Wiki Student Summit 2024/Scholarships

16-18 July 2024, Arusha and Online
Beyond Borders: Collaborating for Positive Impact.

Note: The scholarships are available for Tanzanians only! For international participants, you will be responsible for planning and funding your trip. The organizing team can provide assistance when needed!

A scholarship is a grant given to an individual to enable them to attend Wiki Student Summit 2024 in person. This is achieved through the Wikimedia Foundation and other sponsors providing funds.

Full scholarships: will provide flights where necessary, transport, accommodation, limited medical insurance, food, and registration fees.
Partial scholarships: will provide accommodation, food, and registration fees.

All scholars will be provided meals in the time of lunch and dinner during pre-conference, conference days, and closing party at the venue. Meanwhile, breakfast will be covered by the hotel.

No online scholarships will be offered to online participants. No dedicated Wiki Student Summit scholarships will be offered to affiliates wishing to organize Wiki Student Summit-related events around the world either.

Important Dates!

Done 05 May 2024: Applications Open
Done 20 May 2024: Application Close
Not done 15 June 2024: Batch 1 results announced (for selected applicants)
Not done 20 June 2024: Final batch results announced (for selected and non-selected applicants)

Who can Apply?

Like in the past, anyone who is able to prove contribution to or activities in Wikimedia is welcome. Examples are as follows:

Active involvement (other than just membership and fulfilling member duties) in some form of Wikimedia group or organization (committee, hub, chapter, thematic organization or user group)
Participation in Wikimedia organized events (e.g. photographers contributing to Wiki Loves Monuments, workshop attendees)
Participation in a Wikimedia program (e.g. GLAM partnership or education program)
Organization of Wikimedia events or contests (e.g. WLM, edit-a-thons)
Being a steward, CheckUser, VRT member, interface admin, admin, or other advanced rights holder (current or former)
Being a Wikimedia Foundation grantee
MediaWiki code contributions, gadget or other tool-building for Wikimedia projects

These are just examples, though. Take your time to prepare on answering the questions before you answer and submit your application.

[NEW] Affiliate staff and contractors, and hubs and regional conference teams' appointees

Affiliate staff and contractors: For the Wiki Student Summit 2024 we will not be offering scholarships to paid staff of Wikimedia movement affiliates.

I need help with filling the form

Open calls "Road to Wiki Student Summit 2024"

The Core Organizing Team will be hosting open calls for everyone interested in Wiki Student Summit 2024:

Done 07 May 2024 .
Done 12 May 2024.
Done 18 May 2024 (link will be provided).

We will share general updates about Wiki Student Summit 2024, help with scholarships, and answer other questions. Come in and ask us about programming, scholarships, logistics, or how to get involved with Wiki Student Summit 2024.

Detailed advice

Filling out the application form will take approximately 15 - 20 minutes. You can not edit the application after submission. You can only edit it before submission if you don't clear your cookies. Draft carefully and ensure that you write everything you need to write. Please do not submit an application twice.
You may submit your application in language other than Swahili. If possible, do consider Swahili and English, though. These are the only languages spoken by all Scholarship working group members. Also consider that you will need a working level of Swahili and English for travel and volunteering at the event anyway.
We kindly request an honest delineation of individual contributions in group efforts. We do not accept accomplishments that cannot be proven or are untruthfully claimed as solely individual if in fact these were group efforts. Add a link to Diff, a wiki page or even a social media post that will allow us to check if you did what you claim as yours.

Criteria for immediate refusal

Applications will fail phase 1 if any of the following failing criteria apply:

The applicant is a current or past grantee from any WMF Grant program and found to be non-compliant.
The applicant is currently globally blocked by the Wikimedia Foundation or the community.
The application is empty.
The application consists of content which is off-topic or abusive.
The applicant has failed to make a reasonable effort to answer the questions on the application form.
The applicant has failed to demonstrate any significant Wikimedia contributions or activities which may merit the awarding of a scholarship.

Core Organizing Team is cooperating with the Wikimedia Foundation and in some cases, Wikimedia hubs or affiliates to determine the final list of scholars. We reserve the right to remove certain people due to their conduct on/off-wiki. Examples would be those on global and event ban lists, under sanctions from the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC), or otherwise known to the COT as rule breakers.

Applications for which no failing criteria apply will pass into phase 2 for further evaluation.

Contact / Help / I have a questions not answered on this page

See Open calls "A road to Wiki Student Summit 2024".
You may also write an email message to wss@openspacetanzania.org
Our help will cover:
- Clarifying questions on the submissions
- The Dos and Don'ts of application submissions
- The issues during the application submission
- Next steps after submissions
- What if I don’t get funded
If possible, we kindly request not to send us questions on social media – we use the profiles on Facebook, Twitter etc. to keep you updated, but we don't check their inboxes very often.

Related affiliate events funding

Wikimedia affiliates may use funds already obtained through the Wikimedia Foundation General Support Fund (GSF) to run a Wiki Student Summit-related event locally, even if such an event was not initially included in their GSF proposal. The GSF grantees have the ability to move funds around their budget as needed, and, per the General Support Fund agreement, the Foundation only requests that Program Officers be informed if that variance is more than 20% from the original proposal.

We encourage all affiliates interested in hosting a Wiki Student Summit-related event to list their event details on the Related affiliate events subpage, so that affiliates may coordinate between themselves, encouraging collaboration and connection amongst Wikimedians and to better promote their events.

Affiliates wanting to live stream into Wiki Student Summit should get in touch with the programme working group at wss@openspacetanzania.og as soon as they have the details of their event.
The Core Organizing Team will provide technical support for groups wanting to livestream into Wiki Student Summit.
Please use the talk page to discuss ideas.