Wikimania Scholarships and Volunteer Coordinator

Wikimania Scholarships and Volunteer Coordinator - 6 month contract Introduction and context

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and our other free knowledge projects. We want to make it easier for everyone to share what they know. To do this, we keep Wikipedia and Wikimedia sites fast, reliable, and available to all. We protect the values and policies that allow free knowledge to thrive. We build new features and tools to make it easy to read, edit, and share from the Wikimedia sites.

Above all, we support the communities of volunteers around the world who edit, improve, and add knowledge across Wikimedia projects.

Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source software, free knowledge and free content, and social and technical aspects related to these topics.

Since 2011, the winner of the Wiki median of the Year award (known as the "Wikipedian of the Year" until 2017) has been announced at Wikimania.

The first conference was organized by volunteers in 2005, and since then, the event has grown in size and scale. Due to the pandemic, the event in 2020, due to happen in Bangkok, was canceled. In 2021, the event had its first-ever completely virtual edition. This event saw an increase in participation, both in the number of participants and also more equitable attendance from different regions across the globe.

The event is a key point in many Wikipedians' calendars, and it is a place and time for people to connect, learn, and be part of a truly global community. In 2022, Wikimania took place as a Hybrid event - with participants online and also at satellite events across the world.

In 2023, Wikimania returned to being largely in person in Singapore, with some hybrid elements. This year, the event will take place in Paris and will be hosted by the Wikimedia Francophone community.

We will be offering funded places at the event to people we call ‘scholars’. Their travel and accommodation costs will be paid for by the Wikimedia Foundation and this role will be helping to support, communicate with and coordinate with this group of people, from all over the world.

• Supporting the Wikimania 2026 Core Organizing Team with the facilitation and coordination of scholarships awarded to individuals for attending Wikimania 2026 in Paris.
• Supporting communication with successful scholars on the requirements needed for travel, visas, and accommodation.
• Communication and coordination with scholars on volunteer role opportunities vious experience working with volunteers is expected.
• Attending Scholarship coordinating weekly call on every Monday, 5 pm to 6 pm CEST, and Core Organizing Team weekly call on every Monday, 6 pm to 7 pm CEST.
• Building the FAQ for guidance of answering potential inquiries.
• Answering any ad hoc questions with guidance from the Senior Manager and the Core Organizing Team.
• Collaborating in the making of and sending out a ‘Wikimania Guide for Attendees’ to give essential and helpful information about when they arrive, France customs and culture and their time at the event.
• Attendance at Wikimania 2026 to support scholars while they are at the event with queries and questions. Dates are the last week of July.
• Post-event evaluation, reporting, and review of the scholarship process.

• Attend Core Organising Team or subcommittee meetings, sometimes on weekends and evenings, to work through action items and updates.
• Support the Scholarship subcommittee with any necessary admin work and coordinate the committee’s work, and facilitate some of the wor,k including internal and external communications.
• Contribute to post-event surveys and debriefs.
• Working with the event team to help develop the content for and facilitate training and information sessions.
• Attend pre-event training for all event support that will be on-site at the event.
• Help manage documents via Google Docs and spreadsheets.
• Work with volunteers on keeping information up…