Wikimedia Hackathon 2024/Satellite Events

Local communities are welcome to organize pre-hackathon events, watch-parties or meetups in their region in the duration of the Wikimedia Hackathon 2024. On this page, you will find the list of events and how to get involved in a satellite event.

3 – 5 May 2024 | Tallinn, Estonia

Overview

Satellite Events

List of satellite events

Add your satellite event information here.

Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon 2024 - 19th to 21st Jan. 2024
m:Event:Comment contribuer dans un projet open source. cas de Mediawiki - 30th March, 2024
Whishathon 2024 en Présentiel a Goma - 15th - 17th March, 2024
Mini-hackathon in Catania, Sicily, Italy - April 19-21. Meetup for Italian-speaking technical community to get together, collaborate on projects and share skills.
AI Sauna in Helsinki 6–7 May The two-day event invites the Wikimedia technical community, Finnish GLAM organizations, research projects and companies to join envisioning the interactions between cultural heritage, the open ecosystem and the emerging AI technologies. The first day hosts inspire talks, an idea workshop, sauna, pool and mingling. The second day is hands-on learning, hacking, testing, chatting, planning – getting a grip of the challenge in the best suitable way for everyone.
Ionian Wikithon 2024 - in Corfu, Greece, 15th May, 2024. An annual event organised by the Networks, Multimedia and Systems Security Laboratory of the Department of Informatics of the Ionian University in collaboration with the Wikimedia Community User Group Greece.

What is a satellite event and how to organize one?

A satellite event is an event organized autonomously by a group of people in the duration of the Wikimedia Hackathon 2024. It shares the purpose of the hackathon: brings the global technical community together to connect, hack, run technical discussions and explore new ideas.

Satellite events can take place at different moments in time:

before the main event (typically, pre-hackathon events can be onboarding sessions, training and workshops for people who newly joined the Wikimedia projects or the technical community)
during the main event (to encourage people to work on projects in parallel and to interact online with technical contributors who are attending the in-person event in Tallinn)
after the main event (for example, folks who attended the event in Tallinn can share their experience with their local community, show what they did or learned. It can also be a follow-up event to keep working on projects initiated during the hackathon)

Satellite events can take place in any region of the world, but also online. Organizing a satellite event together with your local community or user group can support people who are new to the technical aspects of the Wikimedia movement and need onboarding, and offer an alternative to people who cannot join the in-person event in Tallinn.

If you are looking for ideas of event formats, or examples of events, you can look at the list of satellite events organized during the 2023 Hackathon in Athens.

Checklist to organize a satellite event

Are you enthusiastic about organizing a satellite event? Here’s a list of things to keep in mind:

Don’t do this all on your own! Reach out to your local chapter or user group, start discussions, create a group of people to work together on organizing the event
Define the frame of the event: What are the main goals? What is the target audience? How is it related to the Wikimedia Hackathon’s purpose? How will your event connect with the main event or other satellite events?
Define the logistics aspects of the event: Where will it take place? When, and for how long? How many people do you expect? What will they need to join and contribute? What would be the content of the event (program, activities)?
Define and reach out to the people you will need to run the event: do you need people with specific skills? Speakers or facilitators? Helpers for the logistics aspects? We encourage you to look for these people within your local community and support people looking to gather some experience in facilitation, event organization, etc.
We strongly encourage you to find a local partner to help you with the logistics of the event: depending on the context, you can reach out to a local university, library or hackerspace.
Plan the expenses needed for the event, and ask for funding if needed (if you want to apply for Rapid Fund maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation, see more information in the section below).
Communicate about the event: create a section below to add the event to the list, create a sub-page if you need more space to add the schedule, participants list, etc. Reach out to your local tech communities on their favorite channels and the general hackathon channels, to let people know that the event will be happening.

If you want to exchange with people who are interested in the hackathon or other satellite events organizers, feel free to use the hackathon channels. If you have specific questions for the hackathon organizing team, feel free to write at hackathon@wikimedia.org.

How to get funding to organize an event?

If you need funding to organize a hackathon satellite event, you can apply to the Rapid Fund program maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. The usual eligibility criteria apply, please check them before applying.

The Rapid Fund program is organized in rounds. Depending on when your event takes place and when you need confirmation of the funding and transfer of the funds, you should keep the related deadline in mind.

In order to have enough time to receive feedback on your application as soon as possible, and to integrate improvements if needed, we strongly recommend you to apply as soon as you can and to not wait until the deadline day!

If your event takes place in April, May, or June 2024, you can apply using this criteria.

The application for Rapid Fund takes place on the platform Fluxx. You can find more information about the application process and examples of the expenses that can be funded.

The regional program officers and the evaluation team will be particularly attentive to the following aspects of your application:

You joined or formed a group of people that have prior experience in organizing events. Additionally, you reach out to a formal organization for support (user group or chapter, local partner)
Your team includes at least one person who attended a hackathon before and who knows how technical events in the Wikimedia movement work
Your team include people with technical skills who can help participants, mentor newcomers, or facilitate workshops
Your project is focused on the technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects, for example: developing scripts, bots or other tools, contributing to the codebase of MediaWiki and its extensions, reusing data on third-party tools, etc.
Your project has a connection with the main hackathon event or other satellite events
Your application includes realistic ideas of format, program, facilitators, and location for the event
Your application includes a description of the target audience of the event and how you plan to encourage your local community to participate

If you have any questions regarding the funding process or your funding application, you can reach out to your local program officer or join one of the Rapid Fund conversation hours.