Wikimedia CEE Meeting takes place at the crossroads of knowledge in Thessaloniki

Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe gathered in Thessaloniki at the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2025, which was held in the period 26–28 September under the slogan “Crossroads of Knowledge”. A total of around 130 participants from more than 35 communities and affiliates, as well as partnering educational and GLAM institutions, exchanged knowledge and discussed plans on their future collaboration. The conference took place at the Grand Hotel Palace.

What was new this year?

The main novelty at this year’s event was the introduction of the problem solver as a new session type, which was inspired by the increasing need for mutual collaboration and discussions with clear conclusions that could be easily put into action. A problem solver was devised as a 45-minute session in which a problem is introduced to the audience with the expectation that participants will come up with ideas to find an optimal solution.

Another novelty was that live stream was readily available in all conference halls, unlike in the previous years when such technical support was provided only in the main hall. Despite the primary advantage of being able to broadcast the entire conference, however, this change caused safety and privacy concerns, which resulted in multiple requests from speakers to switch off the cameras during their sessions.

A brief recap of the conference

The main conference was preceded by a Learning Day on 25 September, which took place in the premises of the Goethe-Institut in Thessaloniki. As opposed to the learning days in the previous years that focused on general topics pertaining to capacity building and community health, this one was more specific and covered topics related to the usefulness of Wikidata and Wikibase for librarian work. The main part of the conference featured a diverse three-day programme in the period 26-28 September, which included a number of talks formatted as lectures, workshops, demonstrations, panels, roundtables, problem solvers and lightning talks. As usual, there were three parallel sessions conducted across halls named after three major deities from the Greek mythology—Zeus, Athena and Apollo. Almost all sessions were documented on etherpads, recorded and live-streamed on YouTube via the Wikimedia CEE channel, and the only exception were those whose speakers requested otherwise for safety and privacy reasons.

The conference commenced with opening addresses by Marios Magioladitis, Konstantinos Stampoulis and Markellos Stevis of the organising team, followed by a pre-recorded talk delivered by Wikimedia Foundation’s CEO Maryana Iskander. A presentation with an annual update on the state of the Wikimedia movement in the region of Central and Eastern Europe prepared by the CEE Hub staff—namely, Barbara Klen, Toni Ristovski and Karolina Gruszczyk—was next, which also announced Cluj-Napoca and Gdańsk as host cities for Wikimedia CEE Meeting in 2026 and 2027, respectively. Some of the main highlights from the rest of the conference included productive workshops on the future improvement of the Wikimedia CEE Meeting and Wikimedia CEE Spring, a panel on clarifying the takeover of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Rapid Grants programme for CEE and Central Asia by the CEE Hub, demonstrations of useful tools, as well as discussions on community challenges, ethics and legal affairs. Outside of the main programme, the conference was enriched with meetups that were organised during the lunch breaks and after the main programme on the first day.

After the main programme on the second day, a guided tour was organised to some of the historical landmarks of Thessaloniki, such as the White Tower, the Alexander the Great Monument, the City Walls and the Church of Saint Demetrius, some of which are included on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments.

What comes next in the CEE region?

During the upcoming twelve-month period, the CEE Hub is expected to continue supporting the communities in the region as outlined in its annual plan, which was uninamously approved during the closing ceremony of this year’s conference. The next year’s Wikimedia CEE Meeting is planned to take place in Cluj-Napoca in September 2026.