Wikimania Committee/Minutes/2019-03-20

Participants

Participating

Deror Avi (representing WM 2011)
Iolanda Pensa (representing WM 2016) Chair
Florence Devouard
Phoebe Ayers (representing WM 2017) Vice-Chair
Andrew
Joël Letang (Events Team Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation)
Isabel Cueva (Event Program Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation)

Absent:

Iván Martínez (representing WM 2015)
Orsolyan
Manuel
Edward (representing WM 2014)
Romaine

Agenda

Meeting of the Wikimania Committee with Joël Letang (Events Team Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation) and Isabel Cueva (Event Program Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation).

Introductions - the Wikimania Committee and the Events Team at Wikimedia Foundation
Update on Wikimania 2019
Situation for Wikimania 2020
Planning things to do and new meeting

Introductions

WM SW Conference Manager for Wikimania 2019 Joel: Community Events Team Manager at Wikimedia Foundation. Based in Amsterdam. Isabel: Events Program Manager at Wikimedia Foundation. Focus on Wikimania for now. In her 4th week at WMF. Based in Los Angeles Joel: started end of Jan. Extensive on boarding process. Now mid-term planning. Aiming at supporting the community.

Updates on Wikimania Stockholm 2019

At the moment they are working on the program. Scholarship and registrations.

Submissions for the spaces close this week. One day or one half day. Then up to the space lead to decide what this space will include.

Space submission deadline : March 22nd to be leaders and create spaces. After the definition of the spaces, the program team committee will be created with the space leaders (and they will define how to select the different workshops/lectures/keynotes for each space related to the theme…).

Phoebe supports the new concept of spaces set up in 2019. Collection of engineered and submitted propositions.

---> It would be important to clarify the full process of the program and to anticipate the information about the possible lectures/workshops/presentations. Maybe a meeting with Liam on this topic to make sure there are shorter and quick information to under.

Updates on Wikimania 2020

At the moment discussions about

Bangkok, Thailand;
Bali, Indonesia;
Perth, Australia;

Discussions about the different venues and the centrality of Bangkok.

Necessities for future Wikimania

Clarifying roles and tasks lead by the Wikimedia Foundation event team and the roles and tasks of volunteers.
Select rapidly the venue for Wikimania 2020
Work the eligibility and the criteria for Wikimania (at the moment the situation is unclear).

Previous discussions about the needs of Wikimania (not mentioned during the meeting but useful to refer to)

Software to manage the scholarships
Software to manage the program (Phoebe is discussing about it with some developers)
Improving the collaboration with the communication team and reinforcing the communication of the event
Clarifying roles and procedures within Wikimedia Foundation. Ellie Young is had a meeting to propose to establish an event team.
Difficulties in managing the budget of Wikimania. October-December: Wikimedia Foundation defines its budget for Wikimania; June: it is when expenditures for Wikimania become more pressing. But payment require 30 days.
People who receive a scholarship need to be fed (dinners need to be included). Ellie explains that at the moment it is possible to apply for refund for the dinners and that the procedure is very clear and everybody knows it. Iolanda says that she received a scholarship and she didn’t know about the procedure.
For events co-located in the preconference (i.e. Whose Knowledge) it is important to clarify if they are on invitation only and to have an application process so people can apply to attend the event (and eventually the organisers will decide to accept or not the applications). The application system allows to open up the event at least up to a certain level.

Calendar

March-April: decision about Wikimania 2020.
Next meeting: end of April

Decisions and Next Steps

Andrew is the contact person for the Wikimania Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation team for Wikimania 2020
Deror will contact the program team of Wikimania 2019 to clarify some aspects of the process

To announce Wikimedia, we need:

Decision of the Wikimania committee (Phoebe sends the email)
Meeting of with the WMF with the potential team
Inform Bangkok, Bali and Perth
Approval of the WMF
Announcement (official is always at Wikimania August 2019)

Working on the tasks of the WMF and the local team (Phoebe, Iolanda…)
Working on the criteria for future Wikimania (Phoebe, Iolanda, Deror…)