Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/Wiki Indaba Morocco 2023/Final Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2024-01-30T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Conference Fund
Report type: Final
This is an automatically generated Meta-Wiki page. The page was copied from Fluxx, the grantmaking web service of Wikimedia Foundation where the user has submitted their midpoint report. Please do not make any changes to this page because all changes will be removed after the next update. Use the discussion page for your feedback. The page was created by CR-FluxxBot.General information[edit]
- Title of proposal: Wiki Indaba Morocco 2023
- Username of applicant: User:Anass Sedrati
- Name of organization: N/A
- Amount awarded: 147420.87
- Amount spent: 147420.87 USD, 1534512 MAD
Part 1: Understanding your work[edit]
1. Did your event have any impact that you did not expect, positive or negative?
On the positive side, there have been notable achievements in broadening community engagement by activating participation from underrepresented communities and extending outreach to seven countries through micro-funded satellite events. Additionally, we have established connections with reputable organizations such as the British Council and 1337 Coding School, laying the groundwork for sustained partnerships and collaborations. The conference has also contributed in boosting the local community and encouraging local Wikimedians to participate and volunteer more.
However, on the flip side, there have been challenges in the post-event phase: efforts expended to follow-up on finances with the fiscal partner often result in unnecessary time and effort spent on clarifying basic inquiries about payments made and outstanding balances.
2. What do you think will be the long term impact of this conference?
The conference significantly reinforced the bonds within the African Wikimedians community, fostering community development through the exchange of knowledge and experiences. It facilitated connections and networking opportunities, paving the way for more collaboration between communities across the continent. Moreover, the event served as a catalyst for the inception of new programs and initiatives, inspired by the insights gained from fellow participants. Other elements were deemed impactful in the long run, such as discussions that took place with Wikipedia administrators which gave a lot of insight on how to help community members move forward on issues while editing.
The conference also introduced a number of new features that can be considered as good practices for future hosts, and thus impact and improve the participant experience, such as the mobile application to consult the program, participant’s booklet, microfinancing for satellite events, a hackathon during the conference, simultaneous translation, the hybrid configuration and recording of sessions.
3. Would you say that your work improved participants’ ability to apply new skills and knowledge?
Yes
3a. If yes, please describe how and why you think this was successful. Please describe why you think this is the case.
Firstly, the inclusive approach taken to ensure participation from a diverse range of communities, with 119 participants gathering in person and satellite events enabling remote involvement, demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and broad engagement. The gathering of participants from over 24 African countries and communities in Agadir showcased a commendable effort to foster regional collaboration and facilitate exchanges of knowledge and perspectives. Moreover, the provision of microfunding support for seven satellite events and partnering for an additional one underscored a commitment to inclusivity and community growth. Also, the fact that the overwhelming majority of scholarship recipients obtained their visas, against initial expectations, not only facilitated physical participation but also demonstrated the efficacy of organizational efforts and support mechanisms to ensure diverse representation. The program's richness in diverse sessions, including presentations, panels, workshops, and strategic discussions, catered to the varied needs and interests of the participants and ensured that each attendee could engage meaningfully in sessions aligned with their interests and skill levels. The tangible outcomes emerging post-conference, such as the initiation of collaborative projects among affiliates within and beyond the continent, illustrate the conference's success in fostering meaningful connections and catalyzing actionable outcomes (such this one https://w.wiki/92kc). Finally, the high levels of participant satisfaction, as reflected in post-conference surveys, serve as a testament to the overall success of the conference in fulfilling its objectives and meeting the expectations.
4. Please use this space to upload media and other files that help tell your story and impact. You can also provide links to them.
Field to type in URLs.
Different reportings around the conference (media coverage, blog posts, podcasts, participants reports): https://w.wiki/8Azy Commons category (pictures, videos, slides, session recordings): https://w.wiki/92U6
5. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Strongly agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
6. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- N/A
7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?
We made countless efforts to include as many participants as possible from underrepresented groups. This included enabling the hybrid setup, allowing participants to join online, and also by offering micro-grants for 7 communities in order for them to come together in their local context and join the conference.
We have also documented the conference in an unprecedented way for Wiki Indaba, by uploading 74 videos of different sessions in this YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG09ZKyGBTkBCJxCArz5CII050CM4hgGG
We have also offered interpretation in Arabic and French, which is a novelty in Wiki Indaba, and that was much appreciated. Many of the recordings were also offered in different languages.
Part 2: Your main learning[edit]
8. Were there any major challenges or things you found difficult that you would like to share? What would you do differently next time?
The financial flows with our fiscal partner proved intricate due to the existing banking protocols, causing delays in paying our service providers and necessitating frequent consideration of alternatives. In future instances where a host engages a non-local fiscal partner, a thorough due diligence process is advisable.
On the other hand, managing the hybrid configuration was relatively less challenging, as we successfully implemented parallel session broadcasting through the Zoom Events platform. However, this accomplishment required substantial effort from on-site volunteers to ensure seamless functioning and running in terms of sound, video, and slides. Since these volunteers may not be well-versed in these technical aspects, we recommend considering the engagement of a specialized agency for future conferences to handle these tasks efficiently. More learnings can be found at these links: https://w.wiki/8$um and https://w.wiki/8$up
9. Was there any non-financial support that the Wikimedia Foundation could have provided that would have better supported you in achieving your goals?
We believe that more support can be done in terms of partnerships and communications. This year's experience did not live up to expectations, as there was no visible outcome or impact, despite a series of meetings with team members.
10. What would you recommend on a local and/or regional level as the best next step to leverage your success and momentum?
The implementation of the actions agreed during the conference and its follow-up must be carried out throughout the year in consultation with the community, to put in place constitutive documents such as the new charter of the WikiIndaba Steering Committee (WISCom) or the African Agenda highlighting the main areas of action for the African community. Spaces like Afrika Baraza could help move this forward before the next edition of WikiIndaba.
11. Please add any 3 operational recommendations for future events organizers.
Based on our experience hosting the WikiIndaba 2023 conference in Morocco, we advise future hosts to consider the following recommendations:
Session Recordings: We strongly advise recording conference sessions to comprehensively document the event. This not only allows those who were unable to attend to follow the sessions but also enables participants to revisit and review the content. Such an approach enhances the overall impact of the conference by ensuring the knowledge shared remains accessible beyond the event itself. Simultaneous Translation: Having simultaneous translation services fosters inclusivity by overcoming language barriers, as every participant has equal access to the knowledge shared during the conference, irrespective of their language. If this point is added to the previous one, it will create more impact by offering the opportunity to access sessions in multiple languages. Seek External Support (Sponsors, Donors, etc.): Diversifying the sources of financing for the conference, by approaching stakeholders who can support either financially or in-kind, can alleviate the foundation's grant and make it possible to cover more elements (more people, activities, side events, etc.)
Part 3: Metrics[edit]
12. Open Metrics reporting
In your application, you defined some open metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with your metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newbie Editor Activation | A percentage of Newbie editors who are motivated and activities to run initiatives in their communities/countries.
50% of newbies who attended the conference run their own initiatives 6 months after the conference |
50 | 40 | This metric is yet to be measured, but meanwhile we have evaluated the conference’s impact on newbie editors. 40% of the newbies (8 out 20 people) have improved their average edits 3 months after the conference. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y-vsX4eoUF6w4sHoyQM1yb7RanKv5yainoj6vP-Zz1M/edit#gid=2121734941)
Newbie editors: Registered in the last three years or have less than 300 edits |
The data was collected using the list of participants and their usernames (for those who provided it), and running API calls to obtain the top 10 Wikimedia projects they most contributed to as a first step. In the second step, pywikibot API was used to obtain their edit history for each of those (at most 10) projects that were accessible with the API, divided at the inflection point of the 3rd of November 2023 (the start of WikiIndaba Agadir 2023), while calculating the daily average edits for all projects in aggregate before and after the start of the event. |
| Movement growth and regional cooperation | A percentage of invites from Countries without Affiliates, start plans to organise their communities.
At least 2 more countries start affiliate set-up 6 months after the conference, and at least 2 affiliates collaborate in a project across geographic region. |
4 | 9 | This metric is yet to be measured, but among the physical attendees we had participants from 6 unaffiliated countries (Burundi, Gambia, Madagascar, Namibia, Tchad, Zimbabwe), in addition supporting 7 unaffiliated groups to hold satellite events through micro-grants fund (Burkina Faso, Burundi, Libya, Niger, Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Zimbabwe).
Burkina Faso and Tchad were recognized by the AffCom on November 2nd (a day before the conference). We believe that the 9 unaffiliated countries will organize and/or plan activities for the their communities. |
N/A |
| Regional leadership activation | Clarification of regional leadership and cooperation.
2 More community members volunteer to support WISCom. |
2 | 3 | In addition to the Moroccan LOC representative, two other volunteer community members are getting on boarded following the call for applications (https://w.wiki/924X) | N/A |
| Raise Wikimedians awareness | Number of Wikimedians who have had their article tagged for speedy deletion, IP blocked in English, Arabic and French Wikipedia. What do they understand about policies in these languages.
3 admin/stewards attend the WikiIndaba conference. |
3 | 3 | Two English Wikipedia admins (Rosie and Mike) and one Arabic Wikipedia admin (Walaa) | Attendance at the conference |
| Gender equity | Ensure that different genders are represented in the conference, in an equal manner.
Minimum of 40% non-male attendees.. |
40 | 46 | 46%(55 participants out of 119) | Physical participation. |
13. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?
No
13a. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future. Also mention why you felt you had to change some metrics.
N/A
14. Here are the templates of registration and survey tools that the Wikimedia Foundation has developed so that you can use in your conference fund work.
1. Standard Registration Form, 2. Post-event participant survey
14a. Please share the result(s) with us, provide the link(s) or summarize the main result(s) and insight(s) from them.
We have used both the registration form and the post-event evaluation survey. The registration form was made accessible to different segments of participants (international scholars, self-funded participants, local attendees and WMF staff) in multiple languages (Arabic, French and English). The post-event evaluation survey was sent to all attendees after the conference. 48% of participants have responded. The results and graphs can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Qd8kodxIHGwuq8N9q7fWMbP_UOaVmog9?usp=sharing
14b. If you used other forms, please share them with us, as these forms might be useful for others to use.
Part 4: Financial reporting and compliance[edit]
15. & 16. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
1534512 MAD
17. Please state the total amount spent in USD.
147420.87 USD
18. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
Upload a financial report file.
Please provide a link to your financial reporting document.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12IbpQVrrI82ooCxvnPIqleDJ-NmF0Gug
As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.
19. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.
N/A
20. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
20a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
20b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
20c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
21. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
22. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
23. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
24. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.