Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/ESEAP Conference 2024/Final Report

Conference Fund Final Report

Report Status: Under review

Due date: 2024-08-30T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Conference Fund

Report type: Final

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General information

Title of proposal: ESEAP Conference 2024
Username of applicant: Tofeiku
Name of organization: N/A
Amount awarded: 175000
Amount spent: 125998.47 USD, 544401.92 MYR

Part 1: Understanding your work

1. Did your event have any impact that you did not expect, positive or negative?

We are unsure if this is a positive impact or not. However, the conference brought different affiliates of the Philippines despite they have differences. Surprisingly due to the conference, they decided to work together, which is quite rare for them, to host next year's ESEAP Strategic Summit 2025 in Manila. All of the affiliates in the Philippines decided to set aside their differences and work together to hold the summit.

2. What do you think will be the long term impact of this conference?

As this is the first time the user group organised a conference, this gives a huge impact on us to be more well-prepared to organise events and conferences in the future. The affiliate is still young and we would like to expand the affiliate more. We are planning to organise our own national conference next year with what we have learnt and gained from the ESEAP Conference.

Increase awareness about Wikimedia community in Malaysia to the public. We are still building our image in the country and having successfully organise a regional conference in Malaysia showed how we are capable and serious in this movement.

3. Would you say that your work improved participants’ ability to apply new skills and knowledge?

Yes

3a. If yes, please describe how and why you think this was successful. Please describe why you think this is the case.

Participants have learnt many new skills and konwledge such as community engagement, content creation and expansion, and event management. Presenters have shared about their experience in engaging with their communities. Participants will be able to bring back what they have learnt to their home country.

4. Please use this space to upload media and other files that help tell your story and impact. You can also provide links to them.

Field to type in URLs.

https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/05/21/eseap-2024-was-featured-in-a-japanese-e-mail-magazine/ https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/05/29/welcoming-partners-into-the-wikimedia-ecosystem-lessons-from-eseap-conference-2024/ https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/06/18/eseap-conference-2024-experience/ https://imgur.com/a/7Ghvuq9

5. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.

Our efforts during the Fund period have helped to...
A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups
B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community	Strongly agree
C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups
D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives	Strongly agree
E. Encourage the retention of editors	Agree
F. Encourage the retention of organizers	Agree

6. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).

Upload Documents and Files

Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

N/A

7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?

N/A

Part 2: Your main learning

8. Were there any major challenges or things you found difficult that you would like to share? What would you do differently next time?

We have trouble with working with the hotel management especially for the venue. We do not have a technical team to support the technical aspect of the conference. We were told that the hotel had experience in hosting a hybrid conference and possess a proper AV equipment. However, it was not sufficient enough for our conference. Even the technical staff from the hotel was not helpful enough to assist us. However, we managed to find a work around for the issue. In the future, we will hire a technical staff and rent AV equipment for the conference.

Other than that, we have some issues with the flight booking website. Some people had trouble navigate the website to self-book their flight. When a flight is cancelled, they have no way to book a new flight. It was confusing for the participants as they do not know what to do.

9. Was there any non-financial support that the Wikimedia Foundation could have provided that would have better supported you in achieving your goals?

The Wikimedia Foundation has provided a lot of support for the organising team such as accommodation, venue and participant's travels. We think that WMF could help us connect with other conference organisers to learn from them. Learning from other communities has proven fruitful success as we gained many insights and experience from them that we have not thought about.

10. What would you recommend on a local and/or regional level as the best next step to leverage your success and momentum?

We need to organise a national level conference to leverage our success and momentum. As we have successfully organised our very first conference, having a local level conference is needed to attract new volunteers and keep the interest of existing volunteers.

11. Please add any 3 operational recommendations for future events organizers.

Part 3: Metrics

12. Open Metrics reporting

In your application, you defined some open metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with your metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in.

Open Metrics Summary
Open Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
First-timer attendee	Any participant that has not attended any Wikimedia conferences before	10	10	N/A	N/A
Post-conference engagement	Participants that join monthly online ESEAP meeting	80	50	The ESEAP community is finding a team to host the regular monthly meetings to this date. This meetup is the first meetup ever since the ESEAP Conference.	https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/eseapmeetupwm24 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ESEAP_Meetup_20240810_05.jpg
Post-conference project	Any project or activity done by participants after the conference based on the discussions made in the conference and the lessons learnt	5	5	1. Launch of Kadazandusun Wikipedia 2. Kent Wiki Club organised few events such as WikiKaamatan 3. Launch of Bajau Sama Wikipedia 4. Organise activities in Wiki Club in SMK Sandakan, Malaysia 5. Discussion with Sabah State Library in Kuala Lumpur	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

13. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?

No

13a. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future. Also mention why you felt you had to change some metrics.

N/A

14. Here are the templates of registration and survey tools that the Wikimedia Foundation has developed so that you can use in your conference fund work.

1. Standard Registration Form

14a. Please share the result(s) with us, provide the link(s) or summarize the main result(s) and insight(s) from them.

N/A

14b. If you used other forms, please share them with us, as these forms might be useful for others to use.

Part 4: Financial reporting and compliance

15. & 16. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

544401.92 MYR

17. Please state the total amount spent in USD.

125998.47 USD

18. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

Upload a financial report file.

Please provide a link to your financial reporting document.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nu5YOgwRFpTV1sGSSWFjYM5usGyJaSUikZzqqqReJQw/edit?usp=sharing

As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

19. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.

N/A

20. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?

Yes

20a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.

Total unspend fund from wired and unwired fund = RM254,384.39 Leftover wired fund = Malaysian Ringgit RM187,131.64 There was a huge change in terms of delegating for work and task when organising the conference. The scholar's travel was initially to be managed by the affiliate. When we request for the first wiring of the fund, we only requested amounts for travel and others. However, flights were handled by WMF instead and paid directly by WMF using the remaining unwired fund. Hence, causing a lot of funds left unspent. The remaining fund was not wired since we do not need them hence left to WMF.

20b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?

B. Propose to use them to partially or fully fund a new/future grant request with PO approval

20c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.

We are planning to use the leftovers to fund outreach programmes in Malaysia especially in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and other regions in Malaysia. We do not have much funds left for our annual fund. Hence, rather than asking for a top up from the Foundation to sustain our events, we would like to use the leftover funds from the conference fund instead. We miscalculated when we applied for the annual fund; leaving us with few funds for this year.

Here is the plan for the unspend funds: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vIMQyu0-tmY68bwzVgCZzQ9z-8FfU3J-Hmw7f7hSNzk/edit?usp=sharing

21. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?

Yes

22. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?

Yes

23. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.

Yes

24. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.