Valuable experiences at the ESEAP Conference 2026 from Malaysian perspectives

The Wikimedia Regional Conference for East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, or ESEAP Conference 2026 was a regional conference organized by the Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikimedia ESEAP Hub. The conference aimed to bring people in this region to share their views, challenges and best practices in their communities as well as individual efforts in the Wikimedia movement. In this post, there are three Wikimedians from Malaysia, who were interviewed by Zahirul Nukman, who share their own perspectives from their experiences at ESEAP Conference 2026 which is located in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you first get to edit wiki?

[Aeshah Karim]
Growing up in a house where books lined our every wall, I developed an early sensitivity to how information is recorded and how easily it can be misrepresented—or simply left out altogether. At the same time, I felt a deep passion for cultivating knowledge. That sensitivity and passion eventually led me to the Wikimedia movement.

My first edit was accidental. I stumbled upon an article on Wikipedia and found that something was inaccurate. So I fixed it. However, I didn’t yet find much passion for the Wikimedia movement back then.

It was only when I learned much more about the movement’s mission and vision, especially its fight for accessible, quality education, that I began to involve myself in the movement.

[Rumandawii]
I’m a primary school teacher who teaches the Kadazandusun language, and most of my contributions on Wikimedia projects focus on this language. I first started editing when I attended a Wiktionary workshop at  my campus. That experience opened my eyes to how I could help preserve and promote my language online, and since then, I’ve been actively contributing whenever I can.

(in Kadazandusun language) Yoku nopo nga songulun mongingia’ sikul tosiriba i mongia’ do Boros Kadazandusun, om kogumuan kouhupan ku id projek Wikimedia nopo nga poinfokus do boros diti. Tuminimpuun oku mongidit di kumoinsan nogi soira tuminanud oku do bengkel Wikikamus id ponginabasan ku. Koinganan dii minongukab do mato ku do milo oku  monguhup momiara om papawara boros ku id online, om mantad dii aparagat oku mongidit soira nopo kaanu oku.

[Faris]
Hai there, I’m Faris or PeaceSeekers (or just Peace). Currently, I’m the moderator of the Malay Wikipedia and Wiktionary, and outside the wiki per se, I’m an active member of the formal Malaysian community (Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia, WCUGM), and was recently appointed as a general committee member for the 2026 session.

What was the highlight of your ESEAP Conference this year? Anything that surprised you or that you did not expect?

[Aeshah Karim]
I came in expecting it to largely feel like a general conference, with formal presentations and workshop sessions. What I didn’t expect was how much of the real conference happened in between; in the corridors, over meals, in the small exchanges where we would exchange concerns and ideas with someone from another country. Despite it being my first time to physically attend a Wikimedia conference, and thus the first time meeting most of the people there, it felt like I found myself to be at home throughout the three days.

The highlight, I think, was realising and seeing how much ideas we could share and grow when we sat down and discussed them together with different people across the region. It made me realise that the Wikimedia community is far more human than I had imagined it to be.

[Rumandawii]
The highlight for me was definitely meeting passionate contributors who truly believe in free knowledge. Being surrounded by people with the same energy and purpose was really inspiring. What I didn’t expect and what made the experience even more special was celebrating my 25th birthday during the conference, alongside Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary. It felt like such a meaningful coincidence, especially getting to share that moment with other contributors who were also turning 25. It’s something I’ll always remember.

[Faris]
Definitely my own presentation regarding expanding material on sign language in Wiktionary (and in Wikimedia projects in general). What was initially a small-sized presentation unexpectedly turned into my first “mainstage moment” in a Wikimedia conference as the committee moved my slot to the main hall. Nevertheless, I am very grateful for the move, and further put this idea into the spotlight as we at the Malaysian community keep on pushing innovations of Wikimedia projects to serve knowledge better.

Which session that you attended left an impression on you? Why?

[Aeshah Karim]
The session on “Decolonize of Name of Species” stayed with me the longest, as it addressed a concern I have always had, on how careless translations or the use of foreign languages may misrepresent a certain culture, society or even the history of a civilisation.

The session addressed how non-English Wikipedia projects have, often without realising it, quietly adopted English common names for species at the expense of rich local vernacular terms that communities have used for generations. And in that small substitution, something is lost—not just a word, but a lineage of knowledge and the way a community understood and related to the living world around them.

It is, as the session rightly called it, a subtle colonisation of knowledge. The more obvious forms of cultural erasure are easier to name and to resist. But the subtle kind slips through under the guise of standardisation, accessibility and making things easier for a broader audience. By the time we notice it, the genuine and authentic term has already been relegated to a footnote—if it appears at all.

I have always believed that our heritage is our identity. That to forget our own names for things is to slowly forget ourselves. This session encouraged the audience to go back and look at how species native to their countries are documented, and whether the names for these creatures are being given the prominence they deserve, or whether they too have been quietly edged aside.

[Rumandawii]
One session that left an impression on me was the “Wikimedia in Education: A Look at Wiki Clubs” session. As a teacher, it immediately felt relevant to what I do in the classroom. What impressed me the most was the spirit of the younger generation. Seeing students actively contributing to Wikimedia projects with such enthusiasm was really inspiring. It showed me how powerful it can be when students are given the space to learn, share, and create. The session also made me reflect on my own teaching. It gave me ideas on how I can encourage my students to get involved, especially in promoting and preserving the Kadazandusun language in a more engaging way.

[Faris]
I am very glad over the youth track and the eventual establishment of the Youth Hub. Especially for me as a youth, this space is a good start on compiling the minds of the new generations with their own styles of participation, and then, aim for a better integration with the whole community, and going up the Movement’s ladder.

I wanna put a story here. Coincidentally, just the day before I wrote this, I, as WCUGM representative, attended a townhall session regarding NGOs lead by our minister of home affairs, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail. One of the questions that’s in the air is about the problem of youths (teenagers, particularly) being less interested in formalised NGOs.

How Saifuddin tackled the question is very wonderful to me: he imagined himself as a teenager and asked, “if I’m a teenager, what do I want in an NGO?” In one particular point, he stressed that the youth much prefer for an active or hands-on participation, and not just one-sided lecturing.

Taking a lesson from here: whether in Malaysia or Taiwan, that’s the perspective that we need to ask here. And I believe that the youth hub is the perfect space to start this first question:

“for us as youth, what do we want in this Movement?“

What was one of your valuable learnings from the ESEAP Conference?

[Aeshah Karim]
One of the most valuable things I learned from the conference was that if like-minded, passionate dreamers who dare to make a difference for the betterment of the world were to come together, we could truly move mountains and bring about that change. Change often feels impossible when one stands alone. But coming together and seeing just how much we could help each other out across the region lit up a hope I thought I had lost.

[Rumandawii]
One thing I really learned from the ESEAP Conference is that even small contributions actually matter. Sometimes we feel like what we do is not big, but when everyone keeps contributing, it really builds something meaningful. I also realized that I’m not doing this alone. There are many people working on their own languages and communities too. That made me feel more motivated to continue contributing.

[Faris]
The one I’m very interested in is the Wikidata MCP demonstration by Alan Ang (“Data Reuse: (AI) reusing Wikidata’s data”). For me, it’s a game changer for dealing with Wikidata material as it makes things much easier for me. No need for gen-AI to search “what is Wikidata” and so forth … just straight to the data pool. Data management is one of the things that gen-AI should excel at, and I’m eager to put this into experiment.

Did the ESEAP Conference spark any ideas or collaborations for you? Or what are you motivated to do after the ESEAP Conference?

[Aeshah Karim]
There is an old Malay proverb which goes, “kalau tidak dipecahkan ruyung, manakan dapat sagunya.” In simple words, it means that great success cannot be achieved without hard work, effort, and sacrifice. I left the ESEAP Conference feeling a lot more motivated to put in the hard work in the Wikimedia movement in my country.

Specifically, I am motivated to improve knowledge or information literacy in Malaysia through the activities we do under the Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia.

[Rumandawii]
The conference gave me the idea to try doing small workshops, maybe starting with my students, and later even for teachers. I feel like it could be a fun way to get people interested and see that contributing is actually not as hard as they think.

[Faris]
Moving on from the previous question, now I’m exploring how gen-AI can be integrated for more productive editing, from Wikidata to other projects as well, and also how materials in Wikimedia projects end up being integrated across gen-AI sites at least from the surface level. I’d already peeked on how our work in the Malay Wikisource was integrated into AI results in sites such as Gemini and Perplexity. As the way of Internet usage shifts in this AI boom, this indicates that Wikimedia projects are evolving in their roles, and perhaps more critically than ever that we need to step up our game of free knowledge – from proper administrations of associations to better interfaces.

Regarding sign language, “the only way is up”: putting more sign language lexemes into Commons and further doing my experiment through my concepts that I had presented. My wish is to step up Wikimedia projects as an open-source comprehensive reference for sign language as awareness for deaf accessibility ever keeps increasing.

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The conference reminded us that the Wikimedia movement is built on people from every corner of the world who bring their time, knowledge, and passion to a shared mission. We celebrate diversity regardless of religion, profession, ability and interest.

Wikimedia encourages us to continue contributing to a better world by raising awareness among all about the need to free knowledge. And with these three Wikimedians, we know that there are a lot of spaces and opportunities to learn and give back to the world.