Wikimedia Hackathon 2025/Satellite Events

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Istanbul, Turkey – May 2–4, 2025

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The Hackathon is participant-driven and gets its life from the active participation of its attendees. Local communities are welcome to organize pre-hackathon events, watch-parties or meetups in their region.

List of Satellite Events, Hackathon 2025

• Palermo, Spain March 14 - 16, 2025
• Add your satellite event here...

Satellite events - what are they and how to organize one?

A satellite event is an event organized autonomously by a group of people outside of the Wikimedia Hackathon 2025 main event. It shares the purpose of the Hackathon: to bring 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 Istanbul)
• after the main event (for example, folks who attended the event in Istanbul 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 Istanbul.

If you are looking for ideas of event formats, or examples of events, you can look at the list of meetups organized during the Wikimedia Hackathon in 2024.

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.
• 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 ideas with people who are interested in the hackathon or other satellite events organizers, feel free to use the hackathon channels.
• Plan the expenses needed for the event and ask for funding if needed - apply for a Rapid Fund maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation.

If you have specific questions for the Hackathon Organizing Team, feel free to email at hackathon@wikimedia.org.

Code of Conduct

The Wikimedia Hackathon will enforce the Universal Code of Conduct, Code of Conduct for Wikimedia’s Technical Spaces, and the Friendly Space Policy across all facets of the event. This includes various platforms, discussion channels, and local meetups. Your adherence to these guidelines ensures a respectful and inclusive environment for all participants.

We recommend all participants review these Trust & Safety policies prior to your arrival at the venue.

Individuals not cooperating with these policies may be asked to leave the event. A dedicated team will be available on-site to help support a safer environment for all.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to use the talk page or to reach out to hackathon@wikimedia.org.