Grants:Conference/WMID/ESEAP Conference 2018/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Conference Grant approved in FY 2017-18 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Conference/WMID/ESEAP Conference 2018.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email conferencegrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals?


Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
50 Participants from diverse and underrepresented communities within the region	58 participants joined the conference	The ESEAP Conference was attended by 58 Wikimedians from 16 countries around the region, and also from the Wikimedia Foundation, the Movement Strategy Team, and the Affiliations Committee.
At least 15 Female participants	15 female participants join the conference	Out of 58 participants, there were 15 female participants from various countries.
At least 15 participants who present at or moderate sessions	23 participants presented a workshop/sharing session/talk	23 participants (not included Wikimedia Foundation staffs) actively participated in the conference by presenting a talk/sharing session and/or conducting a workshop. Not to mention, some of them were also helping in moderating and documenting the sessions.
90% of participants responding to the post-event survey	92% of participants filled and returned the post-event survey	We received 53 feedback form responses from 58 participants who joined the ESEAP conference 2018.
6 New projects/partnerships initiated as a result of connections made, skills learned, or ideas shared at the conference (within 1 year post- event)	Ongoing monitoring - will be discussed on the "Next Step"
2 New tools or communication channels created to better coordinate work among participants and the greater community	3 New communication channels were created	The ESEAP Hub in meta-wiki has been revived to promote a better communication between countries and disperse local project/activities in the region. In addition to that, a new Facebook chat group was introduced to allow easier day-to-day discussion. We also have WhatsApp group for the participants for the quicks information and update.

Next steps

Please share a brief update about the status projects, important discussions and/or capacity building that took place at the event.

Connecting volunteers and communities from the under-represented countries within ESEAP region

All the attendees of ESEAP 2018 agreed that this conference gave them the opportunity to meet new people from the region (91% “strongly agree” and 9% “agree”). Moreover, 79% of the participants mentioned “Networking” as the biggest benefit from this event. In the separate question, we found that the majority of the participants (47.1%) are able to make 6-10 new networking contacts during the conference. In conclusion, this conference was an effective medium to encourage people making a new friendship and networking contacts which will be beneficial for their future work in the movement.

In addition to that, one of our big mission is to search and bring together some volunteers who play a big role in Wikimedia movement from very underrepresented countries in Wikimedia movements, such as Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, New Zealand, and Vietnam. We were pleased to welcome some of them into their first international/regional Wikimedia encounter. Different kinds of online promotion had been used to spread the word, starting with announcement banner in all regional Wikipedia pages, Facebook posting, leaving a message on village pump, and even contacting each of potential participants through the Facebook page. We would like to say thank for everyone who helped on the translation into local languages.

Learning how to build positive communities by sharing session from established chapters and user groups

The conference had been designed to give the opportunity for everyone to share their experience in building their own community. The well-established chapters and user groups actively participated by sharing the experience in Community Outreach, How To Start and Develop Your User Group, and many more topics. 96% of the participants feel that this conference helped them to share their knowledge with the other communities. Most importantly, this conference is meant to give participants chances to present their challenges/difficulties, be proud of their projects, and practice their public speaking, something that they may have not a chance in the bigger international meeting yet. This conference has been built by the community for the community itself.

56% of participants listed sharing experience and exchanging ideas between communities as the second major benefit from ESEAP Conference 2018. The offline meeting made them understand better about other chapters and community. For example, we just learnt that Tetun Wikipedia Group is initiated by energetic young students who actually sold drinks for funding their event. Many of them find the resemblance of challenges and condition between their own community/language and others. And through open discussion, they get new ideas or solutions which will be applicable to their community back home.

Capacity building between participant and more established chapter or user group

Attending regional conference gave the attendees the applicable knowledge and improved their capacity (96%), gain a better understanding of Wikimedia movement (94%), and provided useful information of their own user group/chapters (97%). One track in this conference was dedicated for capacity building materials and there is also a workshop regarding Community Capacity Map. The latest workshop was intended to help participants in identifying the necessary skills and useful capacities which they need to build a productive groups/chapters. We also appreciate all WMF staffs who came and delivered workshops and sessions during the conference.

Building stronger relationships and partnerships within ESEAP region and the movement

Wikimedia ESEAP 2018 Conference helped participants to get inspired in joining or started new initiatives (92%) and opened the opportunity for potential collaboration in the future (100%). With more than two new communication channels (WhatsApp group, Facebook chat groups and ESEAP Hub) and some ongoing discussion within the next one year, we will monitor the progress of regional partnerships together. Some of the initiatives will be discussed in the “Next Step” part below.

Learning

Conferences and events do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

The event was organized by volunteers from Indonesia (6 persons), Malaysia (2 persons), Thailand (2 persons), Philippines (2 persons), Australia (1 person), South Korea (1 person), Japan (1 person), China (2 persons), and Taiwan (2 persons). There was 2 WMID staff assisted these volunteers during the development of the conference. In total, 21 people were working on this conference. Given the human resource, the number of people focusing on the conference was enough to realize the planned conference.

These committees were divided into 4 working teams: Scholarship, Program, Communications, and Logistics, led by a WMID staff, an event and volunteer coordinator. The Scholarship Team consisted of 4 people, handled the selection of participants by means of opening scholarship application and then blind-assessing them. The Program Team consisted of 6 people, developed the conference program. The Communications Team consisted of 7 people, worked on the publication of the event and took care of the communication channel among participants. The Logistics Team, consisted of 2 people and assisted by a WMID staff, worked on several things from ticketing to providing accommodation. Each was led by a coordinator, although two teams were initially planned to have co-coordinators, instead of a coordinator.

What worked well at the event?'
- Communication Team
  - The event was promoted to several channels including village pumps in 37 language-Wikipedia within the ESEAP region, Facebook pages and groups, and the Central Notice. Invitations were sent as well to users with high contribution on Wikimedia projects.
- Scholarship Team
  - All scholarship team members were rigorous with time and are able to evaluate all applications in time, albeit there was a bit of delay in notifying applicants on a waiting list. The evaluation was done is a fair manner. Three evaluators were required to evaluate each applicant. An evaluator abstained from evaluating when the conflict of interest arose (i.e., having known the applicant personally, or coming from the same country), and was replaced by another evaluator.
- Program Team
  - All participants were satisfied with the chosen venue (100%) and felt comfortable with the accomodation (100%). It is not too far from the airport, not too busy and crowded while still there are restaurants, bars, shops nearby.
  - The majority of attendees feel satisfied with the scope and selection of topics (92%), the quality of facilitator (98%), support from the logistics team (96%), the design of the conference kit (94%), and social event (90%).

What did not work so well?
- Human Resource
  - We cannot expect all volunteers to help through from January to May since they also had business outside the Wikimedia movement. There was a time when the Program Team needed leadership and the expected co-coordinator cannot commit to helping so that another co-coordinator had to perform sole leadership over the team. The similar case also happened to the Communications Team, where the co-coordinator was only available two weeks before the conference.
- Communication Team
  - The Central Notice request is easy, but our request was delayed for no apparent reason. We requested the ESEAP Conference campaign on 12 January 2018 to be announced from 1 February 2018 to 15 March 2018, but the Central Notice was published on 1 March 2018.
- Logistics Team
  - To ensure a great travel experience in Bali and avoid taxi scam, the committees decided to organize airport-transfer for all attendees by ourselves. Though it gained high praise from the attendees, this travel arrangement was taking too much effort, time, and extremely exhaustive due to long immigration queue, baggage claim, and delayed flight.
  - In terms of travel documents, WMID has been thorough in checking visa requirements and regulations for all participating countries (most of them does not require a visa, or at least only requires visa-on-arrival). However, it turns out that Taiwanese participants find trouble with transit visa during their travel. The immigration authorities in their country do not allow them to fly because they would stay for more than 3 hours in the transit country (the Philippines).
  - A Mongolian participant withdrew his scholarship two days before the D-day without apparent reason. At that moment, we already purchased him a round-trip flight ticket from Mongolia to Indonesia. On his ticket, his first and last names were indeed placed incorrectly (swapped) yet the spelling was correct. However, he seemed anxious about that mistake. We already confirmed to the relevant airline (Garuda Indonesia) that it was a minor mistake and had no effect on his flight. We even offered him a new ticket with his first and last names placed correctly, but he rejected our offer. This sudden cancellation caused the originating ticket cannot be refunded. The price of Mongolia-Indonesia flight was among the most expensive airfares that we purchased.
- Scholarship Team
  - Our scholarship application form was effective, but there is still room for improvements as there are questions that should have been asked. We should have requested all applicants to specify the expiration date of their travel document. This ensures that their passport has more than six months validity prior to entering Indonesia. This could be problematic as issuing a passport may take a considerable amount of time in certain countries. There was also confusion when we asked scholarship applicants to specify their country. Some people wrote down their current country where they were living rather than nationality. This resulted in a confusion especially when we intended that there would only be two scholarship recipients from each eligible country. There were cases where applicants from non-eligible countries (who at the time lived in an eligible country) passed into the final round of evaluation.
- Program Team
  - This conference lacked of some hands-on training sessions as indicated in the feedback form by some of participants. While 85% of participants like the session format, we received some feedback to increase the number of hands-on training on wiki project and capacity building workshop.
  - The time constraint was one of the biggest challenges in organizing this conference. From the initially three-day conference, the time was shrinked into two days only and led to some disappointments by workshop facilitator and attendees for not having sufficient time for discussion. Two days of the conference is definitely not enough for a regional meetup. The attendees need more time to engage in informal conversation, recover from long-distance travel, and more space for smaller discussion.
  - The changes on the conference date into high season period (5-6 May 2018) and the delay in scholarship announcement resulted in overspending of flight budget. Moreover, the committees were also spending a huge amount of time for trying to accommodate the attendees' travel arrangement. However, the committee was able to negotiate to get a good deal with the hotel and move the unused budget for attendees airfare.

What would you do differently next time?
- Human Resource
  - In the future, it is better to decide a coordinator for each team instead of co-coordinators, so the team can focus on one leader instead of two and therefore does not have to expect the availability of both leaders. Even if a coordinator cannot commit over the team, the position can be substituted right away. The commitment is emphasized on one person only. In case of co-coordinators, expecting them for balanced commitment and workload may waste time. At the end of the day, one works hard while the other is absent, that is not different from having only a coordinator.
- Communication Team
  - We suggest for the next conference must apply the Central Notice as early as possible.
- Scholarship Team
  - The scholarship application period could have been earlier. If we were able to finalize the final list of scholarship recipients early, for example, two months before the conference date, airfares could have been significantly reduced. If less money is spent on airfares per recipient, we might be able to give more scholarships.
- Logistics Team
  - It is recommended to use travel agent service to book all the flight for attendees as long as the committee has the maximum guide of spending for participants. Earlier conference preparation is suggested as well to ensure everyone has enough time and options for choosing the best possible travel arrangement. In this first conference, we only have 5 months since the grant approval and when the unavoidable delay happened in scholarship process, we were in a hassle of booking the flight.
  - If the conference was held in a city with minimum public transport and overpriced taxi, it is better to outsource an airport transport service with the third-party provider such as hotel or chauffeur service. This way, the committee can fully focus on the conference.
  - Although it is not compulsory Wikimedia-wise, the committee must collect all attendees' boarding passes for financial documentation during a third-party audit.
- Program Team
  - Invited a number of experienced speakers and users for hands-on training, like Wikidata, Wikisource, GLAM, etc.
  - Having at least three days conference with more training and workshop, as well as, longer social events for attendees.

Financial documentation

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Budget table

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions. Review the instructions here. These expenses should be listed in the same format as the budget table in your approved submission so that anyone reading this report may be able to easily compare budgeted vs. actual expenses.

Number	Category	Number of units	Unit	X	Number of units	Unit	Actual cost per unit	Actual total	Budgeted total	Currency	Notes
A	Venue & Accommodation
A1	Full board meeting package	50	people	x	3	day	720,000.00	108,000,000.00	112,500,000.00	IDR	Full board meeting package for all participants
A1	Social events	1	package	x	1	event	3,380,740.00	3,380,740.00		IDR	Beverages and snacks for social events
A1	Additional rooms (pre-stay)	5	room	x	1	day	700,000.00	3,500,000.00		IDR	Additional rooms for committee members before the conference
A1	Additional rooms (post-stay)	3	room	x	1	day	700,000.00	2,100,000.00		IDR	Additional rooms for committee members after the conference
Total A1 Full board meeting package								116,980,740.00		IDR
A2	Break out rooms	2	room	x	2	day	2,000,000.00	8,000,000.00	60,000,000.00	IDR	It turned out we spent less on breakout rooms because the conference was held for two days, instead of three days as proposed.
B	Transportation
B1	Airfare	50	people	x	1	return flight	5,881,265.52	294,892.035	220,000,000.00	IDR	Some participants coming from countries not included in the proposal, e.g. Sweden and Germany, and the change of conference date caused spending increase.
B2	Airport Transfer	50	people	x	2	pick-up	124,325.00	12,432,500.00	25,000,000.00	IDR	We rent a bus and a car for picking up the participants from and to the airport.
B3	Travel Insurance	50	people	x	1	package	127,472.00	6,373,600.00	25,000,000.00	IDR	Reimbursement of each participant's travel insurance, yet not many purchased travel insurance. Committee cannot provide travel insurances for foreigners because such service was not available in Indonesia yet.
C	Communication Materials
C1	T-shirts	60	piece	x	1	event	89,633.33	5,378,000.00	6,000,000.00	IDR	Conference t-shirts for participants
C2	Stationary	1	package	x	1	event	2,710,300.00	2,710,300.00	10,000,000.00	IDR	Stationary used along the development of the conference
C2	Banner	1	package	x	1	event	412,500.00	412,500.00		IDR	Conference standing banner
C2	Conference book	60	book	x	1	event	32,500.00	1,950,000.00		IDR	Conference guide for participants
C2	Nametag	1	package	x	1	event	535,000.00	535,000.00		IDR	Nametag for participants
Total C2 Printing materials								5,607,800.00		IDR
D	Worktime
D1	Administrative support	1	person	x	80	day	374,998.13	29,999,850.00	30,000,000.00	IDR	Compensation for 1,5 staffs from January to May 2018
D2	Facilitator	1	person	x	2	day	5,000,000.00	10,000,000.00	15,000,000.00	IDR	The facilitator was in charge for two days, instead of three days as proposed.
E	Miscellaneous
E1	Survey for venue	1	package	x	1	survey	12,723,075.00	12,723,075.00	50,000,000.00	IDR	Two-day survey for venue in several locations in Bali, e.g. Denpasar, Kuta, Jimbaran, Sanur. This spending includes accomodation, transportation, meals during the survey in Bali.
E1	Desain services	1	package	x	1	service	15,000,000.00	15,000,000.00		IDR	Paying for designer service for designing logo, banners, nametag, conference guide, t-shirt.
E1	Meeting	1	package	x	3	meeting	1,484,698.00	4,454,094.00		IDR	Transportation and meals for meetings. One of the staff was working remotely, so we invited the person to have meetings in Jakarta's office.
E1	Communication fees	2	person	x	5	month	148,943.20	1,489,432.00		IDR	Commication costs for (1) event and volunteer coordinator and (2) administrative and logistics coordinator for 5 months.
E1	Local transportation	2	person	x	7	travel	47,357.14	663,000.00		IDR	Transportation costs for Logistics volunteers
E1	Visa fee	2	person	x	1	issue	515,000.00	1,030,000.00		IDR	Philippine transit visa fee for Taiwanese participants
E1	Kecak dance	1	package	x	1	event	4,560,000.00	4,560,000.00		IDR	Balinese dance for social event
E1	Meals for committe members	7	person	x	4	day	72,555.89	2,031,565.00		IDR	Meals for committee two days before and two days after the conference
Total E1 Unseen Expenses (10%)								41,951,166.00		IDR
							Total	531,615,691.00	553,500,000.00
							Unused	21,884,309.00

Summary of funding

Total project budget (from your approved grant submission):

553,500,000

Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission):

553,500,000

Total amount spent on this project (this total should be the total calculated from the table above):

531,615,691

Total amount of WMF grant funds spent on this project:

531,615,691

Are there additional sources of revenue that funded any part of this project? List them here.

NA

Remaining funds

Are there any grant funds remaining?

Answer YES or NO.

YES

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of IDR 21,884,309 / US$1,551.71 were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 2/Wikimedia Indonesia/Proposal form.

Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)

IDR 21,884,309

Anything else

Is there anything else you want to share about the conference or event?

Conference program, see here.
Documentation, see here.