Grants:IndicWiki/2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit/Report

The Wikimedia Technology Summit 2023, held on 3 - 4 March 2023, IIIT Hyderabad, Telangana, successfully concluded after four days of insightful discussions, presentations, and workshops. The summit brought together over 150 attendees, including developers, researchers, and technology enthusiasts from around the India, to share their experiences, ideas, and visions for the future of Wikimedia projects.

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Outcomes and Impact

Thanks for bringing value back to the Wikimedia movement by sharing in this report. Everything you learned during your project is useful knowledge to offer future Wikimedians planning similar work.

A Panel Discussion at 2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit

In this first section you are asked to reflect on your initial goals and the impact the event had on your community. Remember there is no right or wrong answer. Even if your goals have changed over time, or the impact was different than what you expected. Feel free to share your long or short answer - we are happy to hear whatever you have to share.

Did your event have any impact that you did not expect, positive or negative? The 2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit aspires to develop a reliable and rewarding internet, forge enduring alliances and engage in open discussions about our limitations and potential that may be applied for the greater good. The summit has two primary objectives
- To share and discuss the state-of-the-art tools, technologies, knowledge, and ongoing research within Wikimedia and its sister projects - Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikisource, WikiMed etc,.
- To provide a platform to discuss topics related to technology areas like the Indic language computing tools, text processing, text generation, document archival, rich media processing, and user interfaces
Please tell us about the top 2-3 innovative (new to you and your community) or things you tried at this conference.
We have designed a summit with panel discussions and keynote speeches with physical speakers, and virtual speakers on the same platform,Bringing like-minded, innovative, and Wiki Tech contributors under a single roof and encouraging them to spark meaningful discussions.

Were there any significant changes from the initial grant proposal?
The initial grant proposal focused primarily on technology improvements within the Wikimedia platform. based on the discussion it was proposed to have discussions around developing the future of the internet, forging enduring alliances, and engaging in open discussions about the cohesion between technology and open access to knowledge. expanded scope and the inclusion of WikiClub and Hackathon participants, the summit's budget increased beyond the original proposal.
What do you think will be the long term impact of this conference?
The WTS will help in bringing New partnerships, In order to better address the diverse range of topics covered at the summit, the organizing team forged new partnerships with external organizations specializing in areas such as artificial intelligence, open-source software, and accessibility.
Do your best to estimate the number of attendees in your event that have never attended any Wikimedia event before. How were you able to support and engage this group?
We have around 70 % (105) of participants who never attended any Wikimedia event before, we have explained about scholarship criteria, informed them about the summit and schedule in advance, we have personally called these attendees to know any concerns they have, and for the participants who are attending for key areas like hackathons we have conducted pre-session training and ensured that all technical sessions like poster presentations, Hackathon Showcase will be understood by attendees
Do your best to estimate the number of participants who have been involved in Wikimedia activities for more than 5 years. How were you able to support and engage this group?
We supported the group by creating an engaging, supportive, and inclusive environment We have social events, breakout sessions, and collaborative spaces to facilitate networking and relationship-building among participants. Q&A sessions and panel discussions with experts allow participants to ask questions, share their thoughts, and engage in meaningful conversations.

SWAGs for 2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit (WTS)

Learning and next steps

Conferences and events do not always go according to plan! Please use this section considering the perspective of what future event organizers within our movement organizing a similar style conference can learn. Make sure to include lessons around work with external/ internal partners; your communication efforts; your work with the community and volunteers etc.

What would you do differently next time and why? Please share with us if there's anything you wouldn't do or something future organizers should avoid.
The next summit will encourage more participants from underrepresented regions to attend by offering travel grants, scholarships, or financial assistance. will have foster interdisciplinary collaboration by Inviting experts from different fields, such as data science, education, and media, to contribute their perspectives and foster collaboration across disciplines.
Was there any non-financial support that the Wikimedia Foundation could have provided that would have better supported you in achieving your goals?
We have received great support from the WFM team, and their invaluable contributions to the success of the summit. due to some reasons, we have some WMF speakers who are virtually participated, In next, we are expecting WMF team will join in person to build relationships with the community and establishing more interactive channels
What would you recommend on a local and/or regional level as the best next step to leverage your success and momentum? (Please consider potential new allies and partners; internal wiki collaborations; future projects etc. We don't expect you to necessarily do those, we are only looking for more ideas from your own perspective.)
Does your organizing team/affiliate / user group have any plans to follow up with your attendees in the future or support efforts related to the outcomes of this conference within your community?
We are working on the development of engagement strategies with summit participants like WikiClub Students and open-source developers Creating opportunities for ongoing engagement between summit participants throughout the year to maintain momentum and foster a sense of community.
Please add any 3 operational recommendations for future events organizers.
1) Embrace flexibility and contingency planning 2) Focus more on Logistics and accommodation 3)Make the summit participation criteria to the right audience as we find some student participants could able to understand complex technical philosophy in a few thematic sessions.

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.

Nr.	Item description	Budget	Final cost
1	Travel	1368000	915656
2	Accommodation & Food	429600	432899
3	Event Logistics	230000	19603
4	Event Management	595000	594160
5	Merchandise	70000	63601
6	Mini Hackathon Expenses	490000	489617
7	Unforeseen Expenses	264835	40000
8	Total Budget for the Conference	3447435	2555536

If you have any tips or insights on creating a budget or allocating funds, please feel welcome to share!

Summary of funding

Total project budget :

Total amount requested from WMF : INR 4067973 ( ~ $ 49,699)

Total amount spent on this project: INR 2555536

Total amount of WMF grant funds spent on this project: 3176069 ( INR 2555536 + 620533 (18% GST)

Are there additional sources of revenue that funded any part of this project? : No

Remaining funds : INR 891904

Are there any grant funds remaining?

Answer . YES

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.)

INR : 891904 (~ USD &10,921)

Request for remaining funds:

We are happy to report that we have managed to save some funds from the 2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit budget due to careful planning and efficient execution.

We are writing to request your approval for utilizing the additional remaining funds of INR: 891904 (~ USD &10,921) for the following post-2nd Wikimedia Technology Summit events and activities:

Technology Workshops: We plan to conduct workshops on Wikimedia Technologies like WikiData, and MediaWiki, developing some tools for WikiCommons, and WikiSources for Summit attendees and other interested developers. and providing special training and internships, These workshops will provide hands-on training and practical skills on the technologies and trends related to the MediaWiki ecosystem.

Seminars: We plan to invite experts and speakers related to Wikimedia Technology and other institutions to deliver seminars to new prospective participants for next year's Wikimedia Technology Summit (3rdWTS), These seminars will enhance Wiki knowledge and exposure to cutting-edge research and developments.

Arrangements for next year's 3rd Wikimedia Technology Summit: We plan to use some funds for making preliminary arrangements for the next year’s Wikimedia Technology Summit, This will help us prepare well in advance and ensure a smooth and successful Wikimedia Technology Summit -3rdWTS.

We believe that these post-Wikimedia Technology Summit events and mission-aligned activities will add value to our Wikimedia Technology Summit objectives and benefit our participants, faculty, students, and community. We hope you will approve our request and allow us to use the remaining funds for these purposes.

Evaluation

Optional - Event Evaluation Toolkit - In this page you can find a list of basic questions that the Wikimedia Foundation uses to evaluate large movement events like Wikimania and other regional and thematic events. Feel free to use any part of these questionnaires to evaluate your own event. You will find: Registration Questions; Post-event questions for participants and Follow-up questions for participants.

Anything else

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

Diff post on Second Wikimedia Technology Summit Brings Together Knowledge and Technology Experts To Reimagine The Future of Free and Open Knowledge (LINK)

Second Wikimedia Technology Summit Mini Hackathon Outcomes:(Meta Link)

Summit Page:(Indicwiki page)

Second Wikimedia Technology Summit : (Meta Page)

Participants of WTS Mini Hackathon 2023