2019:Partnership

This page describes the Wikimania partnership concept. For the Wikimania 2019 Space on Partnerships, see this page.

From 14-18 August 2019, Wikimedia Sverige will be the host of Wikimania, the annual conference of the international Wikimedia Movement. The conference will take place in Stockholm, under the theme "Stronger together: Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals". As non-profits, we are working hard to ensure that as many as possible of our volunteers can participate and make use of the conference. By partnering with different organizations, we can make sure that Wikimania's impact gets as big as possible! To make the conference really, really good, we therefore need your help! This page describes some of the ways in which you as a partner can contribute to a better Wikimania.

Wikimedia as an NGO works for free knowledge. We want to help people and organizations to spread free knowledge, and make it easily accessible for everyone. We have affiliates across the globe, and the largest project, Wikipedia, exists in more than 300 languages with in total almost 50 million articles. The Wikimedia projects have become fundamental for a lot of people in their everyday lives, and Wikimania is the most important physical gathering of the Wikimedia Community.

To become a Wikimania partner costs xx. The entire sum is reinvested in the conference. In the price, xx free tickets are included.

Why should you organize activities together with us?

Group picture from Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario, Italy.

• To organize an event is an excellent way of getting to know the Wikimedia movement, and to see what more we can do together in the short and in the long term.
• It is a way of supporting the conference, so that we can do even more things and that more persons from developing countries can get scholarships to attend.
• It gives visibility as the conference gets a lot of attention every year in the media. Your involvement will be acknowledged in several ways, so that the conference attendees know that you are involved in free knowledge.
• All organizations that partner with us, or who choose to become sponsors, get a number of free tickets to the conference. Attend the conference, listen to interesting talks and discussions, and meet the leaders within the Wikimedia and free knowledge movements.

Possible activities

The conference will mainly take place in Aula magna at the University of Stockholm, but our goal is to turn Stockholm and Sweden into a hub for free knowledge before, during and after the conference.

Our goal is to turn Stockholm and Sweden into a hub for free knowledge before, during and after the conference. But to reach that goal, we need your help. Do you want to join? There's a lot of different possibilities for what we can do together!

Below we list a series of potential ideas, like editathons – a concept that is proven to work well, seminars, competitions and parties. It doesn't have to be complicated. Do you have an idea that you don't find below? Reach out to us, so we can discuss the possibilities!

If it feels overwhelming to do something on your own, it is completely fine to do things together with others. We would love to help connect you and your organization with someone else who could potentially be suitable, or help with other kinds of preparations.

Are you based outside of Stockholm, but want to do something fun and exciting elsewhere in Sweden or the Nordics? Tell us! We are open for cooperation and partnership no matter where you are located.

Please note however that all activities should connect to the theme of the conference.

Specific ideas

Editathon

Editathon during Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town, coarranged with local water experts as partners.

An editathon is a quite simple arrangement where you can build a stronger community and at the same time spend some fun and exciting hours on contributing to the world's largest encyclopedia.

What do you need? Not much! You need a venue or a place to sit, a couple of hours and a dedicated time. An invitation should be sent to those you believe will be interested, and some nice fika will always help. We help you find an interesting and important subject connecting to the theme of the conference, and together we arrange an event that without doubt will contribute to a better Wikipedia, or other Wikimedia projects as well. During some fun, interesting and instructive hours we write together and improve the content. We have arranged hundreds of editathons during the last ten years, with large success.

Your organization invites and we make sure that an expert on the Wikimedia projects come and instructs the participants.

Seminar

Wikimania gathers hundreds of experts – with a lot of passion for free knowledge! Some of the most prominent developers, editors, information disseminators and international leaders meet in Stockholm, a golden opportunity for you to make use of! It is not common with such a supply and concentration of free knowledge leaders in Stockholm. One opportunity for you is to arrange an interesting seminar, connecting to the theme of the conference. You get the opportunity to discuss questions you think are important, and at the same time you get important knowledge leaders part of your network.

You need a venue, a relevant subject, some interesting panelists and an audience. Your organization sends the invitation, and we make sure that an expert from the Wikimedia projects can participate in the seminar. Perhaps media is interested? And possibly a lot of the participants in the conference. A seminar makes it possible for you to connect the exciting work you are doing with free knowledge and the Wikimedia movement!

Culture Crawl

During Wikimania a thousand participants from across the world meet in Stockholm, participants who love to learn new things about the places they visit. A lot of them will want to learn as much as they only can about Sweden, Swedish culture and history during the time of the conference. This is also knowledge that often turns into articles about Sweden in a lot of languages on Wikipedia afterwards.

That's the reason why we often arrange a larger culture crawl during Wikimania. A culture crawl is an event where the participants visit different interesting places across the city to take part of the culture. Museums, libraries, archives, galleries, only the thoughts set the limits! Join in our culture crawl, connect with really enthusiastic visitors and contribute to making our conference a success! It is also very likely that your work gets much better coverage on language versions of Wikipedia across the globe.

Hackathon

Hackathon at Wikimania 2018.

Do you use MediaWiki as a tool in your organization? Or do you want to? Do you look for interesting ways of contributing to open source, or a way of meeting competent developers? On a hackathon developers meet to create new solutions, and at the same time learn from each other.

Together, we arrange an event for your developers to get a better understanding of MediaWiki, WikiBase or how Wikimedia's different APIs can be used in your products.

Contests

Perhaps the most interesting thing for you is that a certain topic gets a better coverage on Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons or some other of the Wikimedia Projects? Then, a contest may be a good idea!

Wikimedia Sverige has successfully arranged a large number of contests throughout the years (where participants have written, photographed, recorded sounds, added data or sources etc.) The contest can take place before Wikimania and be combined with a prize ceremony at your place during the conference week. Together, we choose a subject, set up the rules and invites to the contest.

Parties

Everything cannot be work. Help creating a great atmosphere among the attendees, and make new contacts, by organizing a party for the attendees. It is always appreciated, and will make you and your organization much appreciated. It is also an opportunity for you to get to know our international community in a relaxed setting!

Participation at the conference

Do you use Wikipedia, or do you want to start to? Are you interested in linked data or how you can make use of or contribute to the largest collection of media files under free license? The conference offers many opportunities for your personnel or volunteers to become experts, make invaluable contacts for future projects and share your work with free knowledge, open source or open data.