2019:Environmental sustainability/Mapping Complexity at Wikimedia

Environmental sustainability/Mapping Complexity at Wikimedia

The role of non-profits requires strengthening the cooperation at multilevel governance involving non-state actors, for example, scientific institutions, civil society. These actors support the development of multidisciplinary solutions for gender-sensitive policies, funding frameworks, and cooperation on innovating technology, as well as the transfer of knowledge to encourage and incentive participation, transparency and capacity building.

In March 2019, a series of qualitative interviews were conducted with eight members from six different chapters from the Wikimedia Foundation and a member directly based in the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco. The sample represents a range of different disciplines, including utilities, software, legal, education, and event management. People agreed voluntary to be interviewed and were selected to reflect a range of levels, functions, and demographic groups. The team interviewed these members to gain a deeper knowledge about their involvement in the organization and their individual perceptions on sustainability and what it meant to implement this concept in Wikimedia.

The results from these interviews have inspired the development of a workshop based on the insights revealed with the different members of Wikimedia. In order to apply sustainable practices in the daily work of an organization, a broad awareness of the complexity and diverse meanings that sustainability has within the international chapters is needed to map.

*PS. I just checked that interestingly there's a very similar proposal to this one from some past interviewees from this project. It would be interesting to see how we could collaborate together or complement ideas*

Description

In this workshop we analyze and map the current practices at the Wikimedia Foundation in relation to their direct and indirect approaches to sustainability + teams aspirations at a global scale as a non-profit organization. Through service design practices, the Wikimedia system and the intersections of activities from the organization and projects conceived by volunteers are explored.

1. What are the historical and present main projects from Wikimedia Foundation and how do they relate to sustainability from social, economic and ecological aspect?

2. How should projects at Wikimedia be structured in the future to reduce negative impacts from the studied socio-technical system?

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

The implementation of SDGs works best when it is complemented by the identification of the managerial practices that will drive improvement in organizational and environmental performance. The population is estimated to be currently 7.3 billion and projections expect the number to grow to 9.7 billion people, what does that mean for the future of education and its’ social, economic and environmental intersections? Wikimedia aims to make available the sum of all knowledge, but how does an open, community-based platform can cope with these changes? These are some of the questions that arise in order to fulfill the next 4 billion users needs in an efficient manner. Applying sustainability practices in the development systems allows the adaption of services/projects to any kind of feedback without compromising future generations quality of life.

It is clear that The Wikimedia Foundation is working towards making a positive impact on the society and its sustainability practices are ahead compared to other ICT organizations. However, there is a need to set a common model to structure the assessment of sustainability from global to local.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

The aim of this workshop is to provide a framed, set of recommendations on how the Wikimedia Foundation could reduce future negative impacts through different variables for sustainability assessment.

Session leader(s)

Aleyda Rocha aleyda@kth.se, Wikipedia editor and KTH student from Sustainable Technology program.

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Workshop to identify and try to solve problem and build systems thinking mindset.

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room: Open room with round tables.

• Audience: 25-30 people max. Diverse disciplines from different countries participating.

• Recording: Photographs of the session would be helpful as a form of archive for improvements and future work.