 My name is Joelle. I'm the lead event strategist here at the Wikimedia Foundation. And this is the session, The Future of Wikimedia. Let me just share my screen really quickly with y'all. Everyone can see my screen? Yes, wonderful. All right. Welcome to this session. Let me just introduce the topic here and remind everyone why we're here. Wikimedia, first of all, is completely movement led and foundation supported. This is an event that has grown to what it is right now. And so we want to empower communities over the whole world to be able to host Wikimedia while being supported fully by the foundation. In case you didn't know, in the past, there has been a bidding system where communities, locations and world countries were able to place a bid. This would then get reviewed by the Wikimedia steering committee and a recommendation would then be made to host Wikimedia in any given location. Especially in a post-COVID world, this bidding system is in need of a bit of a refresh. We want to be able to holistically look at risk that are associated with mass convenings like Wikimedia, especially since we're going back to in-person convenings after three years. And we want to support communities with their locations of choice, meaning we want to be able for our global and diverse community to make informed decisions based off of data where it's safe for a community to convene. Wikimedia is also a mass event, so it's really important for us to have different strategies in place, different tactics in place to be able to look at locations holistically. Of course, the end goal here is to have an equitable regional rotation of where Wikimedia is hosted anywhere in the world. And for this, I just want to highlight really quickly the work we have done with the whole ECAP region. So ECAP, the East, Southeast Asia and Pacific region, where we've been working with them really since 2019. Then we know 2020 got cancelled, but we continued working with ECAP all the way to now and we'll continue to working with the ECAP community as in case you've missed it. The next location in next year will be Singapore. We've worked with the communities there to be able to, as I said before, assess risk holistically, determine what are the countries that the communities want to host Wikimedia in, and then be able to look at the factors that would make it a safe convening for our global and diverse communities. We don't want to overburden communities as has happened in the past. That's why I also want to remind everyone in the room that the Foundation is here to support communities in order to host this mass convening. So that's it for my bit. I'm going to introduce the moderator for our panel discussion today. Winnie Kabynty. Winnie was part of the 2021 core organizing team for the very first virtual Wikimedia and currently is the senior movement communication specialist for the African region. Over to you, Winnie. Thank you, Joelle, and welcome and welcome back again everybody to this session where we get to have a conversation on what the future of Wikimedia looks like. I don't know about you, but I'm really excited. I feel so thrilled to see that in 2023 we are going to be convening once again in person in Singapore. And as one of the members from Singapore mentioned earlier during the announcement, it's going to be one of the hottest Wikimedia. So I'm sure we are all looking forward to that. So with me in studio, that sounds good to see it. I have a seasoned panel of three. And I'm going to introduce them. So first we have Anna. Anna was a member of the 2021 Wikimedia co organizing team. Also a seasoned Wikimedia. We have Nangara. Nangara is a member of the Wikimedia Steering Committee. And we have Linda, who is serving as a risk manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. And what we're going to be having today, as well as just introduced, we're going to kickstart a conversation that is going to help us solve two puzzles around the future of Wikimedia course at the COVID pandemic. And the puzzle one is, if Wikimedia is going back to an in-person format, we definitely need a way to determine and plan ahead for the next year. How are we going to continue to develop a plan around the regional rotation? How are we going to be identifying this region? Bearing in mind the risk assessment that Joel just brought in, and we're going to also be delving deeper into that risk assessment. And now it's disrupting how regional regions were identified in past Wikimanias. And puzzle two, we're going to also be discussing, it's one thing to come up with a region and regions are broad, they are big. But then how, again, we also narrow down to the specific country that will eventually host Wikimedia. So this is a conversation that we want to have in this particular discussion. As Joel has mentioned, Wikimedia remains a movement led event with the support of the foundation. And so we would like to have this discussion really as engaging as possible. So feel free to add your thoughts in the comments and in the etherpad. The link will be shared on the chat. We want to hear all your sentiments around this conversation. And once we also conclude this session, we are going to carry on with the same conversation in the networking space. So please join that space as well. So to kick us off, I would like to invite Nangara to just weigh in on the first puzzle of, you know, what are his thoughts on the regional rotation of Wikimedia moving forward. Over to you Nangara. Thanks, Feeny. It's an interesting question how we rotate through the regions in an equitable way. I think early on we had a process that set a European city, a North American city, and then somewhere else across the globe. And while that was great in the early years, I personally think it's not a sustainable way to build the community or to work in an equitable way across the community. I think the big thing that I really enjoyed about that early process was the bidding process. I know I'm drifting into the second part of the puzzle here, but stretching out into three years, part of the bidding process gave us a two-year lead into Wikimedia, which meant that the teams were able to build and do a lot of things. I saw firsthand how that was working with 2020. And I also experienced how difficult it was to bring the first online Wikimedia in 2021 and how we had such a short lead in time. And that's a challenge that we need to face. And along with it's a challenge of how we bring these two elements together. I would love to hear what everybody's thoughts is now that they've experienced a couple of online Wikimanias and for those that were fortunate enough beforehand to have experienced in-person Wikimanias. Thanks, Winnie. Thank you, Nangara. And I would also switch gears a bit and go to Linda. Linda, if you could also weigh in and share your thoughts. I also know that the 2021 Wikimanias in 2022, we also have quite a number of newcomers who are joining Wikimanias for the first time. And to also make this conversation as inclusive as possible for them, it will also be good to, you know, set the scene for them to just understand how the past has been, why it's important for us to have this conversation presently as we look into the future. How does the risk, how has the risk assessment dynamic changed all this conversation about the hosting of Wikimanias? And how does the risk assessment that was done in the Asia region, how does that change or rather how does that make this conversation so important at this particular time? Thanks, Winnie. I was very excited to be asked to support the community by creating the risk assessment matrix. And the community picked nine countries in the region. And I built a risk assessment for them around criteria, such as human rights, LGBTQ rights, visas, and so I helped them assess which countries they would like to choose and do the narrowing. So from the nine countries, and Gengara will talk more about the actual process, but we were able to look objectively at what criteria would make a good first choice country and what criteria would make a good backup country. And the advantage of looking out in time allows us to have the most runway possible to mitigate any risks. And I think it's interesting and important to distinguish two different kinds of risks. The risk assessment matrix only looked at big picture risks. So when we select a country such as Singapore, that allows the community that is organizing in Singapore to now look at what we would call secondary manageable risks, such as do we have the ability to have food items that are appropriate for different, different preferences and cultures and religions. Do we have the ability to ensure we can accommodate all level of in person meetings that that accommodate people of different strengths. So, so that narrowing just to get to the country is is where I was honored to contribute. And I'd really love to pass it back over to Gengara to talk about what EC app did with the information. And I'll end by simply saying that I'm very much excited about using this process to support getting three years out a window that we can begin the planning and have a very robust event for, you know, every, every, every year, all of the runway possible to ensure that we can bring an event on on successfully. Thanks for that. Go on Anna. Hi everybody. You know, I wanted to, to relate to some questions I'm reading on on the chat about what I also consider one of the elephants in the room here. This hybrid format, or having had to already to virtual Wikimanias has opened up new opportunities for also for the community we need has just said that virtual Wikimani has held newcomers to participate right or be a more inclusive events. But also I think that the pandemic has changed the community somehow. And there are a lot of community members or we are more committed to the planet right as a community we are more committed to planet to so traveling is not going to be an option for many people and how do we keep ensuring that people wants to participate or able to participate and how we are going to be adapt to the situation in the future so I think this is also a question that we have to, to, yeah to address or, or at least I wanted to put it here because I'm really need a lot in the chat. So, now I pass it to Linda or to Nangara. I'll just, I'll just mention that you, you brought up a great point, and one of the things that we assess in in the risk assessment is the strength of the Wi Fi, the internet backbone, because to continue to do hybrid events which is more inclusive, and enables people to travel or join from wherever they choose to in the world. It means that the internet backbone and our ability to connect becomes very critical as well so I think that's going forward a really great perspective to keep in mind for assessing what are good, good and better choices. Thank you Anna. So, can I go now please. Yeah, okay, I'll wind back a little bit with Linda's question about how we came to Singapore. We spent a lot of time talking with the community. We identified countries within the ECAP region that were accessible, had communities, and had the facilities necessary to actually host an event as big as Awika Mania could be. And that included the online, you know, how good were the internet connections, do we have venues, all of those things we discussed, we came down as a community to nine countries to choose from. And then from there we took, I had another discussion with Linda online and we decided that from those nine countries and then this risk assessment, we identified to possibly the third country that we could look at as viable destinations. And then we then went back to the community and how to discussion on matter and let everyone express their opinion as to which of the two most viable countries we were going to go to and the decision was Singapore. So, and it wasn't a pure vote, it was based on the numbers, but also on the arguments people were putting forward, information coming from community members in those countries as to how engaged they wanted to be in the process. Winnie. Thank you and Nangara. I also want to acknowledge the comments that are coming in on the chat. And I know there's, and I know there's a lot of concern around whether by going back to an in-person week in Mania, we are totally doing away with, you know, hybrid version or other the opportunity for people to meet virtually. Definitely not. And I'm also very aware that this is a conversation that the Wikimedia steering committee is already having. Definitely the future of Wikimedia cannot be the same. And that's why we are having this conversation. So just because people are going to an in-person Wikimedia doesn't mean that we will always meet in person and that's all. So that's why we are having this conversation to see how that future looks like and what we would like to see more. So feel free to add in your sentiments. And now maybe we can even give the audience the opportunity to ask any questions that you might have or even share any recommendations that you might have. So feel free to even raise your hand and you'll be given an opportunity to speak. Just acknowledging some of the comments we've seen in the chat where Mike Peele says it sounds like the lessons from last few years are being lost. Why do we even have an in-person single location event? I think that was just addressed by Winnie. Or we have to have an in-person event that can be hybrid and enable access for those who can't travel. Again, that's also been addressed. Andrew Lee, who is also part of the Wikimedia steering committee, says his opinion, even though it's not a steering committee, equitable stuff to determine. Ultimately, it has to make sense as a hub city for logistics and that includes visas costs, sustainability, etc. Then the elephant in the room of sustainability being raised. How can we justify climate costs of these big events, which are almost always exclusionary to some Wikimedians, depending on where they are held. Mike is saying, oh, we are addressed that. But it's also saying that lots of other events have found the same thing online is much easier for people to access, particularly if they can't afford travel. And it's also suggesting maybe we should fork Wikimedia. Forking meaning having one that's in-person for those that like that and when that's 100% online, or for those that can't travel. I think that's been addressed with the hybrid comment just now. Again, I would like to invite anyone from the audience to raise your hand, unmute if you kind of like want to share and contribute here. If not, please drop it in the chat. Sorry, Joe, can I just jump in on Mike's question about hybrid? I think it's one of the things we need to work on. I think both platforms we have used have had their own unique issues and they've had their own unique successes. I think over time we will be able to develop that a lot better. There's still a lot of value in the personal connections, the being in the same room, able to chat to someone passing in a hallway that we haven't resolved with the online. I think that's one of the values of being in person. And while hub is great and we need to be careful how we determine that because there are a lot of places which are physically isolated. There is no way for you to get to an in-person event without getting in an error plane or some kind. Not everywhere has interconnecting rail leaks that you can get in a couple of hours later in another country. For some people, flight is the only option. Singapore, we have some rail leaks. If you're coming from Thailand, Malaysia, you can come down by rail. Indonesia, there are ferry leaks. For everyone else, it's basically going to have to be a fly-in. So yes, our car footprint is going to be an issue and we need to find ways to do it better. And perhaps there's the opportunity to mirror it with a second or third sitting and literally be around the clock so that Singapore hands off to somewhere else. And somewhere else hands off to a third city and then it's handed back to Singapore when it goes live so that we can get both the in-person experiences and connections. As well as those, reach out to those that can't get 20 of them. Thank you, Nangara. And I also don't want us to lose sight of the two puzzles that we still need to be solving around how do we identify the regions that will host future Wikimanias and how do we narrow down to the specific country. So if someone has any thoughts around that, we will be happy to hear that even as we acknowledge their suggestions to ensure that future Wikimanias are hybrid events. I think that Lisa addressed that pretty well. I think that the work that has been done regarding or with this risk assessment is a huge change. This is something that didn't happen before and I think it's a good practice. Beyond those criteria that Linda shared with us before, I would also suggest, for example, to analyze the quality of healthcare, for example, in a country. I mean, does it have a good private or public healthcare system that will take care of us if something happens, if any problem arises? Again, I think economy, because I'm reading also the chat, is also a huge issue. I mean, Wikimanias is almost a privilege for a lot of volunteers, but also when being in Wikimanias, even me being a privileged person that can go to Wikimanias, sometimes cities are super expensive for a lot of us. Like, I don't know, going to have a dinner outside the facilities or the venue sometimes is super, super expensive for us. So also paying attention to that for me is also important. And of course, how attractive it is. I mean, again, the pandemic has changed us a lot as a community and dedicating our holidays, free time to go to Wikimanias, at least, again, it should be like attractive for the community. I mean, the community really needs to want to go to that place. And there are other criteria that I feel super important when narrowing the countries or the region, for example, that is already said like human rights, right? It's a country that respects human rights or the level of connectivity. Or the community, how much community is in place, for example, is the community big enough to lead an event of these characteristics and not burnout? Because I mean, I've been in the movement for the last years, nine years almost, and I've heard a lot of stories of communities also getting very, very tired after organizing an event of these characteristics. And also how to get there beyond the visa. That the country has an international airport and allow us the volunteers to arrive in an easy way and not stopping over hundreds of airports around the world. Also, this is something that I will take into account. Again, big changes from the past. I think that having a risk assessment is super important and I'm happy to see it. But I will come, I mean, probably Lisa knows better than me, but I will complete it with this other criteria that from a community perspective are also important. Thank you, Anna, for those great insights. I want to acknowledge a comment I've seen on the chat from Rebecca, and she talks about someone, let me get that. Yeah, she talks about, you know, I would like to advocate if you have to go back to in person, why not go back to the Italian model where we came out and brought an infrastructure role or other benefits to the local community. Rebecca, would you like to verbalize that comment and just comment further on it so that anyone who is watching this and has no idea what that model is can be on the same page. Can do probably, can you hear me? Yes, Rebecca, go ahead. Fantastic. Probably best so you don't see me on a Sunday afternoon while Ireland is experiencing a heatwave, which would make most people here laugh at the temperatures that we're experiencing. I suppose for me, and I didn't attend, I've ever attended two Wikimanias, one which was London, which was exceptionally large, and one which was Mexico, which was that bit smaller, the year after. So I didn't actually attend the Italian Wikimania, but the fundamental idea behind it, which was to bring it to a rural area and actually as part of, I suppose, somewhat taking the playbook of the Olympics, which of course doesn't actually necessarily always play out. But the idea that you bring Wikimania to an area that necessarily doesn't have the infrastructure isn't known for being an overly connected area. And the idea is that by bringing it to there, you are investing in the infrastructure of that place. So I know I saw a comment from Liam Wyatt, who's in Iscena Lario at the moment, and his phone automatically connected to the Wi-Fi because it's still there. I don't know if a lot of the Wikimanias can say that they brought that sort of lasting legacy to the host country or the host place in the way that it happened there. And also, just as an attendee, while you might travel, in my case, for the first time to Mexico, I saw relatively little Mexico outside of a rather high-end hotel, which is probably not indicative of the actual country. And while, yes, in person is fantastic, I would just like to reiterate that not all people flourish in person. A lot of people find crowds and be in a hotel with strangers, and especially when you have to share a room with a stranger, somebody that you perhaps have never met before has been kind of common in Wikimanias and conferences in the past. That can be incredibly difficult for people with for a range of reasons. And so I think the puzzle one, the fact that by default we're saying that in person is a good thing and what we should aspire to. I'd like to know what's the concrete rationale behind that, before we take that as the de facto jumping off point. Thank you, Rebecca. I understand that this conversation is also getting very active on the etherpad. And as I mentioned earlier, because we also don't have much time on this session, we will carry on the conversation in the networking space. But for now, one of the other things that I would like us also before we run out of time to discuss is once we have a region for the next Wikimanias, like when we have an if or let me just say if we have an in person Wikimanias, because I don't want it to look like they are also concerns on the start, like if it's decided we're going to have in person. So yes, once a region has been identified for potential in person Wikimanias, how again do we narrow down on the countries? Do we still go back to the bidding system and ask countries in that region to bid to host? How do we see this playing out in the event that there's an in person Wikimanias? My great panelist, feel free to weigh in on that and anyone else from the audience as well. I've got to say I've done a few bits, never been successful, but I've always found it an interesting challenge and a learning experience to put one together. I know it draws a lot of resources out of the community, puts a lot of pressure on people early on to find and get answers. I like the way we went about 2023, which was we decided on the region between the community. We selected the country's most capable of hosting the event. And then we went to foundation when the primarily went with the whole series of questions. It was health care. It was human rights. It was legal systems. It was accessibility visas. All of those things were part of that matrix to make up to help us make that final decision of which countries. And then we took it back to the community again to decide to decide their final choice. And I think that process works well. For the next 24, 25, I think is probably a good process to hold on to while we work with integrating hybrid and second and third party locations. And then from 26 onwards, we look more at how we can keep restructuring and addressing the issues that are still poorly addressed. And that is the climate issues, the fact that we can't get to a lot of places easily, that there are isolated communities. And we don't want to go back into that repetition of everyone having to go back to the same type of place at the time. So just to jump in very quickly, because I know we've only got a couple of minutes left of the session. I think the rotation policy that we came up with was based on the tension between the communities at the time. And that's why we ended up with a once in North Europe, you know, whatever South Europe, once in North America, once not in either of those two. And at the time we got a huge amount of complaints from people in North America and Europe of why we were wasting all this time going to communities that had very small numbers of members of the community. Part of the purpose of Wikimania is to reach out to new people and bring them in the door. And an online conference is very good at getting raw numbers of people, but it's not necessarily very good at building that empathy between people. And so Wikimania at its best has always been a hybrid event, right? Right from 2005 we were streaming, there wasn't much of a feedback loop and that varied, but it's always been a hybrid event. And we should aim to do better and keep the hybrid model that involves as many people around the world as possible. Yes, I mean, sorry to that. I think that nobody, at least in my particular case, I'm not, I mean, I see the benefits of a face-to-face meeting. I think that we really need to meet because in the Wikimedia movement meeting means, as I was reading in the chat, right? I mean, reaching, I don't know, building new partnerships. I mean, understanding what the other community members are doing around the world. So for me, that's super important. But we need to make us the hybrid model or the virtual part of the conference as good as the face-to-face part of the conference. I mean, the level should be the same, like the quality of the conference should be the same, but at least also make sure that the people who decide not to go or decides to stay at home and and prefers to follow Wikimedia in a virtual way also enjoys the conference as much as possible. Yes, definitely. We've got to work on the hybrid process. Make sure we have those feedback loops like we've got here now. How everyone are able to discuss whether they're in the room sitting in Europe or sitting in Africa or sitting over here in Australia. It doesn't really matter where people are. That feedback loop is important. Those personal connections, as I said, the chance meetings, the discussions in hallways, even the random chance of sitting at a conference with seven rooms running. I'll go back to my experience in Washington in 2012. I had blank afternoon and walked into a discussion. Then from there, I had a new project idea and concept to work with. And that was the wiki town. So that was 2012, 2014. I brought it back to Wikimedia to share my experiences and to encourage more people to use it. So there is feedback loops within the in-person event that are equally as important. So I think we need to try and gain as many loops and as much feedback as we can. Great. Thank you. This is getting exciting. There's a lot of feedback coming in. Please let's all meet in the networking space to carry on. And I do acknowledge there's a lot of comments to ensure that we have a hybrid event and not necessarily just an in-person event. So inclusivity remains key in the future of Wikimedia. And yeah, we continue to be open to conversations around innovating for Wikimedia to make it as inclusive and as accessible as possible. Thank you very much for your great insights. Please carry on on the etherpad and let's meet in the networking space. Thank you very much.