Grants:TPS/MetalBrasil/Campus Party 2012/Report

Campus Party 2012:

Description of your participation: We stayed with a large group, which included Mozilla Firefox team and Garoa Hacker club (a local hacker group). This trio stayed together all the time. And sometimes MakerBot Industries used to sit aside us either. Julien Forgeaud, productor of Rovio Entertainment, Inc. (the firm of Angry Birds), who also honored the trio at the end his presentation (it was a main one).

We got almost 50 contacts of free software developers to our I Wikimedia Hackathon at Brazil. We planned one at São Paulo, and another (inside a broader free knowledge plus free software plus open data event, which we are organizers also) is being planned at Recife, called Balaio Hacker.

We made two workshops about wiki-editing, our Wikipedia Offline project and Wikimedia Brasil, with about 10 people each one. Anyway, we were using megaphones and microphones, so people watched us of them stands. The most editors who attended our workshops are still editing nowadays.

I went chating with the Telefônica Foundation staff, which was also present at the event. I talked about our Wikipedia Offline and they shew interested. About the results, I got the contact of the communication manager and she asked me to contact her later. Still about the Wikimedia-Telefônica relation at the event, Telefônica shows really interested in giving internet acess to the planned Wikimedia Hackathons at Brazil.

At the end of the event, we, aside Garoa Hacker Club, Mozilla Firefox team and Julien, discussed about our partnership and our common commitments about free knowledge, free software, free information. Each member recorded a testimony of his participation aside common organizations and how it affected us.

What lessons were learned that could help others in similar events? Campus Party is a massive event (7 thousand attendees), but massive participation is not synonymous of massive results. There was a lot of companies and organizations really attending this event waiting for big results as well, but just some ones get this. You have to have something different, just the participation doesn't bring anything but the presence. We have to show a differential from the dozens companies also present there. They were all in benches and they weew all present, so, we were all equal to the public.

Fortunately, we reached the differential. With some nice and meaningful words (spoken on megaphones and loudspeakers) at the whole area of the Campus Party, we did spreaded the Wikimedia Way, and also got some ones to our edition workshops.

That's the lesson, be the differential. Be different, so you always will get the attention of the public.

What impact did your participation have on the Wikimedia Mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation? We catched the contact of almost 50 free software developers, who are interested in attending the 2012 Wikimedia Hackathon at São Paulo. We can't say how much new editors were from Campus Party, once we were making unpersonal marketing (without talking directly to people, just got loudspeaker w/ Tom and started the noise). We had two banners, one of Wikimedia Brasil - informative, and one of Wikipedia - illustrative.

About the credibility, at the Kul Wadhwa lecture, also in our two workshops, we make the people know about the false informations about Wikipedia (as vandalisms, we show vandalims rvs. live at workshops to prove the Wikipedia community really take care of the articles). And also show the people the Wikimedia movemeny, its commitemnts and projects. Our banner of Wikimedia Brasil show all the wikimedia projects (not just Wikipedia) and them objective.

Diversified participation: We had the luck to share these moments combating the gender gap, with a lot of girls in the Table! Like J.Wild, Nessa, Pats Pena, Beria, etc.

Detail of expenditures: I'm sorry for the underspent, but the exhange rate went down like 8 cents from the time of my request and now. Sorry anyway :)

Me and Jonas wearing the special WMBR T-shirts made with the grant money

• Flight round-trip: U$560
• T-Shirts of Wikimedia Brasil - 10 - all distributed for volunteers of WMBR (Imagine a world which every single person...): U$105
• Local transportation: U$35

Amount underspent/left-over (please specify currency):

• Overspent: U$50