Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda/Events & Projects/Wikimania 2022/Winny.nekesa/Report

My First Wikimania Festival Edition - 2022!! Experience

After 10 years as a member of the Wikipedia community without contributing much! I was excited when a colleague shared a link to the Wikimania Festival Edition participation scholarship call, I applied and was successful. The organizers were soo helpful from the word go, they created a WhatsApp group, made sure all the scholarship recipients were kept informed about the on-going sessions and provided assistance where needed. I used the scholarship funds for mobile data, childcare and transport refund.

Like any other newbie, I wanted to attend all sessions, but our organizers recommended some sessions for new comers which I bookmarked with other more others. I participated both virtually and the in-person event. Day one session on digital security matters was an eye opener, it has provided me with knowledge on how to assess the digital tools that I may adopt. For example consider issues like; whether the tool is open source, provide for end-to-encryption, store any data, leak any data and does the tool share any data among others. It was also interesting to find out that some professors teach with Wikipedia in other countries which I think isn't the case in Uganda. From the discussions, introducing students to Wikipedia early provides them an opportunity to start adding knowledge. I think it will be a great opportunity for the Ugandan Wikimedia user group to explore training the educationists on how to use Wikipedia to teach. The third session, "Education program of GLAM Macedonia" was interesting because I got to learn the different ways of improving and creating content and how Wikimedia projects can be implemented in classrooms.

The in-person event was very well organized. It was a very fun relaxed event with information sharing, networking and first class delicious food. My takeaways: The Wikimedia movement is a diverse and inclusive community. I don't have to wait for someone else to add knowledge to Wikipedia, it starts with me. With one edit or contribution, it makes a huge difference to the knowledge society. Its the only way we can preserve our culture.

I look forward to embarking on a new journey of adding knowledge and attending the 2023 Wikimania Festival Edition in Singapore! Congrats! to the Organizing committee for very successful event and thank you for the scholarship and opportunity to participate in this years Wikimania Festival Edition!