Grants:Conference/Wikimedia Australia/ESEAP Conference 2022

statusFunded

ESEAP Conference 2022

The ESEAP Conference 2022 will be a two-day in-person event in Sydney in November 2022, bringing together key leaders from affiliates, chapters and usergroups from across the ESEAP region.

targetESEAP Hub

strategic priorityIncreasing Participation

event dates18 November 2022 - 20 November 2022

amount-local248,825 AUD

amount175,185 USD

typeOrganization

nonprofitYes

contact• contactwikimediaorgau

organization• Wikimedia Australia

website• http://wikimedia.org.au

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Event overview

Purpose and vision

The ESEAP Conference is a two-day regional event that aims to bring together key leaders across the East, South-East Asian and Oceania region. ESEAP is one of the most under-represented regions within the international Wikimedia community. After two years without travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference provides a timely and long overdue opportunity for the regional community to meet, to seed future collaboration through ESEAP Hub development and grow capacity across the movement, outcomes that simply cannot be achieved via online communication.

Do you consider this to be a Regional; Thematic or Growth event?

Regional

Is it a Remote, or in-person event?

In-person

Important details

Potential for some live broadcast sessions to up skill some community members

Proposed date(s)	18 November 2022 - 20 November 2022
Proposed location	Aerial UTS Function Centre, Sydney, Australia
Number of participants	100 in person
Event page	ESEAP Conference 2022
Primary contact person	Alex Lum, President, Wikimedia Australia

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 in the table below, if any of the questions are not relevant leave it blank.

	Description	Priority
Strategic discussions: What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?	ESEAP Hub governance, process of moving from an informal group to more formal structure aligned with the minimum criteria for pilots	High
Capacity development: Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?	Affiliate governance, reporting, and funding process for developing communities within the region	High
	Outreach and community collaboration support networks; building a network of skill sets so that affiliates in the region can provide extra outreach support and collaboration across the region	medium
Working groups: Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?	Wikimania 2023 Core Organising Team (COT) members to join together to build design elements and team structures	high
Community building: Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?	Leadership development through building networks that encourage new and wider diversity of participants to enable future growth	medium

Survey analysis:

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

90 people with 42 responses.

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?

The top two suggestions in the survey for topics and content were multilingualism/translation and a focus on South East Asia (as opposed to Australia/New Zealand).

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

Given the likely number of local attendees, the content could be organised into at least two concurrent streams: one for ESEAP administrative topics (strategy, leadership development, hub development) and one for community content (ideally relevant to the regional community rather than local).

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?

ESEAP had put on hold its 2019 event in Perth Western Australia, after changes were occurring with the WMF funding as part of the Movement Strategy process. Then COVID occurred. ESEAP has been waiting for an opportunity during all of this to have another in-person event. Wikimedia Australia offered to host and lead the event as it was already a supporter of an in-person event at the University of Sydney, WOW2022 scheduled for 16-19 November 2022. The adjacent scheduling of the two events will provide opportunities for several groups to come together in person to improve and create new collaborations.

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

WOW2022 is taking place over the 3 days immediately before it
ESEAP is hosting Wikimania 2023 this will enable the COT to come together to explore structural and design elements
ESEAP will be able to continue its development as a hub and start formalising its leadership group

3. Do you have any Thematic or Regional committee or group? (Such as WISCom, CEE, Iberocoop, etc).: This conference has grown out of the need to further serve the development ESEAP community following 2 years of isolation.

Plan

Venue and Logistics

UTS, Sydney

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?); Aerial UTS Function Centre, Sydney, Australia. Aerial is a professional function space within University of Technology Sydney. It is walking distance from a number of hotels and Central station which connects with the airport train. It has five dynamic meeting rooms, two terraces and an in-house bar, and they can create a customised space to suit. They also provide technical support, full-service in-house catering services, including beverage packages, direct from our on-site commercial kitchen. The venue is currently available and we have a tentative booking.
2. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?: Yes, all public venues in Australia are required to be accessible and provide facilities for anyone with a disability.
3. Are you planning to outsource some of the services? For example - a travel agency, an event production service?: Yes, we intend to use a travel consultant and event manager.

Friendly space policy

Wikimedia Australia's Safe Spaces Policy to be reviewed in line with the Universal Code of Conduct.

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.

The ESEAP Conference will target participants from affiliates, chapters and user groups from countries within the ESEAP region, such as Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Australia, Laos, Cambodia, Timor Leste, Brunei, Singapore, Mongolia and New Zealand. We will identify and invite a representative Wikimedian from countries in the region without a current affiliate.

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)?

WOW2022 attendees, these people work in a research and professional capacity that use the resources of Wikimedia Foundation. Part of the reasoning for holding the conference immediately after is to encourage those not already engaged with ESEAP affiliates to improve their collaborations across the region.

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.

~~Not applicable. This is primarily a community event. Participants will share examples of successful partnerships.~~

We would welcome and encourage participation from Alliance Fund partners and ESEAP Fund Committee members. They are welcome to submit program proposals about their activities and send representatives. Scholarship eligibility for Alliance Fund Partners would depend on whether their WMF grant included provisions for travel to events – in which case they should use this funding. Otherwise they can apply in the open category.

All WMF employees with ESEAP responsibilities are welcome. Volunteers on the committee would be able to apply for scholarships based on their contributions to the funding committee and any other areas of activity.

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).

Wikimedia Australia will draw on the following identified staff for support as needed:

Jacqueline Chen – Senior Programme Officer, ESEAP Region
Mehrdad Pourzaki – Communications
Elfego Solares – Wikimania Co-ordinator
Ramzy Muliawan – Movement Strategy and Governance
Sakti Pramudya – Senior Partnerships Manager, South East Asia
Jyotsna Sara George – Leadership development team lead
Victor Grigas – WMF video producer
Nataliia Tymkiv – Board of Trustees, Language committee liaison

Scholarships

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

60 scholarships for ESEAP representatives and community members

Scholarships are budgeted to cover airfares, travel insurance, visa and accommodation.

2. How will scholarship recipients be selected?

Scholarships will be offered to two participants from each country within the ESEAP region via application through an online portal:

two from each recognized affiliate, user group and/or chapter (approximately: 25)
open positions with a focus on underrepresented countries and leadership development (approximately: 25)
members of the Core Organising Team (COT) for Wikimania 2023 not already in attendance (approximately 6-10 positions)

Suitability of all applicants will be assessed based on the following criteria:

Recommendations and endorsements from affiliates
Equitable representation across groups and countries within ESEAP with focus on underrepresented countries
Involvement and experience in Wikimedia movement, activities and global initiatives
Willingness to present or contribute to conference content
Gender diversity (aiming for equitable representation)

Activities that would count towards scholarship selection include:

Contributing from a country without an affiliate
Forming a new affiliate
Part of a non-affiliate community committee, ie language, steering, LDWG, strategy working group, Alliances Fund
Admin on a language project
Running events like WLM, WLE, or doing outreach
Key person in developing new language projects currently in the incubator
Working on unsupported projects in areas with affiliates

3. Do you plan to target or prioritise specific communities or participants?: Target community is ESEAP affiliates and community groups with around 2 scholarships per community as well as scholarships for the development of new leaders or ESEAP members leading WMF global community initiatives.
4. How will you insure diversity and inclusion in your scholarship process?: Through use of the criteria outlined above, acknowledging that ESEAP is already one of the most culturally diverse communities within the movement.

Resources and risks

Resources

Wikimedia Australia has volunteered to be the host of this conference offering staff members for in-kind grant development, administrative support and conference coordination.

This grant will fund an event management company to manage the logistics of the event, program and registration. This company will be overseen and supported by the key group. An Organising Committee will manage event management, registration and program development. A separate Scholarship Working Group will coordinate the application and provision of scholarships. Wikimedia Australia will send a call out for participants for both committees from across the region. Early expressions of interest in both committees include:

Team	User Names
Wikimedia Foundation Liaison	Alex Lum (User:Canley), Amanda Lawrence (User:AmandaSLawrence), Pru Mitchell (User:Pru.mitchell), Caddie Brain (User:Tenniscourtisland)
Organising Committee (Logistics and programming)	Alex Lum (User:Canley), Amanda Lawrence (User:AmandaSLawrence), Pru Mitchell (User:Pru.mitchell), User:Gnangarra, Caddie Brain (User:Tenniscourtisland), Venus Lui, Butch Bustria, Mike Dickison (User:GiantFlightlessBirds), Will Conquer, Rachmat, Hardiansyah
Scholarships	User:Gnangarra, Caddie Brain (User:Tenniscourtisland), Pru Mitchell (User:Pru.Mitchell)
Communications	Caddie Brain (User:Tenniscourtisland), Hillun
Volunteer Coordinators
Other team members

Risks

Australia has strict visa requirements. To ensure there is adequate support for this, Wikimedia Australia will work with a travel agency that has adequate experience organising international events and may also draw on support of its local members of parliament to elicit support for these applications.
There is no alternative means of access to Australia all participants from outside Australia must fly in, as will some Australian participants.
Australia is expensive and is experiencing rising costs due to inflation. This may impact on the budgeting of this event. Therefore a 10% contingency is included within this budget.
Working understanding of English will be required for participants. ESEAP has a very diverse language profile and would require major budget investment to provide equitable translation service. Post-event translation of materials and recordings may be more feasible.
Covid-19 remains a risk and there is always the potential that a new variant may cause disruption or cancellation of this event. The event will be conducted within the requirements of local government regulations.

Budget

Event budget table:
Code	Item description	Quantity	Unit	x	Quantity	Unit	Cost per unit (AUD)	Total cost (AUD)	Total cost (USD)	Notes
A	Venue & Catering
A1	Venue hire	2	days	x	2	days	Flat fee	6,705	4,724	Aerial UTS Function Centre
A1	Catering	100	people	x	2	days	85	17,000	12,070	Aerial UTS Function Centre
A1	Catering Evening function	100	people	x	1	event	50	5,000	3,550	Special Function Venue TBC
B	Travel
B1	Airfare	60	people	x	1	airfares	1,500	90,000	63,416	Average of ticket price for a direct return fare from 22 countries for 60 attendee scholarships.
B2	Airport Transfer	60	people	x	2	transfers	25	3,000	2,114	$25 airport transfer each way from Sydney Airport.
B3	Travel insurance	60	people	x	1	Travel insurance	100	6,000	4,260
B3	Visa	60	people	x	1	visa	145	8,700	6,130	Visa application fees
B5	Accommodation	60	accommodation ($300 per night)	x	4	nights	1,200	72,000	50,733	Accommodation for four nights (17 November to 20 November) per participant at $300 per night
C	Communication Materials
C2	Print materials and merchandise	60	people	x	60	conference packs	2,000	2,000	1,409	Printed program agenda, pens, banners, badges, stickers etc.
D	Services and consultants
B4	Travel Consultant	1	consultant	x	1	travel services	5,000	5,000	3,523	Consultant to assist with coordination of travel, bookings and visas.
D1	Event Manager	1	manager	x	20	day(s)	500	10,000	7,046
D2	Facilitator	1	facilitator	x	2	day(s)	400	800	564
E	Miscellaneous
E1	Contingency (10%)							22,620	15,924
Total amount								248,825	175,185	Currency rate on 12 June 2022 using oanda.com

Total cost of event: $248,825 AUD
Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program: $175,185 USD
Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded: Not applicable
Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.: Yes

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.

Strong support ESEAP Conference is long overdue. This will be the 2nd conference and ESEAP had been waiting for a regular in-person conference since May 2018. ESEAP had been meeting 20+ times virtually, spending about 40+ hours of volunteer time to discuss various topics related to the movement. -Exec8 (talk) 11:46, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Support. The opportunity for the core organizing team to plan for Wikimania 2023 alone would justify having a conference for the ESEAP Hub. —seav (talk) 12:15, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support As the world opens up after 2+ years of the pandemic, this regional meet is a great opportunity for the regional community to get together and plan for the next year's Wikimania. --Satdeep Gill (talk) 12:54, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Support,l endorse this regional conference. JogiAsad (talk) 12:58, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Support A regional conference for the most culturally diverse, most underrepresented region in Wikimedia Community -Filipinayzd (talk) 13:02, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support The ESEAP regional community needs to converge F2F and build sustainable collaborative environments. --Buszmail (talk) 13:15, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support With the spirit of post-pandemic, this conference will be good for the ESEAP region GhoziSeptiandri 14:02, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support For the past 2 years the ESEAP community has been involved in further developments within the WMF, and new and past volunteers have been engaged in different projects. This event will be an excellent venue for community sharing of best practices, planning for collaboration for future projects, and a chance to meet other volunteers in the ESEAP region. Kunokuno (talk) 14:59, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support endorse for 2nd conference of ESEAP. Ninja✮Strikers ^«☎» 16:02, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support You have my full support. I'd be very happy to help. --Athikhun.suw (talk) 01:22, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support we need such events and full support from my side. DIVINE (talk) 01:28, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support I am happy to help via online to make this event a successful one. Dody Ismoyo (talk) 01:37, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support ESEAP has been facing a problem with language barrier and i feel that the in person meeting and conference will bridge that problem by making a right solution by disscussing about it, especially post pandemic where almost of us feeling burnout cause of it. -Agus Damanik (talk) 02:53, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support There is a need to discuss ESEAP-related issues in-person and having ESEAP Conference would be the best way for that. ··· 🌸 Rachmat04 · ☕ 02:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support The emergency of a connected group of editors in New Zealand has been one positive result from the COVID lockdowns. An in-person conference in Sydney, Australia will enable participation by the New Zealand user group and will build our relationships with other ESEAP community members. Einebillion (talk) 03:47, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support This will be very helpful for the very diverse representations from the region. —Nickrds09 ^{(Talk to me)} 04:18, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support Indeed, we really need this conference to meet and discuss about how to develop our region and Wikimedia communities. Alphama (talk) 05:34, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support Hope to see more conferences in Asia Mardetanha (talk) 06:01, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support this in-person conference will connect us together for something better. Harditaher (talk) 06:36, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support Motoko C. K. (talk) 07:24, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Support A chance for the very active editing community in New Zealand to meet our overseas colleagues. NZ being so remote from the rest of the world, we don't get to attend Wikimania or European/American meetings. Wikimedia Aotearoa has also resolved as part of our new strategic plan to work more closely with our ESEAP neighbours, and this would be a great opportunity to meet and start possible collaborations. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 08:13, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support This is a chance to meet with another wikimedian and connected with them. this conference will be useful for the ESEAP region Carma citrawati (talk) 09:40, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support This will help consolidate the growth thats occured across the region preparing stronger foundations for even greater growth flowing from Wikimania in 2023. Gnangarra (talk) 10:20, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support It will help to connect each other Manojk (talk) 10:34, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support This conference will be useful for the ESEAP region -Bijay Chaurasia (talk) 13:24, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Support, I hope this will be a way to tackle freedom of panorama and free culture matters for the whole of East Asia-Pacific region. FOP is something we (our country) doesn't have as of now (and the progress of 3 pending copyright law amendment bills, including one with FOP, got jeopardized by focus on 2022 elections), as well as Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan (non-architecture), and Mongolia. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support The ESEAP community will be strengthened than ever if this conference will happen. --Takot (talk) 13:36, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support Strategically good timing and location :JarrahTree (talk) 14:13, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support Jayprakash >>> Talk 18:41, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support Serving a vital under-resourced region.--Pharos (talk) 19:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support Could be a catalyst to push forward the ESEAP Hub. RamzyM (talk) 02:01, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support I hope the conference would benefits all the people, where we can share what we're currently working on (so everyone can implemented the same things in their region) and improve on what we're lacking of for the sustainability of the Movement. WAqil (WMYS) (talk) 03:45, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support This conference will connect the eseap members after 2 years pandemic. We also need to discuss about hub. Lylla08 (talk) 14:21, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support The best opportunity for a small community to take part in a global movement BJ Sinaga (talk) 03:47, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support An in-person conference would allow ESEAP communities to reconnect and move forward together 2ndoct (talk) 12:49, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong support The last ESEAP Conference made a huge impact on me as wikimedian. This conference is another opportunity for the community to grow and be heard. Maffeth.opiana (talk) 12:54, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
Support--*Youngjin (talk) 18:47, 23 June 2022 (UTC)