Wikimedia Futures Lab

What is the Wikimedia Futures Lab?

The Wikimedia Futures Lab is a not a single event, but a process composed of a series of conversations designed to spark a period of experimentation across the movement. The Futures Lab brings together Wikimedia affiliates, volunteer contributors, and external experts to deepen our understanding of the impacts that global trends have on Wikimedia.

What to expect at the Lab?

At Futures Lab events and workshops, participants draw on expert perspectives, internal knowledge, and data to explore questions such as:

How will the spread of AI impact human-generated content across the internet, now and over the next 5 years?
Where and how will people find information on the internet, now and over the next 5 years?
What are contributors across the internet looking for, and how might that change in the next 5 years?

During the Futures Lab, participants also generate testable hypotheses and “safe-to-try” experiments to be run locally and shared across the movement to accelerate collective learning.

What are the Lab's goals?

Goal 1: Foster movement belonging

Expected outcome: Participants gain insight into different perspectives and local contexts, they collaborate to develop a shared understanding of challenges and opportunities and imagine futures for Wikimedia.

Goal 2: Discuss key global trends and their impact on Wikimedia

Expected outcome: Participants engage with experts and research to deepen the Movement’s understanding of key trends affecting Wikimedia and discuss how global developments impact regional contexts.

Goal 3: Propose and adapt strategies to stay relevant

Expected outcome: Participants discuss possible strategies to respond to these trends and generate first ideas that can be taken forward after the event.

Wikimedia Futures Lab conversations 2026

In-person events

Frankfurt event on January 31 - February 1: See program and participant list.
Prague workshop after Wikimedia Europe General Assembly on April 26: full documentation here

Online events

DCW Conversation Hour, March 29: Online conversation with Nicole Ebber "Wikimedia Futures Lab: Insights and Experiments"
Monthly online check-ins with experiment owners to foster peer support and share updates on the progress of the experiments. Sign up here to receive the meeting link.
- The 30 minutes calls are hosted on the first Wednesday of the month at 15:30 UTC and on the first Thursday of the month at 14:00 UTC.