As a part of Wikimedia UK’s continued efforts to support the Wikimedia community the the UK, we regularly offer scholarships to enable attendance at international conferences and meetings. Past scholarships have enabled members to attend previous years’ Wikimania, WikiSym and Wikimedia Hackathon events, such as the 2013 Hackathon event in Amsterdam. This year, as a result of our support, Wikimedians in the UK have been able to attend the European Parliament in Strasbourg to take photos and videos of European Parliament members and attend the EduWiki conference in Belgrade, Serbia to share Wikimedia UK’s experiences from our education-related outreach activities.
Two further scholarship opportunities are now available, the first for Open Knowledge Festival and the second to OpenSym. OKFestival, run by the Open Knowledge Foundation is an open data and open knowledge conference that will bring together over 1,000 people from more than 60 countries in a bid to encourage innovation in the open sector through sharing experiences and skills. Furthermore, the event is a celebration of the open movement itself and what it has already achieved. OpenSym, previously known as WikiSym, is the International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration where researchers from all over the world gather to present their latest research and practice on “open access, open data, open education resources, IT-driven open innovation, open source, wikis and related social media, and Wikipedia”. Both of these conferences are being held in Berlin, Germany with OKFestival on 15th-17th July and OpenSym on 27th-29th August.
To qualify for either scholarship, you must be based in the UK, be able to travel to Berlin and attend all days of the event, and agree to produce a public report (which may be published on the Wikimedia UK blog and in our newsletters) summarising the key things that you have taken from the event. Applicants for OpenSym must also be engaging in research about Wikimedia or other free content projects. The scholarship will cover conference registration fee, travel, accommodation, along with a per diem allowance to cover local expenses.
Complete this online form by Sunday 20th April to apply for a scholarship to OKFestival. The deadline for OpenSym scholarship is Sunday 30th April, and you can apply here.