Grants:Conference/WikiCon Brasil 2022

Please give a brief description of the event you are planning. What do you hope to accomplish during the event? Why is this event important for your community?

WikiCon Brasil (WCon BR) aims to strengthen the Brazilian community spread across the national territory and support the outreach of Wikimedia in the country. Local cooperation and nationwide vision are necessary at this particular moment the community is in and we aim to further discuss strategies aligned with the Movement Strategy 2030, among other relevant subjects, such as community diversity and sustainability. We expect the event to be a platform for connecting and consolidating the bonds between this multifarious community through discussion rounds, workshops and the sharing of learnings. This will be the first Wikimedia conference organized by and for the Brazilian community!

The broad goals of WikiCon Brazil 2022 are:

Provide conditions for the connection among volunteers to foster the sense of belonging to the Wikimedia community;
Encourage volunteers to collaborate, learn and find tools/projects that can leverage their contribution capacity;
Empower participants to be local agents in the dissemination of Wikimedia activities in their home cities;
Align the strategic discussion of Wikimedia in Brazil to the Movement Strategy 2030.

The specific goals of WikiCon Brazil 2022 are:

Bring at least 35 participants outside the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and focus on supporting the participation of Wikimedians from other underrepresented regions of the country;
Organize a two-day event over a weekend for up to 100 people, allowing the participation of people who are not available on weekdays
Develop a conference program that includes strategic discussion sessions and workshops, as well as cultural and social activities

Do you consider this to be a Regional; Thematic or Growth event? You can read more about each category here.

Regional event.

Is it a Remote, or in-person event?

This is an in-person event.

Important details

Please add key information to the table below. The dates, location and number of participants can be estimates and do not need to be finalized at this time.

Proposed date(s)	July 2022
Proposed location	São Paulo, Brazil
Number of participants	~100
Event page	To come
Primary contact person	EAzzellini (WMB)

Background

Community input

Use the results from the community engagement survey to fill in the table below. Since you cannot cover all topics or meet all needs at one event, prioritisation is important. Please rank the priority of each topic, skill, project or problem as high, medium or low. Finally, please answer the questions below the table.

Wiki Movimento Brasil have organized graphs from the community survey here. You can find a comparison between a survey we ran in early 2020, before the pandemic hit Brazil, and other with more recent inputs from the community that ran in September 2021. We added more questions than the template to get to know better our audience.

	Description	Priority
Strategic discussions: What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?	The main topics are: the implementation of the Movement Strategy in Brazil; diversity of contributors and content in the Lusophone community; and Wikimedia projects outreach and strengthening in Brazil.	High
Capacity development: Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?	The survey revealed that our community wants to learn skills in two main axes: leadership and technical aspects of Wikimedia. For the first one, they need to learn how to build partnerships and organize events with local institutions, how to communicate effectively in the community and how to implement the Movement Strategy in our local contexts; whereas for the second one they asked for learning sessions about Wikidata and Wikipedia integration and advanced editing.	High
Working groups: Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?	People highlighted the necessity of gathering in person to build together a strategy for community growth in Brazil. Although they recognize that some activities could be organized online, the in person interaction is key for the success of this process because it allows direct communication and focusing on the advancement of a common goal.	Medium
Community building: Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?	The respondents stressed the importance of interacting in person for building connections and improving relationships among the community members, for which social activities must be included in the program of the event.	High

Survey analysis:

1. How many people did you send the survey to? How many people responded to the survey?

We’ve sent the survey to 312 people and had a 6% response rate in the span of one week.

2. Did you see consensus around shared goals that this community wants to focus on in the next 12 months? What were the top 2 goals?

Yes. Through the survey, we notice two main goals the community wants to tackle: strategic growth and diversity driven actions. Those themes are aligned to the needs Wiki Movimento Brasil have been noticing during our interaction with the community in different events and community spaces, which means that although the survey had a low outreach due the time limit for the application, it reflects the interests of the community in general.

Interestingly, compared to the survey we ran early in 2020 for our draft application, the two main topics to cover at that time were conflict resolution and event organization, which reveals that the community has matured over the last couple of years and that we are heading to a more strategic direction.

3. Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals?

The community wants the event to have strategic discussion rounds specifically on the Movement Strategy implementation and on community sustainable growth, besides workshops for sharing capacities and social moments for creating the sense of unity.

Context

It is helpful to get an understanding of why this event is important to your community, and what experiences you have had in the past. Please answer the applicable questions below.

1. What inspired your community to begin planning this event?

Wiki Movimento Brasil members have been participating in different Wikimedia events even before the user group was officially established in 2014, but we never had the opportunity or the proper capacity to organize a local conference for our own community in Brazil. Early 2020, we drafted a conference proposal, but due the pandemic, it wouldn’t be possible to carry on that idea. Wiki Movimento Brasil rapidly adapted our activities to remote event formats and, meanwhile, we established a professional team and organized two large scale events: the Festa da Wiki-Lusofonia, for celebrating Wikipedia 20, and WikidataCon 2021, in partnership with Wikimedia Deutschland. Festa da Wiki-Lusofonia was an important milestone for the lusophone community: eight formal and informal groups collaboratively worked together to build a space for sharing projects and experiences while the process led to the collective realization that we need to work on bringing strategically more users and more diversity to the community to grow in a healthy direction. Wiki Movimento Brasil, being the single affiliate officially recognized by WMF in Brazil and holding a professional infra-structure, had a central role in the process. Whereas with the organization of WikidataCon (initially planned to be held in person in São Paulo and Berlin) we have experienced the amount of production work that a large conference requires and learned how to do it. We have he skills and the capacity to coordinate such large scale events: WMB was discussing with WMF the possibility to host GLAM-Wiki Con in Brazil in 2022, but it had to be rescheduled due the uncertainty around international travels of participants.

We are at a point in the community in which a conference would be a perfect opportunity to mature initial strategic discussions we are having, specially under the context of the Movement Strategy implementation, and we want to involve different people from our ecosystem so we can grow together. Until February 2022, WMB will conduct a research on the Movement Strategy implementation in the Lusophony, which will also serve as a means of stimulating active participation for the conference that will address this topic, as we can foresee through the community engagement survey. In addition, Brazil will celebrate its Bicentennial of Independence in 2022, which is a powerful date to reflect on where we want to go in the future as a community that is strongly connected to its socio-political context.

2. How does this event relate to other activities that your community is working on?

Besides the events organization mentioned above, WMB have been serving the Wikimedia ecosystem with partnerships with more than 30 local institutions between GLAM, universities and open knowledge organizations, while working to serve and support the wikimedian community in their needs. Our actions are still very focused on the São Paulo region, one of the richest in the country, although we have associate members in different states. Through the conference, we hope to create an environment of community empowerment and learning sharing, in order to spread capacity across the country. This objective is aligned with the WMB’s own strategy under development.

3. Do you have any Thematic or Regional committee or group? (Such as WISCom, CEE, Iberocoop, etc).

No.

Plan

Venue and Logistics

1. Do you have any proposed venue for the event? If so, please share details (such as: how far is it from the airport or transportation hub; how close is it to the hotel, do you anticipate any challenges with using the space for the event you are planning?)

We don’t have a venue yet, but we will host the event in São Paulo, where there are a lot of conference venues in strategic sites. One possibility is to organize the event near the Paulista Avenue, easy to access by public transport or taxi, with good quality accommodations options and near cultural activities.

2. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?

We’ll make sure to find a venue with proper access to people with disabilities.

3. Are you planning to outsource some of the services? For example - a travel agency, an event production service?

Yes. Although Wiki Movimento Brasil has a professional team experienced in organizing events, we won’t have enough capacity to set up the conference without the support of a production service. This is included in our budget planning.

Friendly space policy

Please link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event.

Wiki Movimento Brasil applies this FSP in every event.

Participation

It is crucial that most participants have a minimum level of Wikimedia experience so that they can engage actively in workshops and discussions. Please answer all applicable questions below.

1. Please describe the target audience for this conference or event.

As mentioned above, Brazil is a continental country with Wikimedians spread throughout the national territory. We aim to gather long term and new participative Wikimedians in the event. The Wikimedian community in Brazil is formed by people from different wiki expertise and knowledge backgrounds. As the majority of the Wikimedians are located at the São Paulo - Rio de Janeiro axis (the richer areas in the country), we aim to bring at least 35 people from other states and gather a total of up to 100 people.

2. If your conference has an outreach component to also target non-wikimedian individuals or mission aligned institutions, can you explain your intention for this outreach (for example: how will you ensure engagement with these participants after the conference, and what impact do you see them having on the projects)?

Wiki Movimento Brasil has built solid partnerships with GLAM institutions, universities, research centers and open knowledge organizations over the last few years. Our relationship with them is key for the smooth running of our activities, which implies that we already have the means to engage them with the event and also to use their infra-structure to reach out to potential partners.

3. Are you thinking about collaborating with potential partners? Such as national; educational or thematic groups and organizations? If so, will this partnership be a financial one (such as sponsorship), or a visionary one (to collaborate in regards to the content of the event)? Please share some details if you have any.

As we envision this conference to have a Wikimedia outreach element, we’re open to collaborate with potential partners in the process. In this case, they would be a visionary one as they can take part in strategic discussions that involve the broader open knowledge ecosystem Wikimedia is part of.

4. In which ways can Wikimedia Foundation staff support your event onsite? If you would like support, please list the different capacities in which we can support, or describe how you would like Wikimedia Foundation staff to be involved in the event. (Some examples of Wikimedia Foundation support or involvement might be: for outreach and communication efforts; to lead specific sessions; for legal or safety reasons, etc).

We won’t need WMF staff support onsite, although it would be nice to have some advice from Cornelius Kibelka (located in Brazil) during the organization process, due his expertise on organizing this type of event and due his background on the Movement Strategy 2030. Giovanna Fontenelle is also other WMF staff located in Brazil, currently working as GLAM officer. She’s also an associated member of our user group and already agreed to collaborate as a volunteer with the conference.

Scholarships

1. How many scholarships would you like to offer and what expenses will the scholarship cover?

We would like to offer up to 70 integral and partial scholarships for the participants that will cover for air travel, transportation, accommodation and/or meals.

2. How will scholarship recipients be selected?

The recipients will be selected through an application form, reviewed and approved by a specific committee. The candidates will be required to answer questions so we can better understand their interest in the event and how they can contribute to the purposes of the conference.

3. Do you plan to target or prioritize specific communities or participants?

Yes, we’ll prioritize applicants outside the São Paulo - Rio de Janeiro cities axis, in order to support people from different locations who usually struggle more to attend events in the area. We believe that regional diversity is essential for the success of the event. We'll also consider other diversity criteria relevant for our community, including gender and race.

4. How will you insure diversity and inclusion in your scholarship process?

Wiki Movimento Brasil developed a Diversity Plan in 2019, for which the group has a diversity committee formed by volunteers. As we want to make sure that the scholarships are serving people aligned with the plan’s objectives, especially the ones regarding geographic diversity representativeness, we are willing to involve the committee in the selection process along with the conference organization team.

Resources and risks

Describe the resource potential for successfully executing this project and the key risks/threats.

Resources

Organizing team

Team	User Names
Wikimedia Foundation Liaison	JPeschanski (WMB)
Logistics	CCosta (WMB)
Conference Program	EAzzellini (WMB)
Scholarships	Ixocactus
Communications	EAzzellini (WMB)
Volunteer Coordinators	Chicocvenancio
Other team members	ACheJu / Contaminadas / GiFontenelle / Hedestad / jcornelius / Lucas.Belo

Risks

Examples of risks, along with how you would minimize or overcome them, are:

Skill gaps in project leadership team (e.g. no financial management experience)
Components of the measurement process that are hard to quantify

Examples of how to minimize these risks include:

Recruiting volunteers with desired skills to project leadership team.
Working with the Wikimedia Foundation Learning & Evaluation Team to develop an appropriate measurement and evaluation plan.

Low adherence of our target audience, especially people outside the São Paulo-Rio axis: in order to get around this situation, we are trying to set up all the necessary infrastructure so that the largest number of people who live far from São Paulo can participate. This includes not only resources for accommodation and transportation, but also an activity schedule that is interesting and engaging for them.
COVID-19 uncertainty: although vaccines in Brazil are advancing and by the time of the conference the majority of the population is expected to be immunized, the scenario can rapidly change with the rising of new variants. To tackle that risk, the team will need to keep up with the local health authorities recommendations for the organization of events, rapidly reassess the planning and be ready to adapt to a remote event format if necessary. During the conference itself, we'll have temperature measurement of the participants, as well as enough space so that there is a safe distance between the people, and we'll also provide hand sanitizers and adopt any other reasonable measures to contain the virus. See also: COVID-19 Risk Assessment form

Budget

Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.

All past proposals can be found here, you can use these for inspiration and reference but you are required to do your own local research and come up with your own budget numbers. Keep in mind that each event is different, has local context and needs, and there is not a one-size-fits all for our communities events. While making decisions on what to fund we will consider the local context and community needs for each event.

Event budget table

Detailed budget table

Item	Unit	Quantity	Cost per unit (BRL)	Total cost (BRL)	Total cost (USD)
Travel and acommodation costs
Air travel	Tickets	40	1.100,00	44.000,00	8.461,54
Ground travel	Tickets	30	300,00	9.000,00	1.730,77
Local transportation	-	1	5.000,00	5.000,00	961,54
Lodging	Double rooms	35	350,00	12.250,00	2.355,77
Catering	Meals	440	90,00	39.600,00	7.615,38
Total travel and accomodation costs				109.850,00	21.125,00
Venue costs
Rent	Venue	1	22.000,00	22.000,00	4.230,77
Coffee breaks	Meals	220	25,00	5.500,00	$1.057,69
Technical support	Service per day	2	15.000,00	30.000,00	$5.769,23
Total venue costs				57.500,00	11.057,69
Staff costs
Production officer	Position	8 months - 30 hours per week	6.500,00	52.000,00	10.000,00
Communications officer	Position	4 months - 30 hours per week	6.500,00	26.000,00	5.000,00
Administrative officer	Position	6 months - 30 hours per week	6.500,00	39.000,00	7.500,00
Administrative assistant	Position	4 months - 30 hours per week	3.250,00	13.000,00	2.500,00
Production assistant	Position	4 months - 30 hours per week	3.250,00	13.000,00	2.500,00
Total staff costs				143.000,00	27.500,00
Other expenses
Design and printed material	Graphics	1	20.000,00	20.000,00	3.846,15
Swags	Items	1	10.000,00	10.000,00	1.923,08
Venue decoration	Items	1	6.400,00	6.400,00	1.230,77
Internet support	Service	1	5.000,00	5.000,00	961,54
Cultural activities	Event/tour	1	14.000,00	14.000,00	2.692,31
Unforseen expenses	None	1	15.000,00	15.000,00	2.884,62
Total other expenses				70.399,99	13.538,46

WikiCon Brasil main values

Item	Value BRL	Value USD
Total value	380.750,00	73.221,15
Exchange rate	5,20	1,00
Proportion staff / grant	26%

Total cost of event: 73.221,15 USD

Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program: 73.221,15 USD

Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded: -

Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

Yes, we are aware.

Discussion

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Conference Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

Hedesta_D 16:20, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
━ ALBERTOLEONCIO Who, me? 17:19, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Axônios (talk) 17:22, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
ACheJu (talk) 17:28, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Friduxa (talk) 17:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support Looks generally good to me (caveat my question on the talk page). The User Group has a good track record of organising events now, and this conference would be a great step forward to grow the community in Brazil. I only hope it can happen in person, rather than having to be virtual, since the informal discussions and coffee breaks will be particularly helpful to build bonds and start collaborations between community members! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:23, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support In my voluntary capacity, I think that WikiCon Brasil 2022 is a very ambitious since Brazil is a big country. But the proposal sounds very good to strengthen brazilian wikimedia community and I thrilled to talk in person with my fellow wikimedians. Ixocactus (talk) 19:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support Having a national Con would be a wonderful way of bringing editors together and possibly kickstarting new collaborations! Myxomatosis0 (talk) 19:46, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support Apoio a ideia. A.WagnerC (talk) 20:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support I would be very excited for the first IRL meet-up with fellow Wikimedians. Tet (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support The organizing team includes long term Wikimedia contributors who have been active in Portuguese Wikipedia and in various Wikimedia Movement discussions on Meta-wiki, which is ideal. This proposal is coming from an official regional Wikimedia community affiliate and we always prefer to organize these sorts of events through such organizations. The expenses here all seem routine. Brazil is due for a regional conference and let this be it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:33, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support Grupo bem organizado, com contribuições sólidas para o movimento e com experiência em organização de eventos.BahYajé e Y4guarEtã (talk) 21:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support The user group has a great history of organizing events, even an online conference (WikidataCon). And, in my voluntary capacity, I would love to join and get to know even more Brazilian Wikimedians in person. I think it's a great opportunity for collaborations, projects, and conversations. GiFontenelle (talk) 21:40, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support Excelente iniciativa e proposta. Luidje (talk) 23:25, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Support As we're currently working together with Wiki Movimento Brasil on the WikidataCon 2021, I definitely support this initiative and I totally trust the team to be committed, professional and creative event organizers. They have a great vision for the development of their local community and their impact on the broader Wikimedia movement, many contacts, partners and a leader role in the open knowledge ecosystem in Brazil, as well as a strong experience in organizing events in various formats. I wish a lot of success to the WikiCon Brasil! Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 06:40, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
Support I think the group is pretty mature for an event of this stature. It will be great! Ederporto (talk) 15:38, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
Support Lgjunior (talk) 23:06, 4 October 2021 (UTC)Lgjunior They're doing a very good work
Support Mgalves80 (talk) 00:32, 6 October 2021 (UTC). Great proposal to empower our community!
Support I've attended an event in São Paulo put on by this group and found it to be energizing and well organized! I'm confident they will do a wonderful job with this conference. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:21, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Strong support I've been called out for not endorsing this sooner. As an enthusiastic proponent of this event for at least 3 years I think we have been long overdue for an event like this in Brazil. We have amassed a lot of experience and know-how in Wiki Movimento Brasil to allow us to host this kind of event and I have no doubt we can organize it. From a community perspective this is even more revolutionary, we have a long standing tradition of doing impromptu poorly organized meetups dating back more than a decade, but an organized general event of this magnitude has never been done in Brazil and has the potential to energize the community, leveraging cooperation and empowering volunteers to be more efective in inching towards our mission. Chico Venancio (talk) 14:37, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Strong support Above the experience and needed state of mind this group possesses, this group also comprises great synergy and motivation for overcrossing the boundaries of their goals within this event. It is definitely a great needed initiative to provide momentum to the Wiki concept in Brazil. Fernando Andutta (talk), 9 October 2021.
Strong support The Wiki community in Brazil is growing, and its impact across portuguese Wikipedia and the whole Wikimedia ecosystem is noticeable. Brazil is a very diverse country and an event like this will be pivotal to bring the community together and increase the diversity of perspectives in the Wikimedia system. Furthermore, as a personal note, Brazil has been hit by a severe crisis, and cultural and scientific institutions have but a fraction of the governmental support they once had. A WikiCon Brasil would be a beacon of light, presenting people with the opportunity to join and contribute to projects with beautiful future perspectives. TiagoLubiana (talk) 18:12, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Support per the folks above. —Thanks for the fish! ^{talk•contribs} 18:40, 30 October 2021 (UTC)