Grants talk:Conference/Wotancito/WikiWomenCamp 2017

Questions

Hello @Wotancito: and the team. This is Mervat Salman, a member of the "grants review committee". I find your proposal for a new conference in Mexico related to gender gap interesting. I have read the details of the grant request, and have the following questions:

1. The outcome of the conference: What would you achieve and how would you measure the success of the conference? specially that you are targeting an international attendance.
2. Expected participants: How did you decide the attendees? In the table of the flights, you specified the number of attendees from certain countries, based on what you decided the countries and the number of participants from each country?
3. The flights cost is an estimate calculated based on an international online travel agency, as you know these costs change from time time, but you didn't count for any extra cost needed to cover flights, or will this be taken from the extra budget (if occurs)?

Thanks. --Mervat Salman (talk) 19:51, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I am also a member of the review committee for conference grants. I have the same questions as Mervat Salman above, plus:

1. What is your plan for geographic diversity, making sure that women from throughout the world are represented? I note your conference is global in scope, rather than just a particular geographic region. I also note that your proposal includes full scholarships, which I like since it helps make participation an option for more people.
2. What are your plans for facilitating the unconference?
3. I am not sure that skills training is the best use of time; I think that while everyone is in the same building together, activities should focus more on collaboration and collective planning. But assuming it goes ahead, do you have specific trainers in mind?
4. How will you share your meeting outcomes with the rest of the Wikimedia movement?

I think the concept is reasonable but light on program details. With some effort invested in strategy, you can get a really good conference. You've identified the problem; what is something actionable you want to accomplish at the conference? What would achieving that thing look like?

Thank you, harej (talk) 21:45, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Answers from Wotancito

Thank you for your time and interesting questions, Mervat and James. My answers:

Mervat

1. The outcome of the conference: What would you achieve and how would you measure the success of the conference? specially that you are targeting an international attendance.

We want women to exchange experiences and learn about initiatives and skills that they will be able to take back to their communities in order to take action to reduce the gendergap. What we want is to create a global network to deal with this issue, because right now efforts are very fragmented, and there is little or no knowledge about what is happening in different parts of the world and what is working and what is not. We can see different ways this could happen after the conference, but how this would finally look will depend on the participats of the conference.

2. Expected participants: How did you decide the attendees? In the table of the flights, you specified the number of attendees from certain countries, based on what you decided the countries and the number of participants from each country?

At Wikimania we had the chance to speak to many women. We do have a tentative list of participants who have done work related to the gendergap that is very geographically and project-wise diverse. It is tentative because we are aware that people may not be able to make it, or that new names could join it. But we don't think we have forgotten anyone who has taken the lead in initiatives of this kind.

3. The flights cost is an estimate calculated based on an international online travel agency, as you know these costs change from time time, but you didn't count for any extra cost needed to cover flights, or will this be taken from the extra budget (if occurs)?

It will be taken from the extra budget, unless the committee thinks we should do this another way? Because it is true this is something that concerns us as well, and we weren't quite sure how to phrase it in the proposal (but are aware this must be a universal issue for all conferences).

James

1. What is your plan for geographic diversity, making sure that women from throughout the world are represented? I note your conference is global in scope, rather than just a particular geographic region. I also note that your proposal includes full scholarships, which I like since it helps make participation an option for more people.

Geographic diversity is very important to us. It has been a major consideration when discussing potential participants. Fortunately we were able to meet many people at Wikimania and through our own networks we believe we have a very good grasp of the women who have been leaders in this issue around the globe. And yes, full scholarships are vital in this context.

2. What are your plans for facilitating the unconference?

We will have local facilitators.

3. I am not sure that skills training is the best use of time; I think that while everyone is in the same building together, activities should focus more on collaboration and collective planning. But assuming it goes ahead, do you have specific trainers in mind?

There are some skills that can make a very big difference in some projects. Consider a project that does not have an archivebot, and threads at the villagepump start to clutter until several female editors take upon themselves to periodically manually archive. This is a real example. A half hour explaining about pywikibot, for instance, whose documentation on mediawiki is nearly incomprehensible, can make a difference in time and effort to a lot of people. But there are other skills we have in mind, and we definitely want to put the focus on collaboration and collective planning - skills are just a way to empower participants when they return to their communities. We do have some specific trainers in mind, but their availability is to be confirmed, so we have been playing with the idea of either contacting known experts or doing an open call.

4. How will you share your meeting outcomes with the rest of the Wikimedia movement?

We intend to do something similar to the first edition. We will heavily document what we do both in Meta and Commons.

5. I think the concept is reasonable but light on program details. With some effort invested in strategy, you can get a really good conference. You've identified the problem; what is something actionable you want to accomplish at the conference? What would achieving that thing look like?

At the end of the day, we want to be something similar to Iberocoop - an international network that pools knowledge and resources to empower women. Putting faces to names and being able to interact with the women leaders from around the globe will create connections and shared knowledge, create trust and build relationships, and spark collaborations. We need this network to happen, especially for the women who are used to being the only woman in the room or part of a tiny minority in the projects. How this will take final form is up to the participants - but we are drawing on other experiences and are optimistic we can make this happen. Attendants of the first edition still have that shared history and are still in contact, and after the conference went on to take leadership roles across the movement in the following years. If we can get our women to be inspired and enthusiastic, and empower them, it will be a success.

Thanks, --Wotancito (talk) 06:53, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Propuesta de cambio de fecha de la conferencia

Esta propuesta de grant que presentamos en agosto, no recibió las primeras dudas del comité hasta finales de septiembre, estamos a mediados de octubre y no hemos obtenido respuesta. Consideramos que, de ser aprobado el Grant, a poco menos de dos meses la organización se complica debido a la premura en la logística y en un alza considerable de costo de vuelos y hospedaje.
Estamos pensando actualizar los costos y modificar la propuesta de grant.
Les solicito saber qué posibilidades tenemos para hacer esto.
Saludos, Wotancito (talk) 18:15, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Change of the venue

Due the changes in the dates of the camp, we need to move the event to Centro Horizontal from Centro de Cultura Digital. Unfortunately the venue can't block for more time the dates for us. Considering logistics of the event, we find Centro Horizontal, seven blocks to the south from the first proposed venue with no cost of rent. --Wotancito (talk) 05:35, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Summary of conference goals

1. Networking and finding a better way to share and collaborate together in the future
2. Skill Building: What are the technical skills people want and need to learn?
3. Outreach & Communication:how to get better allies and partners, communicating the impact of our work, how to educate wm community about gender issues
4. Information sharing: How do we create a more effective platform for knowledge sharing and collaborating across projects