Wikimania – welcoming expressions of interest for 2024

The Wikimania Steering Committee is seeking expressions of interest from community groups to host the 2024 Wikimania in-real-life. We hope to announce the host location by April 2023 to create learning and collaboration between the current and future organizing teams. Continue reading to learn more or visit the 2024 expression of interest page on wiki.

Translations available in عربى, español, français.

Interested community groups do not need to have a venue locked down, contracts drafted or sponsors lined up. The Wikimania Steering Committee and Wikimedia Foundation staff are here to help. The listed areas–rotation, venue, lodging, health, safety, etc.–give some idea of minimum requirements for hosting Wikimania and some of the responsibilities of the hosting group. We will be taking into account diverse factors about potential sites and hosts, especially the cost, accessibility, security, and the strength of the organizing team. 

If you are interested in hosting the 2024 Wikimania, we’d love to hear from you – you can express your interest on wiki or email us at wikimania@wikimedia.org. If a group is interested in hosting Wikimania, but may not be ready for 2024, we will consider expressions of interest for 2025 and beyond, let us know. If a region is interested in hosting Wikimania, you can express interest for multiple cities.

The social side of our movement

As a distributed, global, socio-technological movement, we have learned over the years how important it is for us to come together – collaborations flourish, communities strengthen, grievances dissolve, and lifelong connections are forged. Wikimania is the largest event of our movement. People are celebrating reconnecting again–from small edit-a-thons to regional events–as the COVID-19 global response has evolved. The last in-person Wikimania was in 2019 in Stockholm. Singapore will be our first in-person Wikimania in four years and we are all excited for this reunion. The 2023 Wikimania core organizing team is already welcoming ideas. Share yours.

A hybrid legacy 

When Wikimania 2020 was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, new possibilities had to be explored. In 2021, an international Core Organizing Team was created to host the first ever virtual Wikimania. The virtual format welcomed participation from many newcomers and diverse community groups–particularly people held back by visas, mobility barriers, or travel difficulties–and facilitated multilingual support and live interpretation. You can learn more by reviewing the Wikimania 2021 evaluation report. In 2022, additional hybrid features were piloted with watch parties and small in-person gatherings made possible by grants. We will continue to support virtual and hybrid participation in future Wikimanias so people can still take part from the comfort of their homes or without traveling far.

Singapore, why and how? 

When Bangkok was chosen as the host of Wikimania 2020, we were excited by a regional collaboration–Wikimedia communities in the ESEAP region–hosting the conference. However, Wikimania 2020 was canceled due to the pandemic. When conditions allowed for an in-person Wikimania in 2023, we returned to where we had left: ESEAP. After a risk assessment of potential locations in the region and over the course of multiple calls and on-wiki discussions, the ESEAP community selected Singapore as the host of Wikimania 2023.

The Wikimania Steering Committee

The Wikimania Steering Committee is the steward of the Wikimedia movement’s largest global gathering. We ensure the event remains community-led and community focused. Most of us are past organizers of Wikimania or seasoned attendees, and passionate about what we can achieve when we come together. We will soon put out a call for interested community members to join our committee. Beyond Wikimedia knowledge, we very much welcome event management skills. If bringing Wikimania to life interests you, please let us know.