many events about how to develop and support partnerships Synergies with Wikimedia projects.
Medicine and health	A thematic group in this area.
Sustainability and climate change	Some informal groups interested on those topics.
Inclusion and diversity	Several thematic groups in this area. Scholarships and grants contributing to inclusion and diversity. Code of conduct.
Open hardware	nn	There are stands and conferences about it
Trust and safety	Code of conduct Trust and safety team at Wikimedia Foundation.
Strengths	Very nicely organised Itinerant with experience in doing things differently ;-) Scholarships to increase participation and diversity	Wide and wild event, huge and mainstream with over 30 tracks great open infrastructure, streaming, recording, post-production
Weaknesses	Limited participation It could have a wider impact Complex and expensive organisation	Wild and wide ;-) February in Bruxelles Limited number of rooms at ULB Limited diversity of participants

Format

Format of the event

Congress
Conference
Gathering
Festival
Fair

Format of the sessions

Presentations: lightening talks
Interactive sessions: discussions, round tables, sessions with moderators