WIKIMOVE/Podcast/Transcript Episode 3

Nicole: Welcome to the third episode of WIKIMOVE. WIKIMOVE is a podcast in audio and video format and it's about the future of the Wikimedia movement and movement strategy in general. I am Nicole Ebber and with me is Nikki Zeuner. We are both working with Wikimedia Deutschland in the Movement Strategy and Global Relations team.

Nikki: This episode was recorded at 1pm UTC on May 24th. Things may have changed since we recorded this show, but what we still know…

Nicole: …is that by 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.

Nikki: WIKIMOVE is a podcast about frank conversations about topics related to movement strategy. And our topics come from the strategic direction, from the recommendations, the principles, the initiatives, stuff that's actually happening, people doing things, or even larger issues from the knowledge ecosystem that are relevant to how our movement is transforming. We hope that this space will create opportunities for exchange about our future. Our home base is not only the audio and video cast, but we also have a meta page and a webpage. So check us out there and all the relevant links are available in the show notes.

Nicole: And on today's show, we will be talking innovation. How can our movement innovate in free knowledge? How can we have a climate or create a climate where people can build, test and grow technical but also social innovations? And how can these innovations help to grow and diversify our content, of course, but also the people that make the Wikimedia movement what it is? And it's not only a conversation between Nikki and myself, but we have two wonderful guests with us today on the show. Kannika Thaimai from Wikimedia Deutschland and Ivana Madžarević from Wikimedia Serbia. We will talk about a new and also innovative approach to innovate for the movement. But first, news from the movement.

Nikki: We have a bunch of news to share today. And one of them is another podcast. It's called inspiring open and it's run by our sisters at Wiki loves women. Um, and they are on episode six, so they're a little bit ahead of us. It's the race for, for episodes here. Um, and their episode six, they chat to Islam El-Beti, a renowned Sudanese cultural curator and bass player. So sounds really interesting. And I'm, I'm hoping we can have these ladies on our podcasts or show up on theirs at some point. That'd be cool. Also the WMF Community Development Team announced that the courses that were delivered during the WikiLearn pilot a while back, they're now available for self-guided study but still supported study on the new WikiLearn platform. So check that out. The sound of Wikimedia content to be correctly identified on audio platforms. This is about the contest for a sound logo for Wikimedia. So the contest hasn't started yet, so don't start recording stuff yet. But we're still, as the Wikimedia movement likes to do, creating the process for the contest. And so there's an open discussion around what are the prizes, what is the selection committee going to look like, technical support, copyright issues. So if you go on Meta, you can find details on that. And then there's also a bunch of events we're talking about.

Nicole: Yeah, I was just about to say this is something that's not going to happen on Meta, but that's going to happen sometimes even hybrid or in person and also online. Like we start with Wikimania in August, then we have the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin and hybrid in September. And then the regional event season is being kicked off. I think it might be kicked off by the German speaking Wikicon, which is going to happen in October. I think also again as a hybrid event, but definitely also in person in Stralsund. And then we have the CEE meeting. CEE stands for Central and Eastern European Wikimedians. And it is already their 11th annual gathering centered on Wikimedia projects and countries and communities of that region. And it will be held in Macedonia in the middle of October, 14th to 16th of October. And yeah, it's the first in-person event since the pandemic started. And I think a lot of people that will be listening to this episode will be looking forward to it and probably even going there. And then we have WikiIndaba that is going to happen in November, beginning of November, organized by the Wikimedia user group Rwanda. It will also be a hybrid format with in -person meetings in Rwanda and also remote participation. And please, this is a call to our audience again, what kind of, are you hosting events as well in the second half of the year? Then please let us know and we'll add them to our news section and not only events, but also other cool things you're working on and or you want to announce. We will be happy to promote them here in our show.

Nikki: So in our segment we call, Is it Hope I'm Feeling? I want to talk a little bit more about events because it's, it feels like, I'm feeling a little bit of the travel bug. You know, you were talking about like Macedonia and Rwanda. I'm thinking, hmm, I want to go. So there's a lot more events that start to happen in person. We've had some personally, we've had some recent meetings that were in person and it was just, it just felt so good to be sitting at a table with people again. So what do you, what do you see happening this year for, for events in terms of the format and what's going on?

Nicole: Yeah, I think my hope for the events not only this year, but hopefully also in the future, is that this hybrid format that we have introduced or that we are now especially introducing this year will really help to increase the inclusivity of events so that people who weren't able to either travel because of health or because of entry regulations to certain countries, that they can actually participate in these events in a participatory way, in a way where they can actually not only listen, you know, there have always been these live streamed events, but that is not the way to actually participate and contribute, but that we really introduce ways where it doesn't matter whether you participate on site or you participate online, you are a participant that has things to say and has things to contribute. And I just hope that this is something that we will that we will take forward and improve and also learn from each other because different organizations are starting to do this. We've done this at Wikimedia Deutschland with the previous Wikicon as well last year. But there are so many things that can be improved and learned from. And I just hope that this will set new standards and become a default for our Movement to lower entry barriers and participation barriers

Nikki: And our own Leah Lacroix has recently published an internal document and what she learned in terms of creating hybrid events. So that maybe that could be also shared with the movement and other people could add to that learning so that we this year, you know, I'm sure we'll make a lot of mistakes also at the Wikimedia Summit. We're trying out some of the new hybrid formats, but that we just get really good at this and people can participate online just as meaningfully as on-site and it doesn't become this two-class system. That would be my hope.

Nicole: But now... Innovate in free knowledge. That is recommendation number nine in the movement strategy and I'm going to read it to you all just to get ourselves into the right mindset and for us to remember what it says. And of course you can find the whole text of the recommendations online on Meta. ‘We will continuously explore and expand the range of free knowledge projects to stay relevant and to serve our movement's vision to give access to the sum of human knowledge. We will encourage people to experiment with and create new projects or policies to address gaps in knowledge equity. We will innovate in different content formats, develop new software functionalities for Wikimedia projects, better integrate various tools in the editing experience, establish partnerships with other free knowledge projects, and improve our policies to include more diverse domains of knowledge and to deliver knowledge as a service for all’.

Nikki: Nice reading. Thank you, Nicole. So this is a really important recommendation, but it hasn't been prioritized by WMF or by any other I think some other affiliates are doing some stuff around innovation. Yet at the same time, in terms of technological development, we're looking back at years of people complaining that our technology is so backwards and we need some improvements and it's outdated and it's exclusive. And so I'm just quoting, I'm not saying this myself. And really the last big innovation that happened in our Movement was Wikidata and that's almost what, 10 years old now. The strategic direction and its pillar knowledge as a service, which we talked about in episode one, pushes us to look at our technological and our social systems and make sure that they're appropriate for all those new people, new groups, new knowledge that we want to accommodate. And in particular, non-encyclopedic knowledge or forms of knowledge are still really hard to integrate into our projects, into our existing formats. So it seems like we can use a little bit of a boost in terms of our innovative capacity. But what is innovative capacity and how as a movement can we become more nimble, more open, more diverse, and ultimately more resilient and more fun also in this area? This is a topic we're going to discuss today with our guests, Kanika Thaimai and Ivana Madžarević. I hope I did not butcher your name now who are embarking on a new and innovative approach to improve innovative capacity for the movement.

Nicole: Kannika, she is the program lead of the Wikimedia Accelerator Unlock with us at Wikimedia Deutschland, which she joined in 2019. And already before Wikimedia, Kannika worked in social startup and supported other social startups through their various development phases, like from the initial idea, created from scratch to the lounge and scaling faces with all their highs and lows. So quite a good match to the accelerator program. And then we have Ivana with us. She's the program and community support manager at Wikimedia Serbia. And she has been there. I said, I kind of feel like forever. And we discussed it. It has been eight years already. And yeah, she also has many years of experience in the NGO sector. For example, managing capacity building activities or community support events and also strategic planning for organizations. And together, these two are running Unlock 2022, the accelerator program for innovation in our Movement. And we are now looking very much forward to hearing from them what this is all about.

Nikki: Welcome, Kannika and welcome, Ivana. Let's dive right into it. So Nicole mentioned Unlock 2022. Unlock has been around for a little longer than just this year. So we're going to talk a little bit about the history. Maybe Kannika, you can tell us about just a really brief view of how Unlock has developed and what it is and what your plans are for this year.

Kannika: Yeah, Unlock is an acceleration program that aims to drive innovative ideas for free knowledge. And it is not comparable with typical project grant support as we know within our movement at Unlock we help innovators and we also call them change makers to turn their idea into a prototype. And this help includes matching them with coaches, bringing them together with others, peers within the community, but also outside the communities with experts within and outside the communities for exchange and collaboration. And if needed, we offer financial support as well. So this is kind of a sum up of the program. And while Unlock was initiated or has been initiated by Wikimedia Deutschland in 2020, and we have been running now for two editions and turning into the third edition this year, it is embedded within our programmatic work and also strategies. And with this program, we also seek to contribute to the implementation of Movement strategies. So our motivation with this program is to directly initiate actions with regards to recommendation nine, innovate and free knowledge.

Nikki: So Ivana, I'm curious about the communities that you're working with and the context that we're putting this unlock program into. Can you talk a little bit about? Yeah, who are your communities, who you're working with, what's sort of the diversity there and how is Unlock going to benefit them?

Ivana: Yeah, thank you for this question. So the community we are focusing on is volunteers of Wikimedia Serbia and Serbian Wikipedia community. We are mostly working with them on projects, on different activities within the education program within the GLAM program or community support program. We are also having a lot of joint activities with Republic of Sepsika, Wikimedia is from there, as well as from North Macedonia. So we are trying to create this regional cooperation between us because this is a place where we usually in most cases we are understanding each other. We are talking in similar languages so we can work together and we have the similar projects that we are contributing. So this is something that Wikimedia Serbia is trying to encourage, to emphasize in its work and to do that within the new strategy we are having. And of course, I think that this is why it's important the role of Wikimedia Serbia in the Unlock accelerator because we can maybe help this understanding this context that we are trying to reach out to. So we were trying to understand the needs of our communities, not just within the Wikimedia, but also they understand the needs of people outside of the Wikimedia and Wikipedia communities.

Nikki: Can you make the connection with Movement Strategy a little bit more? I mean, you said it addresses recommendation nine, but can you talk a little bit more about that?

Kannika: Yes, sure. I think there are two perspectives on that. On the one hand, we created this program to become something like a support environment where we invest in communities of people who are working on new free knowledge projects. So as I said, we provide them support in various forms so that this building and developing new technologies, tools that make free knowledge content more accessible in other various formats can come to life. But it is also, and that's the second side of this kind of contribution to the recommendation and the Movement strategy that we are not only looking at the technical side of the innovation that which we want to achieve with Unlock. It is also about creating partnerships to bring in content from other data or knowledge bases to our projects. It's also about creating new alliances with people and organizations that are not from the immediate open knowledge movement. So like this from the innovation field and so that we can also diversify and enrich the Movement.

Nicole: In this year's program, Unlock 2022, you're working together. We are working together. Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Serbia, and we also have another partner. And I wanted to ask you, Ivana, what brought you together? So how did you initiate this partnership? What happened? Talk a little bit about how this came to life.

Ivana: Well, yes. Our first communication started in the previous edition of the Unlock and I was invited to be a speaker on community management topic. And my first impression was how cool this program is because it really goes above and beyond because we are not just attracting people within the movement trying to seek for innovation, but also outside of it, which is really interesting to hear about. And at that point, I was involved in this training and not just that I've shared my knowledge and experience, but I've also learned a lot from these project teams. I've learned a lot about their innovative ideas and the new technologies they try to develop and even communities they try to, you know, attract. So after that, we shared our learnings, Kanika and I at the CEE conference. And somewhere along the way, we started thinking how cool it would be for the next edition of the Unlock to have this regional focus on Western Balkan communities. And it was pretty logical and natural thing to do because Unlock is all about innovation and not just innovation in terms of project we want to develop but also in innovation in the way we want to do it. So together, we have in this year strong partnerships, we have stronger connections, we have different people from different backgrounds and different skills, and then again, all gathered around this common idea. So free knowledge and open innovation. So this was our idea and I'm really glad we are part of it this year. So I hope it will be with huge results to be shown at the end.

Nicole: Unlock 2022 is focused on the Western Balkan communities and German speaking communities. Can you talk a little bit about also these target groups and why you chose these groups?

Ivana: Yes. So, I think Western Balkan communities and countries have a lot to offer. They have a lot of new initiatives, new technologies and new ideas, but sometimes they have a lack of resources to do it. And I'm not just talking about financial resources, but resources in terms of learning new skills and learning new project models that they can use in this region. So basically we combined Western Balkan countries and German speaking countries so they can have this peer-to-peer exchange. But then again, we can see here this added value to do Unlock because we have peer -to -peer exchange, but also exchange for people from different countries. So they can learn one from another. They can, you know, use these new perspectives among them and implement that in the new project ideas they want to develop within the Unlock 2022.

Nicole: Before we dive even deeper into the current ongoing process, I wanted to ask Kannika a little bit about the past, basically. And maybe you can talk about one or two projects that have been supported by Unlock in the last two years.

Kannika: We have supported 10 projects in the last two years, in the last two editions. And they are very different from one another. And one that I would like to talk about is called Audiopedia. So this is one of the project teams that have not been part of the Movement before, but then joined or become part of the movement after the Unlock program. So the team behind this Audiopedia project develop an open source platform that provides knowledge and content in an audio format. And this knowledge and content relate to everyday life topics like nutrition, health, et cetera. And Audiopedia's target group are particularly people from the global south and non -literate groups of people. And within the ANLA program, the project teams, I think they called it Wikified, they were able to better understand users' needs and to develop a platform based on MediaWiki. So they could now provide their audio content to different languages. Yes. And the second project is also another interesting one, which actually was born from within the Movement. So Gov Directory which was developed by two active Wikidata community members, is basically a crowdsource and fact-check directory of official governmental online accounts and services. And what they basically did is to develop a platform on top of Wikidata for public good, or what we call also civic tech, and thereby maintaining the data on Wikidata. So yes, these are very diverse projects that we could attract and also could support. And the project that expands the existing Wikimedia projects by introducing alternative content formats and those which make use of existing Wikimedia projects and just create new impact projects out of it.

Nikki: And so this year we're going to have an array of new projects from both the Western Balkans and from Germany. And we're looking forward to seeing what those guys are doing and planning. I want to go back a little bit or maybe up a little bit more meta and talk about innovation ecosystems. So, Kannika, I know you wrote a paper on this topic earlier this year and published it also. Can you talk a little bit about sort of what do we have to do to make our movement a thriving innovation ecosystem?

Kannika: Yeah, I can try. So I think in short, in short, I think our movement needs a wake up call in terms of innovation. To elaborate on this, I think this movement has been innovative earlier and there is enormous potential to be unlocked. And our team previously scanned and looked closer to where we are as a movement in terms of innovation. And what we have learned in this process is that there are examples, like programs, structures, and processes to support the further development of existing projects. So basically optimizing them, making them more useful to the existing user base. And it is not surprising giving our established communities, you know, established structures with product development or engineering teams with funding just named by the few. However, we also learned that there are only few support structures and resources to promote new free knowledge projects that are equally needed for this Movement to evolve, grow and become sustainable. And I think that there is this unlocked potential and there is this Unlock innovative capacity and the how behind it is I would like to split it on two levels. On the one side, I think, we should not think of innovation as something like a magical process, you know, with breakthrough ideas coming from exceptionally brilliant people. But rather it is a process. It is not simple and it is definitely not predictable, but it is structured, structured in processes and stages that nurse innovation paths through. So from defining a challenge, defining a problem, brainstorming on ideas, to prototyping, the first bits and pieces, to testing, to scaling. And besides these processes, we obviously need people, people who give ideas, people who implement their ideas, people from the Movement and outside the Movement, people providing financial support. So basically, we actually have to create an ecosystem to innovate in free knowledge. And to create such an ecosystem, now I move a little bit on the meta level, it's also not a magical process either. And there are just some key components attached to that. So first, innovation, I think, should always be linked and embedded within the strategy. And there is recommendation nine, but it would be super, super important to have or get a movement-wide commitment to innovation and therefore prioritizing this recommendation. I think also that innovation needs to be supported by incentives or at least not blocked by disincentives. So commitment and resources to expand the stages and various process of innovation to build an ecosystem so that an environment for experimentation and trial and error can be created. I think there is also this kind of tendency to be fearful of risk. So the challenge is to manage risk and not to eliminate it. So it therefore comes also along with an open-minded approach to change and innovation.

Nikki: And also, I mean, also the ability to fail and talk about failure and iterate. And so which, which refers to another recommendation. The one talks about evaluate, iterate and adapt. You know, to me, it's also getting away from this thing of, okay, we're building something and then we're putting it in front of the community. But it's rather a process that needs to happen within the communities and within the people that are involved in the movement. But I want to move to Ivana. What are your thoughts on sort of this aspect of knowledge as a service and how Unlock could be creating the ecosystem in which the next few big things are happening.

Ivana: Yeah, I actually agree completely here with Kannika. We are totally on the same page in terms of creating this ecosystem. So we have to have a process which has to involve more people. And as I previously mentioned, my first impression was that it is so cool because it's opening up to new people. And this doesn't mean that we are going to involve new people outside of the community and just do some different projects that we didn't do before. But this also means that we are creating new perspectives, new angles, and getting this from the world and getting that to the movement. So I think that that's the most crucial part for creating the knowledge ecosystem. And this is what Unlock is providing to the movement. As I said, this means also that we will increase the visibility of the Wikimedia project by involving new people. But also, on the other hand, it would mean that we will benefit from their and their angles. So we are combining these different target groups and we are together in this fight for free knowledge, right? And in this fight, not just for free knowledge, but for innovation and for innovation to be more present within the Wikimedia movement and to maybe have this refreshment in our already existent project that we have.

Nicole: And I think we could dive even more into like our own Movement, but we look at the inside so often. And that's what I'm doing myself as well. Like look at our own structures and systems all the time. But let's also look a little bit at communities and programs outside of our Movement. What can we learn from innovation from the outside? And I know that you both have like some interesting thoughts on this as well. I want to start with Kannika. And then also go over to Ivana to also talk about the third partner that you're working with. But Kannika, what can we learn from outside?

Kannika: I'm coming from the renewable energy sector. So I think this has also been a kind of movement before it hit the peak right now. And what I can learn here or just, you know, from the different angles and perspective is basically to see, okay, what have other people, organizations been going through these stages of innovation and how can we adapt it into our context? And it's not about just take a look at green tech sector or I don't know, renewables sector and just copy paste it to the Wikimedia world. It's not about it. And however, I think we have to pass this not invented here syndrome and just, you know, look here and there, talk to the organization, talk to the people, get in contact, exchange learnings, but also failures. I mean, talk about it loudly so that we can have more input and inspiration out of that. And I like to see that. I mean, you know, most of this new stage projects that we supported within Unlock. There are also other programs and project experience that are quite similar to that. So, you know, they develop a prototype, they reach their first stage, and then the question is, okay, what happened next to them? And that's the same questions that we are also asking. And that's why, you know, we are calling for this kind of ecosystem to learn to say, hey, maybe, you know, we support ideas, we support prototypes, but we also need something that can help these projects sustain and how to do that, how to make it possible, how other people or other organizations and other communities are doing this to sustain projects. And I'm not talking about that every projects need to be sustained, obviously, but I think that we need to see what type of projects should be sustained, what makes sense, what you know, caters to the community needs, what help us become more relevant and grow as Movement that we want to be.

Nicole: Ivana, over to you. What do you think? How can we create impact through partnerships? And the word impact is not here by accident, but has a connection also to the partner that we're working with.

Ivana: Yes, exactly. So, first, let me state this one that I think that this wouldn't be possible without partnerships, because through partnerships, we are actually creating impact and we are actually reaching out to more people. And I'm not saying this in a sense of reaching out to just large number of people, but the right people who want to get involved, who have these great ideas in their head, but didn't have a chance to, you know, develop it, didn't have the chance to do it within the team, etc. So this is why we need partners. And I have to say that it was really logical for us to have this collaboration with Wikimedia Germany, because we know that we have the same goals, same values and ideas. And of course, we did have this support from the region. We had this support from the Wikimedia of Republic of Serbska and shared knowledge North Macedonia and Albanian language user groups. So they all helped us to spread the word about the unlock to make unlock visible within their communities. And we are really grateful for that. As for the other part, which we are really excited about is to involve other partners such as, as Nicole said, this Impact Hub that is a part of the project this year. Impact Hub Belgrade is a place where startup companies from different fields have this support and resources that can help them develop their project, the businesses and create this positive impact. So this is what actually we saw a strong common bond between us. This impact we want to have within the Wikimedia movement, but also impact we want to have on society. That's why Kannika previously mentioned that we are not just looking for technical solutions for something we are working on also developing non-technical solutions from different participants within the project. Impact Hub is actually helping us in that. They are searching for people with entrepreneurial spirit who want to get involved, who are passionate about making change, who are passionate about creating a positive fingerprint on the society and in this region especially. This is their role. And also, as I said, we are using the impact, but also target groups we want to reach, tech enthusiasts, open innovation enthusiasts. As I said, people who want to have this, some kind of impact in their life. And they're helping us creating the coaching sessions that will be tailored for the specific project teams who have been accepted. So we are going to create with them these sessions specifically adapted for the project ideas we want to support within the project. And I have to mention that this is really crucial because we are evolving in that way and we are seeing outside of the box, we are thinking outside of the box and trying to benefit from various sides within the project. Also, it's good to mention that we included some organizations that have been involved in open science communities within our Western Balkan region. So this is also important because we have some similar goals with them. We have some similar thoughts and ideas. So they helped us as well. So this is really a huge thing for us and an important thing for Unlock.

Nicole: Thank you. And I especially like, I mean, I like a lot about it, but one thing I especially like is also the connection with that it's not only about technology, but it's also about the social aspects. And I think that we maybe in the sense of we as a Movement, but also we as a team or we as Wikimedia Deutschland or as organizations tend to sometimes forget when we work with the recommendations and the strategic direction that behind all the innovation, the infrastructure, the knowledge as a service, there's not only technology. There is this social aspect that we need to take into account. And I think that also comes from the initial sentence of the strategic direction saying that we will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge. And infrastructure, when people hear it, they immediately think it's technology. But I think if we would come up with, if we would reframe the sentence a little bit more towards becoming a support system for the free knowledge ecosystem, then it will become clearer because support cannot only be technology, it also needs those social aspects. So I especially like that you entered this thinking and brought this to life in Unlock 2022. Thank you.

Nikki: I want to come to an aspect that's related to what you're talking about in terms of social innovation or an ecosystem or a culture of innovation in our Movement. And that is, what do we do if there's some people in the movement who are perfectly happy with the status quo? There's a term for it that's called change aversion, which is already controversial if you say that. But there's always fear of change or resistance to innovation in any community. And I'm just wondering, have you thought about this for Unlock and how are you going to address these cultural aspects?

Ivana: We are all so long in the movement and sometimes people just get used to the tools that are existing, get used to the way of editing Wikimedia projects and they are not so excited about the new things because of course we are all adapting to the new changes and it is not always easy for us to do it, for us, for volunteers, for all the community movement in general. So what needs to be done if we want to create a change, if we want to create this positive impact is to actually facilitate that in a good way to prepare this as much as we can to make this process transparent and make the tools that we are developing or projects or new ideas that we are developing to make them really work. So people have this easy way to use them and this easy way to approach them. Within the unlock, I think that it's really important because we have this four months period where we have actually a lot of work on preparing the project within the coaching sessions, within the training, within the peer-to-peer exchange, within the learning for experts, etc. So this is really important for them to develop their project prototype and to create something new that is actually working, that is functional, and that will be good for the community to use in the future.

Nikki: Kannika, do you want to add anything to that?

Kannika: Yeah, I mean, I think Ivana covers all the perfect points to that. I also would love to highlight this kind of facilitation change and facilitation, this process of innovation. And I think this is what I think we would love to see Unlock doing. So Unlock is not just a program, a grant, and you apply to this and you get this and this out of this. But also, it's each of us bring something in there, maybe expertise, maybe ideas and all. So we create kind of this. Yeah, I mean, create something where we can move forward together, advancing together and with all this inspiration from outside, from within, combining this. I think we hope to facilitate this as good as possible so that we can create this trust and we can also bring in this kind of culture of thinking more in a better way, more in an agile way, in a way that supports innovation and that support the change. So it's again, it's not every purely, this is a grant, this is a program and out of this, you create this prototype, but also this facilitation and accompanying the project's team through their process. I also think that this is something where we can create a culture that we need to innovate in free knowledge.

Nikki: And I think there's so much potential for innovation in our Movement. If we look to the global South, to all these communities everywhere, I'm just feeling really excited about the idea of unlock sort of moving around the movement and maybe, you know, going to Africa as I know what you've talked about and going to different places and different communities in the Movement who are probably just waiting to unlock their innovations. Thank you so much for sharing about this great program and in the show notes we'll provide all the links and so people can stay tuned and hear about the project teams this year.

Nicole: And now to our segment, what have you ever done for Movement strategy? And I'm going to ask this question to Ivana. Ivana, what has Wikimedia Serbia done with, for, on Movement strategy in terms of implementation, like on the local level or on the regional level? Can you tell us a little bit about this?

Ivana: Yes, well, we like to create these local changes in our project and changes of approach in order to implement the strategy recommendation we have. So lately, what we have done is, first of all, adapt our strategy with global strategy recommendation and to have this focus on diversity within the recommendation to ensure equity in decision making and to provide the safety and inclusion. So what we have done in the previous months and years, we developed several interesting diversity projects that are focusing on increasing the inclusion of marginalized communities in Serbia. The best projects that we can share. Sorry, again. So the projects we like to brag about are definitely targeted to increasing the visibility of women on Wikipedia and increasing the presence of women in terms of editing Wikipedia. We've also done a lot of activities related to Wikilabs pride and involving more people from Roma community and people from disabilities. So everything mentioned here was our lead to think about a new person who will be dealing with these kind of activities, who will be focused especially on them, but also not just that, but he or she can be focused on regional collaboration and extending these diversity projects in the region. So in the beginning of the year, we have this new power in our organization. This is a new person who's dealing with diversity projects, who's coordinating all the activities. So we are trying to make them stronger and not just support the existing project, but also to extend these projects to the point they become programs and extend them to the regional level so we can also involve people from different countries to be a part of the project and make this bigger impact in this field. This means that we collaborated on a Wikigap campaign with Wikimedia from Republic of Srpska. And from those who don't know about this Wikimedia, they are also working on the Serbian Wikipedia. So we are working on the same project. And then we saw this connection between us that we can work together on this and have this person making even bigger outcomes of the program. So I believe that working locally can make good project models that can be applied in different affiliates in the movement, but also can provide support for other communities because Wikimedia Serbia is there to support people from the region because there aren't, sometimes we can see that there aren't affiliates in some countries. So we are ready to support them in terms of our regional collaboration and in terms of them starting new diversity projects.

Nikki: So that's a wrap of the third episode of WIKIMOVE. Thank you for listening.

Nicole: WIKIMOVE is a production of Wikimedia Deutschland and the Global Relations and Movement Strategy team. Eva Martin pulls all the strings in the background so that we can actually focus on the content. And she makes sure that everything runs really smoothly. Our music was composed and produced by Rory Gregory and is of course available under CC By SA on Wikimedia Commons.

Nikki: Eva Martin also gives us some content sometimes, I gotta say. So it's not just pulling strings in the back. So we release new episodes every month. Please visit the WIKIMOVE Meta page to react to our podcasts, connect with other listeners, and subscribe to always be notified for new episodes. If you missed our previous episodes on about Communitizing Strategy that was with Brazil and Knowledge as a Service that was with guests from Africa and from France, please go find them on our Meta page and watch them. And you can contact us at wikimove@wikimedia.de to continue this discussion and others make suggestions about future episodes and ask questions for guests for future episodes. So goodbye and we'll see you soon. Ciao for now and tschüssi.