Grants:PEG/WM HU/Wikiconference/Report
Report[edit]
Project Goal:
The goal of this project was to organize a successful conference with the participation of researchers and members of the educational community and driving media attention to the 10th anniversary of the Wikimedia movement and our chapter.
Description of actual activities:
Holding a conference on January 15 at the National Library in Budapest with WMF's Frank Schulenburg as keynote speaker and E. Sylvester Vizi as guest of honour (former chairman of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and noted personality in Hungary). We had three other speakers (Péter Gervai, founder of the Hungarian WP) and two professors (Mária Ludassy philosopher and Tamás Vicsek network researcher). After that session we had a podium discussion with the director of the Library and three university teachers participating. After the conference a press talk and a wiki meet-up was scheduled.
What lessons were learned that could help others succeed in similar projects?
What went well: the conference was a success, the conference day went quite smoothly with an interested audience. It was a good idea to provide the interested audience with informational material about the chapter and Wikipedia (our annual report and the Welcome to Wikipedia brochure). The conference was videotaped under CC-BY-SA licence, so it is accessible for interested people (http://youtube.com/WikimediaHU – due to size restrictions it cannot be uploaded to Commons). The resonation of the press was positive.
What went wrong: as this was our first such conference, there were some problems due to our inexperience: one speaker spoke above the time provided which caused one speaker before the sandwich buffet to shorten his presentation and we wasn't prepared for that. (The problem was that the sandwiches had to be eaten before they became spoiled.) The press talk was open to everyone so we had many questions from outside the press which was problematic from time to time – next time we will have to be more careful to recognize, separate the press and allow them to ask the questions at press events. One minor thing is that not many conference attendees came to the wiki meet-up following the conference, we should have been more vocal in advertising the possibility during the conference. We used CiviCRM to register the attendees but due to the fatigue of the organisers, we didn't create a detailed follow up on who actually came and what sectors they represented.
What impact did the project have on WMF mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation?
The audience was about 160-170 people, mostly people from universities, research institutes and libraries, and people who saw the opportunity on the fundraising and ten.wikipedia pages. The audience was interestingly of higher age (the oldest attendee was 87 years old). After the conference we got offers to hold presentations at the Loránd Eötvös University, the Saint Stephen University and the University of Technology and Economics. Some Wikipedia-projects are under way.
Budget[edit]
Exchange rate: 1 USD = 184,88 HUF; expenses were incurred in HUF
Detail of expenditures:
Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.
- Venue rental (includes catering and video recording): 280 000 HUF – $1514. 49
- Interpreter for Frank Schulenburg's presentation: 37 500 HUF – $202.83
- Conference materials (notepads, pens. presentation folder, poster): 93 792.5 HUf – $507.31
- Other (flower for the presenter, parking fee, postal fees): 5010 HUF – $27.09
- Total: 416 303 HUF – $2251.74
Amount underspent in US Dollars: $751.3 [1]
Will you be requesting re-allocation of remaining grant funding? Yes
- ↑ The difference to plan is explained by the very good catering offer we had received.