2025-08-09 –, MERU (🗣️ ar, es, fr, sw)
Language: English
🎥 Session recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/IIJaOtycCf0?feature=shared&t=8278 🎥
ETHERPAD (audience notes) link: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/2025_Future_of_Wikimania
Link to Video podcast interview: http://youtu.be/Wpm_Vi2LftA
As Wikimania celebrates its 20th anniversary, this session will explore the future trajectory of the Wikimedia movement. By reflecting on past achievements and addressing emerging challenges, we aim to co-create a vision for the next editions of Wikimania. This session will focus on fostering inclusivity, amplifying impact, and ensuring sustainability within the Wikimedia ecosystem.
As Wikimania turns 20, it is the perfect time to reflect on its history and chart a bold vision for its future. This session, “Future of Wikimania,” will bring together diverse voices from the Wikimedia community to discuss how the movement can continue to thrive over the next editions of Wikimania. Emphasizing inclusivity, impact, and sustainability, the session will outline actionable steps to address emerging challenges and seize new opportunities. Through collaborative discussions, we aim to co-create a roadmap that ensures Wikimania remains a powerful platform for sharing knowledge and inspiring change.
Objectives:
1. Foster Inclusivity: Explore strategies to bridge representation gaps and engage underrepresented communities in Wikimania and the broader movement.
2. Enhance Impact: Identify innovative ways to increase the relevance and visibility of Wikimedia projects while amplifying their global reach.
3. Ensure Sustainability: Develop actionable recommendations to address challenges such as funding, technological scalability, and environmental sustainability.
Session Outline:
Opening Remarks: “20 Years of Wikimania”
A brief presentation reflecting on two decades of Wikimania and its role in fostering knowledge-sharing and community growth. The opening will set the stage by highlighting key milestones and current challenges.
Panel Discussion: “Visions of the Future”
A dynamic panel featuring perspectives from diverse stakeholders, including: past, current and future organizers of Wikimania, prolific contributors/ volunteers of Wikimania and the audience
Optional activity: “Co-Creating the Future”
Participants will be involved in public discussion on actionable strategies. This section will tackle specific pillar of the theme:
1. Inclusivity: Bridging representation gaps and engaging marginalized communities. These may include key elements in scholarship, program proposals, relevant activities
2. Impact: Scaling Wikimedia's presence and relevance globally.
3. Sustainability: Addressing long-term challenges such as funding/ resource allocation, eco-friendliness, and technological scalability.
Expected Outcomes:
1. A collaboratively crafted roadmap outlining actionable strategies for inclusivity, impact, and sustainability.
2. Increased awareness of the challenges and opportunities facing the Wikimedia movement.
3. Strengthened community connections, fostering collaboration beyond Wikimania 2025.
4. Documentation of key takeaways to be shared with the Wikimedia Foundation, affiliates, and relevant communities.
The session is designed for:
- Experienced Wikimedians interested in shaping the movement's future.
- Community leaders and activists striving to enhance inclusivity.
- Technologists eager to contribute to innovation within Wikimedia.
- Advocates and governance specialists focused on sustainability.
- How does your session relate to the event theme: Wikimania@20: Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability?
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This proposal is fully aligned with the overarching theme of "Wikimania@20: Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability." It directly addresses the theme's key pillars by fostering dialogue around representation, technological innovation, and long-term resilience. By connecting participants with a shared vision, this session exemplifies the core values of Wikimania and the Wikimedia movement.
- How do you plan to deliver this session? You will be asked to confirm this closer to the date in case of changes to the format.
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Hybrid, with some speakers in Nairobi and others dialing in remotely
- Should your session be selected for the program, do you agree to release your session and supporting materials on-wiki and on the eventyay platform under CC BY-SA 4.0?
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I agree
- What other themes or topics does your session fit into? Please choose from the list of tags below.
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Events, Capacity building, Collaboration, Conferences
- What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?
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Everyone can participate in this session
Butch Bustria is an Overseas Filipino Worker / Wikimedian (OFW) based in Singapore, He use his spare time in doing Wikimedia projects. His first edit was in December 2005 with a series of edits about the Philippines’ hosting of the Southeast Asian Games. In 2010, he along with 4 others co-founded Wikimedia Philippines, the second Wikimedia chapter in Southeast Asia. Since 2017, Butch had been involved in organizing the ESEAP conferences and summits in Bali, Indonesia, in Bangkok, Thailand, in Sydney, Australia, in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia and in Manila, Philippines. He is part of the Regional Funds Committee for ESEAP since 2021. He is remembered as well as the Event lead for Wikimania 2023 in Singapore. Since 2020, he is part of the Wikimania Steering Committee and as of this writing, its vice chairperson.
I am Project Manager for Involvement and Advocacy at Wikimedia Sverige. In that capacity, I have recently worked primarily with international partnerships, such as with the UN agencies, and advocacy for the open movement at the national, European and international level. I have an M.A. in Comparative Literature, and live in Stockholm.
- How can Wikimedia support the digital preservation of heritage at risk? Lessons learned in the Heritage Guard Network pilot project and steps ahead
- Supporting Wikimedians with big GLAM projects – A space to help you with your big projects
- Open Science for Wikimedians: Lessons learned and potential steps ahead
- Reflection on 20 years of Wikimania
My name is Maciej Nadzikiewicz, and I was part of the Wikimania 2024 Core Organizing Team. You may know me from a couple of different things:
– Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (since 2024)
– Wikimedia Europe Board (2022–2024)
– Wikimedia Poland Governance Board (2020–2022)
– Polish Wikipedia sysop (2020–2024)
Lodewijk is a Wikipedian since 2005, active in the Dutch Wikipedia community. He was part of the international team of Wiki Loves Monuments for many years, and is currently chair of the Wikimania Steering Committee.
Executive Director of Wikimedia France
Username:Anthere (She/her). French. Languages : FR N; EN-4.
- Co-Executive Director of Wiki in Africa
- Wikipedian-in-Residence at World Intellectual Property Rights (WIPO)
- Former chairwoman of Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees
- Co-founder, former Vice-Chair and currently member of Wikimédia France Chapter
- Wikipedian since 2002.
As well as
* Financial auditor an member of Les sans pagEs UserGroup
* Member of m:Wikimedians for offline wikis UserGroup (contact member for the affiliate)
* Member of the Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network UserGroup
* Formerly treasurer of WikiFranca (hub-to-be for French speaking wikimedia groups)
* Board member of Open Food Facts
* Vice-Chair of Ynternet.org
Key words : Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Africa, IP rights, Open Movement, Community Building, Open Source, Creative Commons, Life-long learning, accountability, Gender Gap, Equity
Wikimania 2026 CoreTeam coordinator and local event lead. Online community support on Wikipedia in French.
Active Wikipedian since 2006. Lead organizer of Wikimania 2015 and member of Wikimania Steering Committee. Founder of Wikimedia Mexico in 2011, board member since 2024. Nominated to the Wikimedia Foundation Board two times.
She is a librarian and a former WiR with AfLIA
- Empowering the Wikimedia Community in Africa and Around the World with Open Source
- The African Library ecosystem and the Wikimedia movement in the continent: A marriage made in heaven?
- Open Science for Wikimedians: Lessons learned and potential steps ahead
- Bridging the Digital Divide: The Role of Libraries in Supporting Open Knowledge in Underserved Communities
Andrew Lih has been a Wikipedia editor since 2003 and is an administrator on English Wikipedia and Wikidata. He is the author of the 2009 book The Wikipedia Revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s greatest encyclopedia. He is a passionate advocate of collaborative efforts between the cultural and heritage sector and the Wikimedia community. In the United States, he serves as Wikimedian at Large at the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum, education, and research complex. In 2022, he was named one of the first Wikimedia Laureate for his lifetime of work with the Wikimedia movement.
- Learn and discuss with the Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network
- Unpopular Opinions: Bold Lightning Talks to Shake Up Wikimedia
- The State of GLAM Wiki Technology and Tools: Charting a Sustainable Path Forward
- The Future of Multimedia in Wikimedia
- State of Offline
- Reflection on 20 years of Wikimania