Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2017

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Why a Diversity Conference?

The Wikimedia mission to grant every person free access to share in the sum of all human knowledge is a motivation to take inclusive action in order to improve quality of our projects and to grow and sustain our communities and partnerships. Guided by our values, motivation is found in the efforts to make Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects inclusive of a wide range of individuals, communities, backgrounds and knowledge. And we know there is a lot to do.

Many ideas for increasing diversity has turned into actions throughout the Wikimedia movement, so (a lack of) diversity continues to be a source of inspiration for many Wikimedia volunteers to take actions and advance the mission of free knowledge.

Wikimedia Sverige (Sweden) is planning for this conference to be a thematic space for Wikimedians to discuss and share insights and experiences from such initiatives. What have we learnt about taking inclusive action the Wikimedian way from a wide range of initiatives to increase diversity in Wikimedia projects? How can this (collective) knowledge guide further actions?

We would like to create a conference which offers a platform for shared experience from working in the Diversity space of Wikimedia. Participants can connect and discuss various aspects of diversity, such as gender, physical and mental abilities, linguistic, geographic, ethnic diversity. Together we can explore what these aspects have in common in terms of power, participation and privilege, and how it relates to the quality and relevance of free knowledge. From these connections, we hope to form a shared understanding of how diversity strengthens Wikimedia impact and ways to collaborate and build capacity to achieve the goals of our movement.

We are happy to announce that Katherine Maher, Executive Director at the Wikimedia Foundation, will attend the conference.

Who's the conference for?

We welcome in particular participants from underrepresented groups in Wikimedia, participants from minority groups and communities, and diversity leaders in Wikimedia and mission aligned organisations.

Program Committee

Decision making on the program for the conference is informed by the experience of the team members. The program committee welcomes suggestions and input on the talk page.

Members

Registration

The conference is now full and application is closed.

(All questions can be found here)

Why register?

  • Participate: All interested participants must register to show their interest in attending the conference and that they qualify given the theme of the conference.
  • Shape the program: The first section of the registration is about the conference program and the questions are for interested participants to let the organising team know what they wish to learn, share and the kind of experience they have from working with diversity in Wikimedia. The participants are the core of the conference.
  • Lead activities: Anyone who registers can indicate if they want to lead activities during the conference, such as talks, discussions and/or training. With this information, the organising team will approach participants on how to engage in the conference and actively contribute to shaping the program. There will not be a traditional separate proposal submission process.
  • Apply for scholarship: The registration form also has a section for scholarship application and participants who want to apply for scholarship 2 and 3 should do so by 20 August.

Contact

Feel free to get in touch!

Wikimedia Diversity Conference

Information

Schedule

Schedule

Hashtag

Hashtag: #WikiDivCon


Livrustkammaren is sponsoring a venue at the Royal Palace for the social activity on Friday.
The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority is funding our work with Wikispeech.