Wikimedia Hackathon 2023/Satellite events

Local communities are welcome to organize pre-hackathon events, watch-parties or meetups in their region in the duration of the Wikimedia Hackathon 2023. On this page, you will find the list of events and how to get involved in a satellite event.

What is a satellite event and how to organize one?


A satellite event is an event organized autonomously by a group of people in the duration of the Wikimedia Hackathon 2023. It shares the purpose of the hackathon: brings the global technical community together to connect, hack, run technical discussions and explore new ideas.

Satellite events can take place at different moments in time:
 * before the main event (typically, pre-hackathon events can be onboarding sessions, training and workshops for people who newly joined the Wikimedia projects or the technical community)
 * during the main event (to encourage people to work on projects in parallel and to interact online with technical contributors who are attending the in-person event in Athens)
 * after the main event (for example, folks who attended the event in Athens can share their experience with their local community, show what they did or learned. It can also be a follow-up event to keep working on projects initiated during the hackathon)

Satellite events can take place in any region of the world, but also online. Organizing a satellite event together with your local community or user group can support people who are new to the technical aspects of the Wikimedia movement and need onboarding, and offer an alternative to people who cannot join the in-person event in Athens.

If you are looking for ideas of event formats, or examples of events, you can look at the list of meetups organized during the online Hackathon in 2022.

Checklist to organize a satellite event
Are you enthusiastic about organizing a satellite event? Here’s a list of things to keep in mind:
 * Don’t do this all on your own! Reach out to your local chapter or user group, start discussions, create a group of people to work together on organizing the event
 * Define the frame of the event: What are the main goals? What is the target audience? How is it related to the Wikimedia Hackathon’s purpose? How will your event connect with the main event or other satellite events?
 * Define the logistics aspects of the event: Where will it take place? When, and for how long? How many people do you expect? What will they need to join and contribute? What would be the content of the event (program, activities)?
 * Define and reach out to the people you will need to run the event: do you need people with specific skills? Speakers or facilitators? Helpers for the logistics aspects? We encourage you to look for these people within your local community and support people looking to gather some experience in facilitation, event organization, etc.
 * We strongly encourage you to find a local partner to help you with the logistics of the event: depending on the context, you can reach out to a local university, library or hackerspace.
 * Plan the expenses needed for the event, and ask for funding if needed (if you want to apply for Rapid Fund maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation, the deadlines are March 20 and May 5, see more information in the section below)
 * Communicate about the event: create a section below to add the event to the list, create a sub-page if you need more space to add the schedule, participants list, etc. Reach out to your local tech communities on their favorite channels and the general hackathon channels, to let people know that the event will be happening.

If you want to exchange with people who are interested in the hackathon or other satellite events organizers, feel free to use the hackathon channels. If you have specific questions for the hackathon organizing team, feel free to write at hackathon@wikimedia.org.

How to get funding to organize an event?
If you need funding to organize a hackathon satellite event, you can apply to the Rapid Fund program maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. The usual eligibility criteria apply, please check them before applying.

The Rapid Fund program is organized in rounds. Depending on when your event takes place and when you need confirmation of the funding and transfer of the funds, you should keep the related deadline in mind.

In order to have enough time to receive feedback on your application as soon as possible, and to integrate improvements if needed, we strongly recommend you to apply as soon as you can and to not wait until the deadline day!


 * If your event takes place in April, May or June 2023, you should apply until March 20:
 * Deadline to apply for funding: March 20
 * Approvals: April 14-19
 * Disbursements: April 19-29
 * If your event takes place in July 2023 or after, you also have the possibility to apply until May 5:
 * Deadline to apply for funding: May 5
 * Approvals: June 1-6
 * Disbursements: June 7-16

The application for Rapid Fund takes place on the platform Fluxx. You can find more information about the application process and examples of the expenses that can be funded.

The regional program officers and the evaluation team will be particularly attentive to the following aspects of your application:
 * You joined or formed a group of people that have prior experience in organizing events. Additionally, you reach out to a formal organization for support (user group or chapter, local partner)
 * Your team includes at least one person who attended a hackathon before and who knows how technical events in the Wikimedia movement work
 * Your team include people with technical skills who can help participants, mentor newcomers, or facilitate workshops
 * Your project is focused on the technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects, for example: developing scripts, bots or other tools, contributing to the codebase of Mediawiki and its extensions, reusing data on third-party tools, etc.
 * Your project has a connection with the main hackathon event or other satellite events
 * Your application includes realistic ideas of format, program, facilitators, and location for the event
 * Your application includes a description of the target audience of the event and how you plan to encourage your local community to participate

If you have any questions regarding the funding process or your funding application, you can reach out to your local program officer or join one of the Rapid Fund conversation hours.

List of satellite events
As soon as your satellite event is ready to announce, please create a new section below. You can copy/paste the template below.

Template: [event type] in [city, country], [date]
Introduce the event: the user group XXX is happy to invite you at the pre-hackathon event…
 * When: [date and time here]
 * Where: [city and country here] (can also be “online on Jitsi”)
 * More information: [link to separate page, how to register…]

Describe here the scope of the event (is it an onboarding event? A parallel hackathon? Will it involve training, workshops?) and the target audience (are newcomers welcome?). Add here who is the main contact person for the event, and how to reach them or ask for more information.