Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Hackathon:Wiki Go Tech:Get Started with Technical Contribution on Wikimedia (ID: 23553319)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Birusha
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Hackathon: Wiki Go Tech: Get Started with Technical Contribution on Wikimedia
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2025-11-01 - 2026-02-05
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
Democratic Republic of the Congo
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Not applicable
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
The main challenge is the absence of technical Wikimedia contributors in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). While awareness of Wikipedia editing is slowly growing, there is almost no participation in the more technical areas—such as MediaWiki development, gadgets, bots, and tool creation—which are critical for building local solutions and sustaining the Wikimedia movement. Without local technical capacity, our community depends heavily on external contributors, limiting innovation and engagement. The wider change we aim to bring is to build a new generation of skilled local Wikimedia technical contributors who can actively maintain, improve, and create tools relevant to our context. If this proposal is implemented, students and young developers in the DRC will gain open source experience, practical Wikimedia skills, and confidence to engage globally while serving their local communities. In the long term, this will help grow a stronger, more self-sufficient Wikimedia movement in the region. Our strategy is to build capacity through structured training and mentorship. We will combine foundational technical skills (Linux, CLI, learning in public) with specialized Wikimedia training (editing, Wikidata queries, MediaWiki hacking), and then consolidate learning through a capstone project (developing a leaderboard tool for local Wikimedia contests). To reinforce motivation and knowledge-sharing, we will also host live talks with Wikimedia developers and monthly hackathons. We chose this approach because hands-on, project-based learning has proven to be the most effective way for students to retain skills and remain engaged. Programs such as Google Summer of Code and Wikimedia’s own outreach initiatives show that combining mentorship, training, and practical projects leads to long-term community contributors. By focusing on practical learning, community building, and global-local connections, we are confident this project will successfully introduce technical Wikimedia contributions to the DRC and inspire ongoing participation beyond this first cohort.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
- Recruit qualified students for the project
- Onboarding
- Weekly check-ins for mentorship and progress tracking
- Live talks with community tech experts
- Hackathon
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
Birusha (Username: Birusha) - Project Coordinator: Overall project management, grant administration, mentorship, and facilitating experimental Wikimedia training.
firminfinva (Username: firminfinva) - Communications and Recruitment Lead: Leading the promotion of the program and the recruitment of qualified students for the 3-month training.
ThierryW23 (Username: ThierryW23) - Mentor and Trainer: Providing direct mentorship and training to participants throughout the program.
Josue Joe Makuta (Username: Josue Joe Makuta) - Trainer and Mentor: Delivering training sessions and providing ongoing support to participants.
Partner Organizations:
Wikimedia Democratic Republic of Congo (Wikimedia DRC) - Technical and Strategic Partner: Providing technical expertise, including the creation of worklists, identification of suitable projects for contributions, and setting up Meta-Wiki pages and Dashboards. They will also assist in promoting the program. Nature of Partnership: Collaborative support; the involved members are volunteers.
KALI ACADEMY - Educational and Selection Partner: Assisting in the selection and qualification of students for the program. They will also help identify local Wikimedia projects and tools relevant to the African community. Nature of Partnership: Collaborative support.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
The program will directly train 15 university students or recent graduates in computer science and related fields. Participants will be selected for their interest in open-source software and motivation to become technical contributors to Wikimedia.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
The initial idea for this project was discussed following Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi. Over the following two weeks, we continued planning through a series of online meetings (Google Meet, Zoom) and conversations within private WhatsApp and Telegram groups involving the Wikimedia community in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
These discussions were essential for shaping the proposal's focus on technical skills development and ensuring it aligns with local community needs.
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Geography
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Education
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Geographic
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
What is the most effective structure for a 3-month internship to transition students from beginners to active technical contributors in the Wikimedia ecosystem?
What are the most significant technical, social, and motivational barriers that prevent new contributors from Africa from making their first technical contribution, and how can we overcome them?
What specific activities, support mechanisms, or types of projects are most effective in retaining at least 50% of participants in the technical community for the long term?
Can a focused, project-based learning model successfully generate "local solutions to local problems"? What does it take for a capstone project to evolve from a small tool into a widely-used resource for the broader community?
How can I, as a project lead, best develop the skills to manage a diverse team, mentor a broad audience of learners, and foster a collaborative, productive technical community?
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 15 | The activity will have around 15 participants, consisting of students who will learn how to contribute to Wikimedia as developers. |
| Number of editors | 15 | 15 new developers will discover a set of Wikimedia technical tools. |
| Number of organizers | 6 | There will be 6 organizers in total. All of them will conduct online sessions three times a week for 2 hours each. During the hackathon days, only 4 organizers will be present in person. |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | |
| Wikimedia Commons | |
| Wikidata | |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | 20 |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
20 pull requests (technical contributions) to be submitted to Wikimedia related projects and 3 apps deployed to Toolforge or wmflabs (Wikimedia Cloud) during this period.
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
Phabricator for reviews, Github for collaboration, Toolforge for usage, and Gerrit for patches.
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YXZ--YlINv4A05lC2-RxccZB4xbSWvA4Nvu9opZg8HQ/edit?usp=sharing
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
10905345.66 CDF
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
4943 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
[edit]Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).