2024:Scholarship outcomes
The scholarship application process has concluded. All the applicants were notified by e-mail about the outcome of their submission. Here you can find out more information about the scholarships and the distribution of scholars in diferrent regions. If you want to learn about the application process itself, please refer to a separate page.
What's covered
For both partial and full scholarships, Wikimedia Foundation covers accomodation, food and registration fees. Additionally, full scholarships also include flights, transport and limited medical insurance.
Meals in the time of lunch and dinner during pre-conference, conference days, and closing party will be provided at the venue. Breakfast will be covered by the hotel.
FAQ
What are the requirements for reporting?
Instead of reporting, we are asking scholars to support by volunteering at the event. We will work with you on finding a role that suits your needs, skills and experience. You may write a report, though!
Can I pass my scholarship to someone else?
No. To provide equality, the scholarship was reviewed to a certain order of merits. If a recipient will confirm to decline it, we will pass it to the next person in the order of the review.
If I decline the scholarship for this year, can I pass it to next year’s Wikimania?
No. Each year Wikimania was set under different themes under the consideration of each COT in certain regions. We will encourage you to apply again for the following year, but we will ensure to consider your continuous valuable contribution in our review process.
If I didn’t receive a scholarship, can I ask the scholarship group to review my application again?
No. Our review process involves several meticulous steps, and regrettably, it can only be completed once.
I applied for a scholarship but did not get it. What do I do now?
Getting a scholarship is not necessary for attending Wikimania; you can also register to attend as long as you can cover your own costs.
If you can't cover your own costs, we strongly encourage you to get in touch with an affiliate in your region. They might be running their own scholarship program or hosting a local event!
Results
Individual scholarships
There were over 1400 scholarship applications graded by the Scholarship Review working group for this year's Wikimania. The Core Organizing Team recognizes that conferences are an important space of celebration and knowledge exchange in our Movement, and we wish we could have granted a scholarship to all deserving applicants. The vast majority of applications were compelling, and this year saw an increase in the number of applications that made it to final review by the Core Organizing Team.
While we were able to grow the scholarships budget and increase the total number of scholarships offered this year (up by 25% from 2023 and double the number given in 2019), the process was still highly competitive—roughly 1 in 7 participants was accepted. The numbers below show by region the applications and the number of scholars we aim to accept. Note that for 2024 we have shifted our resources to awarding more partial scholarships to the people physically closer to the in-person event (CEE, NWE and MENA). Along with covering partial and full in-person scholarships, the Wikimedia Foundation will continue to subsidize the in person ticket for all attendees. The Foundation will also cover all costs related to the virtual event, staffing and language translations which make our event inclusive—it will remain free to attend virtually.
In the next few weeks and months, we will be publishing data about the scholarship process. We would like to publish several “lessons learned”, both for the community and future organizers and useful resources for future applicants (including a few best-scored applications from this year and general comments that should be useful in application preparing for future Wikimanias and other conferences).
| Region | Applications | % Applications compared to total |
Total scholars we plan to accept |
Regional % compared to total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 501 | 34.96% | 29 | 13.36% |
| Central Asia | 79 | 5.51% | 10 | 4.61% |
| Central & Eastern Europe | 128 | 8.93% | 49 | 22.58% |
| East, Southeast Asia, & Pacific | 170 | 11.86% | 31 | 14.29% |
| Middle East & North Africa | 94 | 6.56% | 18 | 8.29% |
| North America | 65 | 4.54% | 11 | 5.07% |
| Latin America & Caribbean | 85 | 5.93% | 13 | 5.99% |
| South Asia | 182 | 12.70% | 16 | 7.37% |
| Northern & Western Europe | 129 | 9.00% | 40 | 18.43% |
| Subtotal | 1433 | — | 217 | — |
| Other[1] | — | — | 35 | — |
| Total scholarships | 252 [2] | — | ||
Statistics for Wikimania 2023 are also available.
Hub and regional conferences scholarships [NEW IN 2024!]
In 2024, the Wikimania organizers decided to, for the first time in history, include regional communities, meetings and hubs in the process of directly naming their representatives to Wikimania. This new approach is being used on trial basis for 2024 to ensure that regional and expertise diversities are present at Wikimania 2024 in Katowice.
The Core Organizing Team decided to award around 14% of all available scholarship seats to:
- some of the Wikimedia Hubs,
- some of the regional Wikimedia conferences.
In addition, three regions/hubs (ESEAP, EARTH and WikiFranca) will have auxiliary representatives due to their Wikimania Core Organizing Teams as representatives.
| Hub/meeting | Region | # of seats | Names of representatives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia EARTH Hub | Sub-Saharan Africa | 1[3] | Coming at the appropriate time |
| Wiki Indaba Meeting | Sub-Saharan Africa + Middle East & North Africa | 1[3] | |
| WikiConference India | South Asia | 1 | |
| Wikimedia CEE Hub | Central & Eastern Europe & Central Asia
(CEE & CA) |
3 | |
| Wikimedia CEE Meeting | |||
| Wikimedia Iberocoop Hub | Latin America & Caribbean
(+ participation from Italy, Portugal and Spain) |
2 | |
| Wikimedia Iberoconf | |||
| WikiArabia Conference | Middle East & North Africa | 1 | |
| Wikimedia ESEAP Hub | East, Southeast Asia, & Pacific | 2[4] | |
| Wikimedia ESEAP Conference | 1[4] | ||
| WikiConference North America | North America | 1 | |
| Multi-regional + Themathic | |||
| WikiFranca Hub | Multi-regional
(Africa + Canada + France) |
1[5] | Coming at the appropriate time |
| Wikiconvention francophone | 1[5] | ||
| Wikimedia Europe | Multi-regional[6] | 1 | |
| Volunteer Supporters Network | Thematic | 1 | |
| Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub | 1 | ||
| Content Partnerships Network | 1 | ||
| Total | 19 seats | ||
Contact us!
If you have any questions regarding Wikimania, feel free to contact our team, writing to wikimania.
wikimedia.org
If possible, we kindly request not to send us questions on social media – we use the profiles on Facebook, Twitter etc. to keep you updated, but we don't check their inboxes very often.
References
- ↑ WoTY, SC, COTs, organizers
- ↑ Up from 200 in 2023
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wikimedia EARTH Hub and Wiki Indaba will also be represented at Wikimania 2024 by representatives of the Wikimania 2025 (East Africa) Core Organizing Team
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Wikimedia ESEAP Hub and Wikimedia ESEAP Conference will also be represented at Wikimania 2024 by representatives of the Wikimania 2023 (Singapore) Core Organizing Team
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 WikiFranca Hub and Wikiconvention francophone will also be represented at Wikimania 2024 by representatives of the Wikimania 2026 (Paris) Core Organizing Team
- ↑ Legal entities located in the Council of Europe member countries