Wikimania 2024: a recap of a great week

My first Wikimania was a really great experience. It was a place, where I met many new people, many people which I knew online from Telegram, and online partnerships, as well meeting many of my connections from the CEE Youth meetup in November 2023. It was a place where you could witness the collaboration of the open. And a place where I got a lot of knowledge.

Before Wikimania

The journey began in November 2023, when I applied for a scholarship. Then after some waiting came February 26, 2024 where I was delighted to learn that I was awarded a scholarship to attend Wikimania in Katowice this year. Then, in March I was offered by the CEE Hub the opportunity to volunteer as a program reviewer as the COT looked for local cee reviewers. Two other Greek speaking Wikimedians also volunteered, in what is probably the first time that Greeks volunteered in some committee in Wikimania. It was a big honor, and a good training to get a grasp how a conference is made, it’s format being formed, and getting an idea that will help you for future conferences you might want to host with your affiliate.

A great pushing factor behind the desire to attend Wikimania was my development as Wikimedian after June 2023: when I began to meet Wikimedians online, and get informed of their activities, I was inspired to work more on the local movement, and strive to learn for new initiatives to help the Greek community.

Arriving to Katowice

Fast forward to August, I left for Poland in Monday 5th. During my stay in the Warsaw airport I met many other Wikimedians from many parts of the world. We met well each other, and I got to learn more about the movement in their countries, the challenges faced by the Indian community, and get to know better each other. I also met some CEE people there, including representatives from Slovenia and Serbia. Then in Katowice I met some other people as well, including the first Wikiipedian in residence from Romania.

In Tuesday, the pre conference day, I didn’t attend any pre conference meetup but spent the day outside. I met many online friends and the Greek delegation for first time in person this day, and many other people. We also had an in depth talk with Shahen of the Western Armenian community, learning more about what they are doing and discussing potential partnerships as many Armenians live in Greece, and there are many Greece-raised Armenians who speak Western Armenian.

That day I spent in the park, having a good time with Wikimedians from 3 countries, after going to the planetarium which included a really great spaceflight simulation. My day concluded with the tour in the Silesian museum, the in person gathering of the Greek delegation, where I met my fellow compatriots for first time in person. We were visited also by some open source Greek activists who passed from the city on the sidelines of another open source conference. Then, we had dinner with Barbara and Klara where we discussed in depth a lot of stuff, like Hubs, Youth development and planning in CEE, local movement developments and other stuff. I also met the head of Trust and safety for the Wikimania at this point, where I learned a bit about the T&S processes in a conference, and discussed general stuff of youth engagement and Wikimania.

At Wikimania

Then, let’s go in Day 1. It was a brilliant day and I had my session about Extracurricular Wikimedia organizations too at that date, copresenting it with Ege and Aafi online. I was amazed by the interest and the attendance, as many people asked us questions, including people from Wikimedia Polska. I also liked the opening ceremony, and though I didn’t attend many sessions, I was able to socialize and receive various learnings about what other countries are doing to self develop their movement. On the Ecwo stuff, I was also able to meet my Japanese colleague Eugene in person, with which we are collaborating in the global Ecwo alliance. I attended a session of Klára about their activities in Czechia for students as well. One thing that impressed me was the Wiki Sud Italia program, to foster editing among people in South Italy, as we share similar problems of unequal regional distribution of the Wikimedian community. We also discussed about diasporas and Indic community engagement with Satdeep, an Indian Wikimedian who is a member of the language committee. The Wikimedian of the Year session was brilliant; in particular I loved the decision of honoring Caner, a very good colleague and friend from Turkiye, as Media Contrubutor of the Year, and Hannah Clover, one year older than me, with the highest honor, the youngest Wikimedian of the year. Also Barbara spoke in the podium about CEE Youth Group and the recognition of Cyprus user group, which we support as Wikimedia Community User Group Greece.

Day 2 was also nice. I watched sessions about Hubs, a session about Wikiproject LGBT in Spanish, among others. The latter one is something that I have studied as I am interested on researching the learnings of various communities in order to adapt them into the Greek community for our improvement; meanwhile I also attended the Youth meetup which was such a success that there were 35 people there. Given that I am one of the leading members of the CEE Youth Group, that meetup was very important for me. This is because networking between young people is very significant to bring the youth scene forward, helping with doing youth strategy and generally because the challenges of young Wikimedians are around the same. We discussed how we can increase youth engagement, presence of young people, exchanged lessons. We made friendships and learned a lot about other youth groups like Jungwikipedianer in Germany. In a side note, in the same time was running the Wiki for Minorities meetup, a project where I am one of the leading members.

I also watched the session of Asaf Bartov, about the Big funnel approach to increase community engagement and post-outreach user retention in Africa. I always love to learn about the initiatives to increase participation among the underrepresented communities. I also attended Lightning talk showcase which was very interesting, and I liked the partnerships of Wikimedia Armenia about Financial wikimonth, done by my friend Mari. I wish I attended more sessions, but I also met many Wikimedians, fostering new friendships, and learning what they are doing in their respective local community. I spent some minutes in the Higher education meetup, telling about Ecwos, and learning about some initiatives chapters and affiliates take to increase presence of students at Wikimedia. I then helped with the CEE Youth program, that the CEE Hub was already arranging with the organizers since spring. I also both played and volunteered on the language similarity game headed by Mari. I also had the opportunity to meet Jimmy Wales here. Then I participated on the photowalk of Commons Photographers UG, and we had a wonderful time.

In third day I attended the keynote speech. I also saw what was done by people in various parts of the world to empower linguistic minorities and then I watched the interesting presentation about emotions and misinformation. That was really a mind-opening presentation because it’s impressive how emotions can bring misinformations; for example, when you’re amazed about e.g. a music event, you may spread mistakenly false information. Then I presented about the CEE Youth Group on Wikimania, my second session where I was a speaker, together with my colleagues and friends Mari of Armenia and Caner of Turkiye. Caner invited also Isna and Toprak as co-speakers, two presidents of student clubs in Turkey. We had a wonderful time presenting, and we answered some interesting feedback.

Then I chatted with Anton of Ukraine as well, about Young Wikimedians in Ukraine, the Ukrainian movement and the situation in the country. The Ukrainian resilience against the Russian invasion, and the fact that despite the hardships, our Ukrainian colleagues are doing a lot of brilliant things in the movement, are the reasons why I admire the Ukrainian Wikimedians a lot. After then, I spoke with various colleagues, then attended the Friday first learning clinic of Let’s connect, which I joined last month officially. Then I met Vjollca from Albania, discussing about engagement of students in Wikimedia, working with underage students, something well developed in Albanian movement and about partnerships for our countries. One of the things I learned in detail is about working with schools and people under 18, something key for CEE Youth Group, but unfortunately something underinvested too in both Greece and many CEE countries.

I then attended a speech of Toni and Barbara about the Hub, and I attended the Lightning talk showcase where among others, Daryna of Ukraine a great colleague I met in Prague gave an interesting session about how the Russian invasion in Ukraine has impacted the monuments in her country. Still, the other presentations were great and I liked the Scotland-inspired fairytale a lot.

After attending those sessions I went to the poster session, to present the CEE Youth Group poster with Caner, and then to the CEE meetup that had lots of people. I gave a very short update on CEE Youth Group activities since the last catch up and then played a Menti game where I finished sixth out of 43. We learned many things about the movement, in a menti made by Maciej and Philip. I then walked down the city with the rest of the Greek delegation and Başak from Turkey that joined us later. We could learn some things for the CEE Meeting so that we prepare us more in case we get the hosting for 2025.

Day 4: it was a bit sad that this was ending. But I had a good time. I attended many sessions, like one about Ukrainian libraries in the time of war and the Malaysia, Turkey and Japan Friendship program of Taufik, Caner, Eugene which is a program which proves that Wikimedia can unite countries and has earned my admiration since I learnt about that. Generally I spent my day with more networking, and attended some sessions. I met some Wikimedians from Brazil as well, and some Ukrainian colleagues during the dinner. The time passed quickly with some more sessions and connections and I met Farah later, a colleague from Palestine. I attended the closing ceremony as well. I hope, I will be able to attend Wikimania in Nairobi as well, in 2025. In day 4, I also met Butch, one of the COT members in past year’s Wikimania, where we got familiarised with each other’s communities, talked about movement developments and other stuff.

Then, I went to the Silesian opera house, the venue for the closing party. I met many wikimedians there, including Wojciech from the program committee. Then I went to dinner, and then walked back to the venue, where I met some more Wikimedians, and chatted with friends from Turkiye, Japan, Central Asia and beyond. Overall, I spoke to with around 130 Wikimedians, and had extensive talks with around 40 or 50, facilitating a knowledge exchange. If I can summarise what I got from Wikimania, these are divided in the main axises: getting to know new people, making new connections, increasing my knowledge and capacity on fields like event organising, education and community engagement. I also got immersed with what other countries are doing as well. That helped me to compare with the Greek community and act as inspiration to bring new initiatives that will help us develop further.

Epilogue

For me, the connections, the knowledge exchange and everything that happens confirms my opinion that Wikimedia is a global village of people who support each other. I am so proud to get an opportunity to attend it, and I hope I’ll be able to attend Wikimania in Nairobi, Kenya next year too. I am also proud of serving as reviewer for the community engagement track of the program. The last day was mostly spent on the flight and waiting to get boarded, but also chatted with as more Wikimedians as tens of us left for their countries through Warsaw. It was my first Wikimania. Wikimania is also very wonderful, for the following reasons: At first, the most important, you get immersed about what the other affiliates are doing to further our mission, and our movement, their wonderful projects, then come the connections you will make, which only increases the feeling of community and can help with projects/make partnerships, but also, the souvenirs that you’ll get in the end, like coins, etc. everything, that will remind you the immersive and amazing experience of Wikimania. This article aspires to cover as much more as possible of the things I did in Wikimania. I had meaningful conversations with people from more than a couple of dozen countries and talked with many more. All these conversations resulted, in a personal level, in a considerable amount of experience acquisition and connections.

Wikimania unites us. Wikimedia is a global community, and those events are these who make us to be together and foster a session of community. Thanks to Wikimania, the movement is growing more and more every year. I hope that this event, which had 5 Greek speakers of which 4 from Greece, the highest ever participation, will help us to grow.

Thanks to the Scholarship committee for giving me the opportunity to attend with a scholarship. Thank you COT for delivering us an unforgettable experience. Now, I am wishing to apply the learnings of Wikimania, while I am looking forward for CEE Meeting (the flagship meeting of the host region’s affiliates and volunteers) in Istanbul, Turkey one month later. Thanks to the COT, for delivering a great Wikimania, an unforgettable experience for everyone, and for trusting me to help with making it. It was a great experience.