Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia Serbia teamed up last year to co-design and implement the Wikimedia Accelerator program UNLOCK that promotes innovative ideas and projects fro free knowledge.
In addition to this cross-affiliate collaboration, we also collaborated with Wikimedia Argentina. The team of Wikimedia Argentina was in the midst of setting up a new pilot program of their own, Código Cultura, similar to the UNLOCK program in some regards, but placed in a completely different context. Not just because we operate in different countries, nay continents. But also because their participants would have very different backgrounds and needs.
So when Wikimedia Argentina approached us, Wikimedia Deutschland, with the ask to share some insights on our UNLOCK Accelerator program in an informal chat, we thought: Well of course. But why stop there? We figured the best way to share our knowledge was through a program shadowing model:
Throughout the 2022 run of the UNLOCK Accelerator we invited Angie and Carolina from Wikimedia Argentina to multiple “How to design an accelerator program”-sessions. There, they could follow along as we designed elements of our program in real time. These sessions were complimented by our program events that Angie and Carolina also attended as silent listeners. This gave them the opportunity to see our designs in action and collect their own learnings.
We collected some insights and learning from this program shadowing model on diff blog: How Wikimedia Argentina and Wikimedia Deutschland share knowledge across continents through program shadowing – Diff
Have a closer look and feel free to reach out to us if you want to learn more!