Prototyping a Collective Vision: Global Collaboration in Capacity Exchange

The Capacity Exchange (CapX) is a project developing a web application that will serve as a central place for people, affiliates, and communities to connect with each other and freely share or access knowledge, skills and services.

Wiki Movimento Brasil started coordinating the project operations one year ago, we started building upon the concept outlined by volunteers in the context of the Movement Strategy implementation. This Diff post serves as a learning report that links to published activities’ reports from the past year. 

What we learned is that the goal is clear when it comes to prototyping a vision grounded in solid values, even if the specifics are still being worked out. We trust the lessons from those who came before us: start simple, be open, but stick to the collective vision.

Collective vision

In May 2024, we presented at the Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan cross-regional community call how the project is built upon transnational collaboration. 

The CapX vision builds upon the recommendations of the Capacity Building Movement Strategy Working Group (2018-2020). Following up on that, a pitch at the Wikimedia European Affiliates Cooperation Meeting in 2021 called for a working group. This group comprised several affiliates and implemented the project’s first phase (2021-2022). With the support of Wikimedia Deutschland’s software development team, they delivered a first prototype based on the OER Word Map. 

Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) now coordinates the second phase operations (2023-2025), supported by a MSIG.  We are currently developing a second prototype, under the supervision and with guidance from an international Advisory Committee. The technical development activities are combined with community outreach, focusing not only on promoting the project but enabling stakeholder involvement on the product design and iteration. See WMB 2023 and 2024 reports.

Technical tryout

In 2022, the first prototype was tested with the help of sister initiatives such as the Let’s Connect Peer Learning Program. We call it sister initiatives parties of the Wikimedia Movement working with skills development and capacity building.

Although promising, the tryout product was discontinued in the project’s second phase. The technical plan set the direction for building a second prototype in a new programming language. Nonetheless, we still had much to learn about the first prototype and continued to test it in 2023. Focus Groups ensured valuable inputs to the new software development.

We migrated some functionalities from the previous prototype to the new one, rewriting them in Python to ensure long-term technical sustainability. We also moved the project from the Wmcloud to Toolforge. Furthermore, we implemented a visual identity and some readability tools according to the best practices of software development. The second prototype will be available for testing by the time of Wikimania 2024.

You can check the project’s progress on GitHub (backend & frontend).

Peer Power

The Capacity Exchange Concept shifts the focus of community capacity-building from fixing deficits to leveraging strengths. It acknowledges that the knowledge and skills we need are already within our reach, among our ranks, so let’s efficiently match our needs with available assets by focusing on decentralized peer exchange. In the spirit of this assumption, CapX is set to strengthen solidarity, efficiency, and resilience within the Wikimedia Movement.

As a global sociotechnical solution, Capacity Exchange not only centers on peer exchange as a methodology to sustainably build and share community capacity, but it is currently being built by it. As we presented the project, we consulted wikimedians in strategic discussions and workshops held in several community events world-wide. These inputs helped us give form to our new prototype.

Although we craft technological solutions, the human factor is the most significant aspect of wiki learning. That one wikimedian who connects two other people, another one who brings local input that makes a global strategy, or the communities that seek mutual aid: Wikimedia is a movement of peer connections. And that is precisely the peer power that fuels CapX vision and drives the project development.

Next steps

All parties in our movement are key stakeholders of the Capacity Exchange because the platform will enable any individual, community, or affiliate to take part in the global exchange of skills, knowledge, and services. In the first year of the second phase of implementation, we connected with many communities. For the second year, we expect to further the global collaboration, now focusing on testing and iterating the new prototype. 

Community engagement on the project and user involvement in product design are crucial to the web application’s efficiency. So we call any interested party to join the Capacity Exchange network. 

Here’s ways how you can do it:

• Sign up to our list on Meta-Wikimedia
• Or email capx@wmnobrasil.org