 All right, welcome everyone. Yeah, my name is Kanika. I'm a program lead responsible for creating a new support and innovation program at Wikimedia Germany. And I'm very, very excited to run this session, host this session. It's my second Wikimania, but the first time running a session at Wikimania. So I'm super excited. Welcome to the session on how to innovate in free knowledge. And I would like to use this opportunity to talk about new pathway, to promote new projects for free knowledge and to attract innovators joining our mission. And by the end of the session, I truly hope that you guys could gain insights into our lessons learned of the program that we've created called Unlock, that you have been inspired by new innovation driving formats since Unlock is not a typical project grant support. And last but not least, that you could get initial ideas on how to implement such a program by yourself or you are even interested in co-create and co-host Unlock with us. So let's deep dive and why do we have this conversation? Why new pathway? Why innovations? And because we want to unlock the journey towards Wikimedia 2030. And as you all know, we want to become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join. And one of the elements to reach this as we consider our social and technical innovations. So new ideas, new impulses and also new people joining the program. Next one, the slides here, right? So innovation has become a buzzword. I know that I'm aware of this and I would like to define what exactly does this mean in our context as it means to expand the range of free knowledge project. It also means to explore different content formats, to find innovative and diverse modes of consuming and contributing knowledge as well as create pathway to new projects. All of this combined will hopefully drive us in building the sustainability of the movement by investing in people in communities who are working on new projects for free knowledge. And on the other hand, this commitment with strengthens our innovative power of the movement. So all this lead us to the guiding question of the session. So how to? And we give me that Germany designed and implemented the Unlock Accelerator which supports teams that are working on new free knowledge ideas, innovations or initiatives through coaching, exchange and collaboration. The program was piloted in German speaking areas last year and was scaled to Europe in 2021. I would like to give you a closer look at the program setup because it's interesting as I mentioned before, Unlock is something totally different compared to a typical project grant. So we have defined a program that is three months long, pretty structured and cohort based in terms of there are teams selected to the programs that work independently but also cross team. So and of course, since it was launched last year, we kind of redesigned the program to become completely virtual. So we have a three month structured cohort based virtual program divided in kind of three in teams and cross team working phases. So and each team has a dedicated coach who provides product and project development support. We also organize need-based supports which means we look for experts and people who can help these teams further develop their project with expertise, knowledge, input, inspirations and access to a network of free knowledge people and even beyond our free knowledge Wikimedia and universe. And upon application, there's also scholarship provided. Unlock is a very hands-on program and here I just want to share some kind of screenshots of what our project teams are doing during the program. And as you can see here, our coaches, well, you cannot see our coaches but prototypes that have been done or built during the program, but our coaches and expert help participating teams to advance their skills through methods transfer and help the teams validate their ideas. You can see here tangible prototypes which is really like a box that you can see over there but you can also see sketches of an app how it's supposed to look like or a first wireframe or mock up of a platform that the teams have been building. Just to give some examples what types of projects are supported by Unlock. So last year we had a project called Audiopedia which is an open source web application that provides audio content related to day-to-day topics such as health or diet or nutrition, making audio learning free and accessible especially to non-readers in developing countries. And this year we have a team of wiki data community members who are developing an open platform that gathers and makes publicly available all governmental online accounts and services. And these may be official websites or social media accounts sorted in an online directory creating easier access for the general public. Below on the right I included a link to all the project teams that we supported last year and this year. So there's a range of projects that we do support and you can just check out and see what kind of projects are in the program. And as you can see they are somehow different, completely different from the wiki media projects right now and there are projects within their faces and yeah kind of inter linkages to existing wiki media projects. So we are looking for this kind of diversity not only to create new format tools and stuff that are directly related to existing wiki media project but also to expand the range of knowledge content formats and tools to reach our goal. Unlock is perfect for people and teams who want to put things into action. So it's open for a diverse audience ranging from open source developers and activists to social entrepreneurs and creative minds as we call them from different disciplines. Your project should be at early stage with a ready or almost ready prototype and it doesn't matter whether you have been a long-term wiki media project community members or are completely new to the movement. I think as long as you have a team and first sketches of your ideas and want to put things into action and obviously this project's ideas fit to our vision then this one might be the right program for you. What are key learnings after two editions of Unlock? Just want to sketch out some key learnings here and share them with you. In the two editions we have received 80 applications so far and we could support 10 projects teams and I mean last year five prototype have been developed and this year another five prototypes are hopefully to be developed by the end of the program. The feedback from the teams in 2020 were mostly positive. They assessed the program content and our support is very helpful especially the coaching so very need-oriented and expert session and I think also that Unlock could pave the way for their further development. However, this is kind of the limitation that we are facing right now is that the continuation and also sustainability of the project is up to the teams themselves. Another learning is that at both and in both editions we are quite happy with the outreach to new audiences who have not been part of the movement and are still working on solutions that can contribute to our vision and so this was something that we try to accomplish and can see that this was very successful in our doing and in our outreach work and also when scaling in 2021 this year and open up towards European area and European people and project teams we had a high diversity of applications from different European countries and even beyond. So we had a lot, you know not every German speaking areas of course we had people from Italy, Spain, Portugal, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden. So covering a lot of yeah, South and Western Europe but we also have like people beyond Europe people coming from India project teams from East Rail and Cameroon even. So I'm very, very excited and very, very happy about this diversity of applications. Another key learning is also that interestingly our scaling to the European level was a little bit bumpy in terms of applications in general why we receive very positive feedback in terms of website visits skyrocket and people started to follow us on Twitter and share our call in their network. We did not have received as many applications as in 2020 and looking back we cannot really kind of clearly pinpoint the one reason why application dropped and here we just listed or I just listed some assumptions and observation from our side that will surely be considered into account for the next edition. So I think that we kind of have a two narrow thematic program focus. English might be a challenge as a program and working language. The brand unlocked by Wikimedia is still too unknown and we acted alone when scaling to the European level and there are probably more competing programs at that level. And we also still see have been facing consequences of the pandemic. So I guess people will become soon fatigue and there are generally fewer new ideas and interests in that kind of time intensive program like this. What next? We want to continue the unlock journey in 2022 and beyond focusing on the promotion of projects and communities that have been underrepresented in our movement and focusing on the expansion of the program with a partner either from the Wikimedia movement or and beyond that. Now your turn. So if you want to unlock your ideas and are interested in the program and are wondering what's happening now and when is the next edition starting check out our website and follow us on Twitter. If you are interested in unlocking new pathways and interested in also how to design and implement such a format like unlock, reach out to us for insights, for more learnings for how to and how not to, for templates so whatever it comes into your mind. Yeah, write us an email at unlock at Wikimedia.de and if you want to unlock collaboration and are interested in partnerships in terms of co-creating and co-organizing the program with us contact us as well via email. Thank you, that's it. Not quite sure, five minutes left, I see. Is that true? No questions so far. Yeah, I think maybe just some notes from my side. Take a look at the website and just check out some projects that we are currently supporting or have been supported. And I think you can also see we usually provide information about the project teams. You can reach out to the project teams as well, especially I guess for those who are already active in the Wikimedia movement and get some hands-on, first-hand inspirations how is it for them could be also interesting. And the second edition, so which is running right now and we are supporting five project teams currently will end by the end of September and I think on October 6th, please I need to double check that, but I guess it was October 6th, there will be a demo day. So at the demo day, all project teams will present their prototypes that have been developed during all the programs. So here again, we will also continue this through our channel, especially through Twitter, our Twitter account and yet invite all of you, the whole communities here to join for the demo day and have a look at the projects and their prototypes as well. Yes, I think that's it. I don't know whether there are still some questions. Let me check the etherpads as well. Ah, I think there's one here. Have you served with teams that have gone through unlock before, during and after? Yes, we did. I hope I have still some time for these questions. And yes, we did. And we have like a baseline questionnaire asking what are the expectations? During the program, we have a regular check-in with the teams. So every four weeks, we check in with them and try to discuss what are the challenges, what are the needs, how can we address them during the program? What are things that are kind of beyond of the program and have to be addressed afterwards? And then there is also a post-program questionnaire. And at the stages, we try to take a look, okay, what were the needs? Could have that been addressed by the program or not? If not, why so? And if yes, how helpful was it? And I think most of the program elements were evaluated and rated as very, very helpful to the teams, especially as I mentioned, the coaching and also the experts that we brought in to the program. I hope that this answer the question. Cool. All right. I mean, the presentation, I upload the presentation to the session side. So for you just to take a look or re-watch or re-look at it again. And if you have any further questions, yeah, just reach out to me or to us, the Unlock team will quite happy to answer your questions. I think that's it from my side, right? And yeah, thank you. And thanks for joining. Hope to see you guys somewhere in person again at the Wikimania. But until then, have fun at the Wikimania. Bye.