2026:Team challenges

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Registration to the Team Challenges is now closed.

PLEASE NOTE: Registering for the Team Challenges does not provide access to Wikimania, the Team Challenges are a separate event

For 25 years, the Wikimedia movement has embodied the values of the free and universal sharing of all human knowledge for the benefit of humanity.

In 2026, the challenges we face are greater than ever before. More of the world’s population is online than ever before – but significant inequalities remain in terms of connectivity and access to information. The spread of misinformation and disinformation is also accelerating with the use of AI.

It is to address these developments that we are introducing the Wikimania Team Challenges. This year, we are inviting a specially curated group of experts to join forces with participants in our Wikimania Hackathon to help reflect on what is needed to build the sustainable, inclusive, and universal digital public goods of the future.

We want to enable newcomers, especially from non-developers backgrounds, to come to meet the Wikimedia communities and bring their own fresh point of view and skillsets !

The Wikimania Team Challenges offers the opportunity to join an international movement working collectively to ensure free access to knowledge. Whether you’re a coding expert or simply curious about free knowledge, your contribution will have a visible impact on a worldwide digital commons: the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), Wikimedia Commons (media library), Wikidata (database), Wiktionary (dictionaries), Wikisource (library) and many others.

Type of profiles we are looking for

Front-end development (implementation of UX designs, data visualization, creation of interfaces, user interaction)
Back-end development (API work, databases…)
Data science (analysis, engineering, statistics, querying, GLAM data, geo data, open data, Wikidata…)
Design & UI/UX (wireframes & interfaces, user experience, visual design, data visualisation…)
Writing (user or technical documentation, technical writing, data usage, translations/localisations, Wikimedia projects…)
Team spirit (coach, project management, facilitation, team well-being…)
Game design (game mechanics, gamification, interactions…)
Infrastructure & cybersecurity

Share your experience by becoming a Mentor!

You already have experience with the Wikimedia movement or proven technical expertise? Put your skills to work for all the teams by participating as a mentor.

Your role will be essential in:

Guiding the next generation of contributors.
Helping to resolve issues and sharing best practices in open source.
Facilitating collaboration among diverse profiles.

This is the best way to ensure the sustainability of free knowledge and grow the community while embarking on a meaningful human adventure.

11 challenges for maximum impact

The goal is simple : to turn the community’s needs into concrete solutions. We have selected 10 major technical challenges that address the complex issues encountered on a daily basis in Wikimedia projects. These challenges are based on the three pillars of Wikimania 2026:

FREEDOM: Ensuring the interoperability of free software to facilitate its reuse and maintenance, and to guarantee its long-term viability.
EQUITY: Promoting multilingualism. Designing tools capable of overcoming language barriers to bridge gaps in sources and contributions on a global scale.
RELIABILITY: Developing AI-based detection tools to assist volunteer moderators in their work of verifying and protecting information.

Discover the 11 Challenges
	Fix the sources Automatically detect outdated, retracted or broken sources in articles, and facilitate their updating or archiving.
	Welcoming newcomers Reinventing how we onboard newcomers through chatbots, guided micro-edits, and gamification lower the barrier to entry on wikis.
	Update the obsolete Identify and flag outdated articles, obsolete illustrations and screenshots, and outdated graphics to: encourage the community to update them.
	Boost multimedia experience Enhancing the audiovisual experience on wikis: playlists on Commons, a modernised video player, annotation of audio segments, and games focused on accents and pronunciations.
	Deciphering biases Developing tools to detect gender, geographic, and cultural biases in Wikimedia content to: encourage the community to correct them.
	Gamify knowledge Create serious games and playful experiences using Wikimedia data to: learn, contribute, and explore in new ways
	Stream data with Wikidata Take advantage of Wikidata content to: generate lists, tables or up-to-date visualisations, semi-automatically, for other projects in the Wikimedia galaxy or further.
	The editor of the future improving the editing experience: search & replace in the source editor, a standardized citation toolbar, a better visual table editor, and text alignment in VisualEditor to modernise and streamline contributions.
	Explore knowledge Design and experiment new ways of sharing knowledge, in interactive and visual ways… for the modern web!
	Connect multilingual knowledge Facilitating translation, the reuse of content across Wikimedia projects, and collaboration with other Open Source projects so: knowledge can flow freely in all languages.
	Information integrity Building an Environmental and Climate Information Integrity Dashboard on Wikipedia Pages.

Reasons to get involved

Make a difference

You’ll work on challenging and exciting projects for the future of free knowledge.

Learn by doing

You’ll receive free training in Wiki tools.
It’s the perfect opportunity to acquire new technical skills, whatever your background.

Break down barriers

Together, we’ll create what we could never have imagined on our own. Interdisciplinary collaboration allows us to find solutions that technology alone cannot offer.

Embark on an adventure rich in encounters and opportunities

We blend our skills (50% technical / 50% non-technical),
our origins (50% French / 50% international)
and our expertise (50% Wikimedians / 50% newcomers),
whilst ensuring gender parity.
It is the combination of our differences that creates true innovation.

And if you’d like to put your experience and talent to work for all our teams, you can get involved as a mentor to train the next generation of contributors!

Our success is not measured by the number of lines of code, but by the fact that every person — whether a newcomer, a woman or a member of a minority group, technical or otherwise — goes away wanting to continue.

Calendar

📝 June 1st to 25th: Registration for the Team challenges and composition of mixed teams (Registration for the Team Challenges does not grant access to Wikimania)
👩🏽‍🏫 June 25th 10h30 UTC: Onboarding webinar & training on Wiki tools (in French)
👩🏽‍🏫 June 26th 16h UTC: Onboarding webinar & training on Wiki tools (in English)
💻 July 1st to 15th: An online preparation phase to get to know each other and define your team strategy.
💻🗼 July 21 and 22: A final sprint, online or in person (Paris), to bring your ideas to life, concluding with a showcase. (The opening and closing ceremony will be streamed through Wikimania’s Youtube channel)

Practical information

The event is completely free of charge. (meals provided)
Presentations and instructions will mainly be in English and French; we will ensure that each team has an anglophone/francophone member.
The training modules will provide you with all the basics you need to understand the Wikimedia world.

Training and onboarding

Onboarding webinar is now available, click here to view the video

How to Prepare

Bring Your Laptop: Don't forget your computer and charger to be able to participate fully
If you’re a developer, set up your laptop with a development environment you might need: Follow the instructions on the laptop setup page to find out more about our development environments (e.g.: creating a Phabricator account, Git, Gerrit, and more).

Building the teams

The Team Challenges are built on diversity and knowledge sharing. We believe that by bringing together diverse viewpoints, we will be better able to create creative and critical solutions to the acute problems facing the Wikimedia movement today.

During the registration process, participants are asked which of the 11 challenges they prefer to work on, as well as to provide details on themselves, including their skillset, which languages they speak, country of origin and gender. Based on this information, the Team Challenges organizers will aim to create diverse teams with a range of skillsets, knowledge bases and life experiences. Our goal is also to introduce Wikimedians and newcomers to the movement, to ensure a diverse range of perspectives on the challenges.

FAQ: Frequently asked questions

I’m curious about the event but I know only a little Python or C (for example, because I’m still a student), can I join?

YES! You’re the most welcome! What matters is your curiosity and your will to learn new things.

How are the Team Challenges teams created? Can I create my own team?

As discussed previously, in order to ensure diversity and knowledge sharing, the Team Challenges teams will be created by the organizing committee. .

Code of Conduct

To ensure a positive and inclusive environment, all Team Challenges participants must adhere to the Code of Conduct for technical spaces. We prioritize respect and cooperation among attendees. Failure to comply may result in being asked to leave the event. Let's work together to create a welcoming and safe experience for everyone.

Media

Content will coming soon!

Organizing Team

This team coordinates all aspects of the Wikimania Team Challenges. They support project organizers, mentors, and participants, and ensure that technical contributors have a welcoming space to collaborate. They are also responsible for the Team Challenges pages on the Wikimania wiki.