Talk:Wikimania/Scholarships/Vision 2015
This is a great idea. Other techniques which have been employed at past Wikimanias:
- One person on the scholarships committee should help the recipients look for and find local matching funding. From their institution, from a local foundation or civic group, from a local chapter. This helps build a stronger community: those who contribute a bit to the journey become invested in it, and in Wikimania. It is a very tangible way for them to support a distant event.
- One person should handle scholarships for students (in high school especially). This should be budgeted separately: it is mainly covering the cost of their tickets (food &c) and local transport. Again, local schools should fund participation as a field trip; but this is funding to make sure that it is affordable to them: for a high school student, $100 is a lot for a weekend of learning. Since this is in London, it is reasonable to imagine a field trip from Paris as well; in which case support for a translator would also be welcome.
- Have some volunteer and presentation roles that the scholarship recipients can undertake. This doesn't have to be a burden, it should be a fun way for them to feel like an integral part of the event. In 2005, the scholarship recipients were invited to come a day earlier than everyone else; they each shared a short talk about wikipedia in their community; and they were invited to help with some of the last day of preparation. [sorting t-shirts and badges, &c]. A few did help, and the rest felt welcome.
- Writing and speaking about their experience: this is a good idea. Especially in multiple languages. In 2006, we had international media interest in 10+ languages; the scholarship recipients were among the people we felt comfortable sending journalists to if they wanted an interview in their own language.
- Homestays. Finding local Wikimedians who could host scholarship recipients. This is to honor them, not for reasons of cost: recipients are generally especially cool people who we want to help integrate more into the global wiki-community. Staying with a local wikimedian is generally much more welcoming than staying at a hotel.
Aside: there were some scholarship recipients in 2006 who were on the fence: we wanted them to come, but they weren't at the top of the list and we didn't have enough funding to cover them completely. For those in countries with a long visa process, we were able to start the visa application process while they were still looking for matching travel support. –SJ talk 02:59, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
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As WMF looks at how to roll the WMF-funded Wikimania scholarships into a growing Travel and Participation Support program, I've been thinking of experimenting with a couple of ideas along some similar lines for 2014...all input would be welcome there, as this may potentially be useful to those thinking ahead to 2015. Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2014 (UTC)