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Grants:PEG/WM Fr/Hackathon Lyon 2015/Report

< Grants:PEG | WM Fr/Hackathon Lyon 2015


Report accepted
This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY Pending has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
  • You are welcome to Email grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.


Project status

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Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?
YES
Is your project completed?
YES

Activities and lessons learned

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Activities

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People and activities of the Hackaton 2015


Preparation

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To organize a hackathon is a long run, and numerous steps are required to achieve it. First, we set up a team inside the staff of the chapter: Sylvain, as the system and network administrator of Wikimedia France, is in charge of all projects related to technical matters and so became the project leader. He was assisted by the events manager, Jean-Philippe, by an intern, Alexandre, and by the fundraiser, who was first Sébastien and was replaced by Cyrille.
  • Find a venue: we needed to find a venue with a proper number of small and big rooms for hacking, and with beds for around 200 persons. It was also supposed to be within one hour reach of an international airport and have proper bandwidth, and all this at an affordable cost. We finally set for Valpré, near Lyon, which was perfectly sized, and agreed to leave the coding rooms opened during the whole event. They also accepted that we basically shut their whole wifi network and replace it with ours during the event. The only concern we had was about the bandwidth : it was on the lowest range acceptable, but fiber was supposed to be installed by Orange about one month before the event. The project leader (Sylvain) and the event manager (Jean-Philippe) were particularly involved in this. For the setup of the Wifi, we also had the help of Manuel Schneider, who was part of the organizing team of previous hackathons and lend us routers and administer them.
  • Find sponsors: a hackathon is a huge event, and tends to be expensive (see the budget for details), so we went to look for sponsors. We had two staff on this: the fundraiser (Sébastien first, then Cyrille) and an intern (Alexandre.)
  • Get local volunteer support: we went several times to Lyon to meet the local Wikimedia community and get them involved as soon as possible in the event organization. Volunteers can do many things to help during such an event, particularly at the welcoming booth.
  • Organize social events: as the venue was far from the city of Lyon itself, we wanted to organize big social events on the evenings, to make everyone feel at home. So, we organized a "retrogaming party" and a barbecue. Both were much appreciated by the attendees.
  • Organize public conferences: we did want to have side events in French, aimed at the general public to use the press coverage created by the Hackathon to outreach to local audiences. Four presentations of Wikipedia, in French, were made by local volunteers.
  • Setup registration: we had to setup a huge registration form covering everything from accomodation and catering to scholarship and visa issues, and of course the hacking-related questions. We choose to use CiviCRM, our usual fundraising platform, as it has a module dedicated to event registration and manages the form itself and the payment.
  • Scholarship and visas: Most of the participants to a hackathon are volunteers and some need some funding to attend to the event. Some of them come from countries that require a visa to enter France. Alex was in charge of the visa requests, and for the scholarships we made a centralized system between all countries that agreed to fund participants: all applicants made their request through the main registration form, and we created a comittee with people from Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimédia France and Wikimedia CH.
  • Other aspects of the hackathon were directly managed by the Wikimedia Foundation: program, buddy system, etc. Four months before the event, we started to have an online meeting between WMFr and WMF organizers, twice a month first, then every week when approaching the deadline.
The venue, Valpré
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    Valpré Entrance
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    Double Room
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    Cool Meeting Room
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    Castle
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    The Building
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    Pétanque!

The event

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Map of the venue of the Hackathon 2015
  • To help with the transportation, we got a sponsorship from Uber granting a 20 € ride to all attendees who created an account.
  • Three days before the event, we were warned that the public transportation in Lyon would be on strike on Friday 22th of May, which was the day the most people were coming to the Hackathon. This meant that our sponsorship from Uber would not be useful, because they would at least double their prices in Lyon that day because of demand, and the 20 € voucher would not cover the ride anymore. So we decided to have two volunteers waiting for people at the airport and order grouped taxis for them. This came at a cost, but was really appreciated by attendees.
  • Overall on the weekend, around 200 people came. You can find a partial list here
 
The initial hackathon planning
  • There were a few planned sessions during the hackathon, such as the opening and closing ceremony, but for the main part the event followed a "Unconference" model, with a number of small rooms open for people to use, making reservations on a program page mostly empty at first. In total, there were 62 meetups and workshops.
  • All sessions that happened in the Amphiteather, such as the opening and closing ceremonies, were recorded and are currently processed to be uploaded on Commons.
  • There was also one big hall, with 20 tables for 8 people each, so that the coders were able to make small groups to work on particular projects or tools.
  • All in all, people worked on many projects, 33 of which were showcased during the ending ceremony. Amongst these projects, we can highlight:

Lessons learned

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What worked well?
  • Pretty much everything : we completed all of our objectives : diversity, number of projects coded, etc.
  • As the community grows older, the need for a childcare service during several days events increases and we decided to have one. To the best of our knowledge, it was the first time in the movement and we are happy to announce that it worked perfectly well. See the learning pattern for more details.
  • The day before the beginning of the Hackathon, when most of the participants were supposed to arrive, there was a public transport strike in Lyon. To circumvent it, we had two people who went to the airport and ordered taxis for every attendee. This came at a cost (see budget for details), but was found to be really useful by the attendees and contributed to the success of the Hackathon.
What didn't work?
  • Some communication material lacked revision and had a misleading translation and some people considered it offensive. After the problem was brought to us, we removed the document from the welcome bags
  • Orange couldn't manage to put fiber in the venue in time and so the bandwidth was only 10 Mbps, which was our minimal limit. It appears that it was not enough, but the router we used to aggregate the SDSL lines included slots for LTE antennas and Sylvain went and buy several 3G sim cards to increase the bandwitdh available. Manuel put packet priorization and it was OK in the end, but still nowhere near what we could have reached with fiber.
What would you do differently if you planned a similar project?
  • We would use a venue that has fiber access, even if it is more expensive. The bandwidth we have was supposed to be a bit slow but sufficient and it turns out that it is no longer sufficient : the need for bandwitdh increases every year.

Learning patterns

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Outcomes and impact

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Outcomes

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Provide the original project goal here.
The goal, as stated in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T93584, was no less than "Most welcoming and productive Wikimedia Hackathon"!
Did you achieve your project goal? How do you know your goal was achieved? Please answer in 1 - 2 short paragraphs.
The "welcoming" part goal was to organize a hackathon more welcoming for two target populations. Firstly, newcomers, so that they are not lost with nothing to do and no one to talk with. We made a special effort so that no one felt left behind, with a special talk for newcomers and a buddy system organized by Quim Gil. The other "target population" was women: as part of our effort to reduce the gender gap, we aimed for a more women to participate to the hackathon than in the previous editions. We aimed for 10% of the participants, and they were 19%.
As for the "most productive" part, we had 33 showcased projects, as listed here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T88521

Progress towards targets and goals

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Project metrics

Project metrics Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
150 attendees 200 attendees
10% women 19,29% women
10% of all participants are new volunteers 19% of all participants are new volunteers
100% of newcomers have a buddy > 100% We only had 66 newcomers, but 98 participants requested a buddy. All of them got one assigned.
8 showcased projects 33 showcased projects
2 of the showcased projects worth supporting further 3 further supported projects See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T101151 for details


 
Infographics about Wikimedia Hackathon 2015
 
200 attendees came from 30 countries

Global Metrics

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We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees. In addition to the measures of success for your specific program (in above section), please use the table below to let us know how your project contributed to the Global Metrics. We know that not all projects will have results for each type of metric, so feel free to put "0" where necessary.

  1. Next to each required metric, list the actual outcome achieved through this project.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome. For example, if you were funded for an edit-a-thon which resulted in 0 new images, your explanation might be "This project focused solely on participation and articles written/improved, the goal was not to collect images."

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 200 This is the number of attendees (our goal was 150)
2. # of new editors 66 This is the number of people who checked "I'd welcome a chat with an insider" in the registration
3. # of individuals involved 300 200 editors + 100 people registered for public presentations
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages -- (not tracked) The goal of the event was to write code, not to add content
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects -- (not tracked) The goal of the event was to write code, not to add content
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects -- (not tracked) The goal of the event was to write code, not to add content
Learning question
Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?

The goal of the Hackathon is to help developpers to improve the projects themselves by creating tools that will in turn improve the experience of editors: we think it will increase the motivation of contributors, but we will only be able to know this over time.


Impact

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Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 - 2360 - Group photo

What impact did this project have on WMF's mission and the strategic priorities? As stated in the grant request, hackathons answers directly to two of five points of Wikimedia Foundation's strategy :

  • The first priority ("Stabilize the infrastructure") includes the point "Develop clear documentation and APIs to enable developers to create applications that work easily with MediaWiki." The Hackathon involves APIs creators and documentation's creators but also reusers, permitting then to highlight the needs in documentation and possibilities of the different API.
  • The fifth priority ("Encourage Innovation") also includes the aspects “Ensure access to computing resources and data” and “Continually improve social and technical systems” but this priority especially express a clear wish from WMF to plan events such as a Hackathon : “Organize meetings and events bringing together developers and researchers who are focused on Wikimedia-related projects with experienced Wikimedia volunteers and staff.”

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

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This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation

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Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grants at wikimedia dot org, according to the guidelines here? Answer "Yes" or "No".

YES

Expenses

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Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.


Exchange rate: 1 USD = 0.88399 EUR (as of 12th of February 2015)

Number Item description Unit Qty Cost per unit EUR /USD Budgeted total cost USD Actual total cost USD WMF contribution (USD) Other sources (USD) Notes
1. Travel costs & visas 5,831.18 2,630 0.00 2,630
1.1 Attendees' transportation from Airport (Lyon Saint-Exupery) Per traveler 120*2 13.46 EUR / 15.22 USD 3,654.52 2,630 0.00 2,630 Undifferentiated costs (round trip)

Costs genereted by the lack of public transport and the transportation by taxi

1.2 Attendees' transportation from Station (Lyon Part-Dieu) Per travelers 80*2 4.53 EUR / 5.12 USD 819.46 - 0.00 0.00
1.3 Preparation Team Transportation Per trips 12 100 EUR / 113.10 USD 1357.20 - 0.00 1.00357.20 integrated at miscellaneous costs (bellow)
2. Accommodation and meals 73,380.1 83,235 29,162.8 54,072.2
2.1 Lunchs Participant x day 200 x 3 19.50 EUR / 22.05 USD 13,235.70 16,105 13,235.70 2,869.30 Here are the prices for every lunch that has been payed to Valpré.

730 lunchs (22,06 $ per lunch)

2.2 Dinner Participant x day 200 x 2 19.50 EUR / 22.05 USD 9,706.16 14,341 9,706.16 4,634.84 Same as previously (for dinner)

650 dinners (22,06 $ per dinner)

2.3 Breaks Participant x break 200 x 6 3.30 EUR / 3.73 USD 4,479.08 5,600 0.00 5,600 Same as previously (for breaks)

1 500 breaks (3,73 $ per break)

2.4 Gala Dinner Per participant 200 27.50 EUR / 31.10 USD 6,220.94 7,777 6,220.94 1,556.06 Same as préviously (for the gala dinner)

250 dinners (31,11 $ per dinner)

2.5 Single B&B Rooms Rooms x Nights 68 x 4 + 6 (for friday evening) 58.00 EUR / 65.60 USD 18,238.5 16,993 0 16,993 259 nights (65,61 $ per night)
2.6 Couple B&B Rooms Rooms x Nights 3 x 4 74.80 EUR / 84.60 USD 1,015.26 1,692 0 1,692 20 nights (84,62 $ per night)
2.7 Double B&B Bedrooms Rooms x Nights 44 x 4 77.00 EUR / 87.09 USD 15,328.4 15,069 0 15,069 173 nights (87,1 $ per night)
2.8 Triple B&B Bedrooms Rooms x Nights 5 x 4 93.50 EUR / 105.75 USD 2,115.12 2,115 0 2,115 20 nights (105,8 $ per night)
2.9 Quadruple B&B Bedrooms Rooms x Nights 2 x 4 121.00 EUR / 136.86 USD 1,094.89 1,095 0 1,095 8 nights (136,88 $ per night)
2.10 Hotel taxes Per nights 185 x 4 1.11 EUR / 1.25 USD 928.16 997 0 997 In France, every night booked in a hotel includes a tax raised by the city. You usually never see it, but it's included in the price.
2.11 Preparation team housing Per nights 9 100.00 EUR / 113.10 USD 1,017.97 1,451 0 1,451 Airbnb for the preparation team
3. Venue 12,328.77 12,785 0.00 12,785
3.1 Room and Equipment Project 1 8,400.00 EUR / 9,501.07 USD 9,501.07 9,502 0.00 9,502
3.2 Wi-Fi Project 1 2,500.00 EUR / 2,827.70 USD 2,827.70 3,283 0.00 3,283 including Manuel's delivery
4. Materials and gifts 4,003.99 4,853 0.00 4,853
4.1 T-Shirts Per participant 200 10.00 EUR / 11.31 USD 2,262.16 2,161 0.00 2,161
4.2 Maps Per participant 200 1.00 EUR / 1.13 USD 226.21 190 0.00 190
4.3 Badges Per participant 200 2.00 EUR / 2.26 USD 452.42 808 0.00 808
4.4 Notebooks Per participant 200 3.50 EUR / 3.95 USD 791.75 940 0.00 940
4.5 Pens Per participant 200 1.20 EUR / 1.35 USD 271.45 754 0.00 754
5. Administrative expenses 11,917.56 22,907 0.00 22,907
5.1 Scholarships Per covered participant 20 350.00 EUR / 395.87 USD 7,917.56 7,917 0.00 7,917 Wikimédia France will help attendees up to 7,917.56 USD, which correspond to 20 attendees and around 180 USD for nights and 215 USD for transportation.
5.2 Unforeseen Project 1 4,000.00 USD 4,000.00 14,990 0.00 14,990 Instead of unforeseen events, this budget is dedicated to Kindergarden (1,360 $), Vidéo recording (12,211 $) and miscellaneous costs (1,419 $)
TOTAL 107,461.60 126,410 29,162.80 97,247.2

You can also see a lighter version of this budget table on Mediawiki:Wikimedia Hackathon 2015/Budget.

Total project budget (from your approved grant submission)
107,461.60 USD
Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission, this total will be the same as the total project budget if PEG is your only funding source)
29,162.80 USD
Total amount spent on this project
126,410.00 USD
Total amount of Project and Event grant funds spent on this project
29,162.80 USD
Are there additional sources that funded any part of this project? List them here.
As stated in the budget sheet, Google, the Fédération du Judaïsme Français, PLOSS, Rezopôle, Syntec, Wikimedia Austria, Wikimedia Deutschland and, of course, Wikimedia France contributed to fund this project.

Remaining funds

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Are there any grant funds remaining?
Answer YES or NO.
NO
Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)
0 €
If funds are remaining they must be returned to WMF, reallocated to mission-aligned activities, or applied to another approved grant.
Please state here if you intend to return unused funds to WMF, submit a request for reallocation, or submit a new grant request, and then follow the instructions on your approved grant submission.
N/A


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