On 25th and 26th October, 2025, I was thrilled and delighted to join over 30 Wikimedians to participate in Wiki Mentor Africa Tamale Hackathon 2025, at the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group in Tamale. This two day Hackathon was aimed at bringing Wikimedians to work on the three projects: Technical Tech Contribution, Documentation Contribution and Design Contribution. This Hackathon, been the first of its kind for me to fully participate, was an eye opener for me in the technical dimension of the Wikimedia movement as I had deep insight into contributing technically to the movement.
Day One: Wikipedia 101
On day one, participants were taken through the basics of Wikipedia known as “Wikipedia 101” by User:Dnshitobu. In his session, he highlighted the rules of guiding the Wikimedia editors in contributing to the Wikimedia movement. We were taken through the three projects mentioned above by User:Joris Darlington Quarshie to open our to these projects in order to make meaningful and impactful contributions to the movement during the two day hackathon. This was vital and necessary as it was the prerequisite knowledge for the big day – day two and final day.
Day Two: The big day
After going through all these, on day two, participants were put into 4 groups. Group one to work on Design Contribution, group 2 to work on Translation, group 3 to work on Technical Tech Contribution (Development), and group 4 to work on Technical Writing (Documentation Contribution).
I was part of the group that chose to work on Technical Writing (Documentation Contribution). In Technical Writing group, we were again partition into pairs to document at least one tool each pair before we draw curtains to the program. With my pair, with the knowledge gained, we were able to document a tool called Picturesque. A Picturesque is a comprehensive web-based tool suite hosted at Picturesque Toolforge that facilitates image management, discovery, and contribution across the Wikimedia ecosystem (Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and Wikipedia). The platform provides a unified interface for photographers, contributors, and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) institutions to work with freely licensed educational images.
After the Hackathon, I proceeded to travel to Eastern part of the country, so I couldn’t have an ample time to put into practice the knowledge I had acquired during the two day Hackathon.
When I finally got home on Thursday, 30th October, 2025, I took my time to reflect on what was learnt and tried to put it into practice. I reflected thoroughly and well, so I practiced well by documenting a tool called, Wikidata_Phonemes. Wikidata Phonemes is a specialized web application developed for the Wikidata IOLab project. It facilitates the systematic addition of phonological data to Wikidata by leveraging Wikipedia articles edited by Brazilian students participating in their national linguistics olympiad.
Conclusion
As I walked home from the hackathon, I felt proud as a Wikimedia for the immerse efforts we make daily to keep the Wikimedia movement active and vibrant. I went home with technical eye and mindset to help me make impact in Wikimedia movement.
I will this is organized annually so that Wikimedians at large can gain enormous insight in technical contributions to the movement.
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