WMIT will try to contact http://www.conscienze.it but we've not yet established how; probably there are similar networks of university departments in other countries.

Indeed, we are missing candidates from Italy (and Southern Europe in general). There is no lack of computer science students, sensitiveness toward free software, and Wikimedia presence.

Are hackathons a sensible way to recruit applicants? Lyon is within 5h train from France, Barcelona, Turin, Milan etc.

If they are, what's our best "leaflet" showing the benefits for a student to attend them (in a way that also convinces university teachers)? For now I used https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/10/tech-wizards-behind-wikipedia-meet-in-zurich-for-hackathon/ while proposing some meetups.

If we have a good document, we can translate it.

@JanWMF and I met today, and decided to create specific task for promoting the next GSoC/OPW round in Russia, China, and Japan. We hope having own tasks with a specific goal will contribute to put in touch subscribers from these regions. Jan will dig into their editors-chapters type of contacts, and (with your help!) I can dig into our Wikimedia tech & Google Developer type of contacts.

@Nemo_bis, feel free to create a task specific to Italy if you wish. The list of tasks can be extended to more countries if there are people ready to push for them. For instance, we are clearly missing candidates from Brazil, another big country with a tradition in free software development.

In T925#790813, @Nemo_bis wrote:

Are hackathons a sensible way to recruit applicants? Lyon is within 5h train from France, Barcelona, Turin, Milan etc.

In terms of timing, the Wikimedia Hackathon is not a good option for GSoC/OPW recruiting. Too late for the current round, probably too soon for the next round. Still, I agree we could be more effective reaching out to newcomers and inviting them to our hackathons. I just created T76325: Engage with established technical communities at the Wikimedia Hackathon 2015.

@Nemo_bis, feel free to create a task specific to Italy if you wish.

Ricordisamoa, are you interested in following/advising/helping with this? If not, I'll probably default to wiki.wikimedia.it instead, because that's where all the WMIT members and staff are and nobody else ever helped me with this sort of outreach across the years.

In T925#796019, @Qgil wrote:

In terms of timing, the Wikimedia Hackathon is not a good option for GSoC/OPW recruiting. Too late for the current round, probably too soon for the next round. Still, I agree we could be more effective reaching out to newcomers and inviting them to our hackathons. I just created T76325: Engage with established technical communities at the Wikimedia Hackathon 2015.

But actually, what about the other way around? Organizing a session to promote GSoC, OPW and the Wikimedia Hackathon, in Lyon around February-March. If we have candidates that become interns, we probably can sponsor the mentors to the hackathon as well. JeanFred, @Rfarrand, if this idea sounds good, please create a subtask. Even better if you can CC/assign to someone based in Lyon.

I flagged this conversation with Anna, who runs the university cooperation stuff for Asia and Eastern Europe over in Grantmaking. I expect her to subscribe as soon as she has a fabricator account and also a list of potentially interesting university departments her folks have engaged with by my next call with her.

In T925#790813, @Nemo_bis wrote:

Lyon is within 5h train from France

?!?

• (many cities in) France, ...

I wonder if there are papers/publications useful to convince university departments.

• http://books.google.it/books?id=-uVGAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA414 (no access)?

Do university departments need to be convinced with papers? It looks like the problem is that they are not aware of this program, and if they are they have no idea who to contacts or where to start. I think that personal contacts among students or teachers might make wonders. If a wikimedian knows someone in an engineering department, we could just follow up that cue. A single successful contact in one university might provide better results than a general mailing to several universities.

At FOSDEM I spoke with a couple of people from Paris and Barcelona that were looking forward to help promoting GSOC / OPW in their centers. For this round, I will simply focus on them. @Nemo_bis, @Ricordisamoa, if you can work with one university in Italy that would be great. @AKoval_WMF, if you could provide one good contact with one university, that would also help.

We can coordinate here the type of information that we provide to our contacts in universities. It looks like all of them need more or less the same pitch and the same type of approach.

This ticket is marked as a blocker for "apply to GSoC/OPW". So what's the right order of things if I am interested in promoting these programs? Should I wait until the application is finalized so I can tell interested parties that yes, MediaWiki is actually going to participate, or should I just assume that's going to happen and start advertising now, and that's going to help MW's application somehow?

Advertising now is better. Let me know if you need any help.

Hey,

Is there improvement for contacting Italian schools? Should we invite them to attend the Hackathon in Lyon?
@Ricordisamoa have you already seen some schools?
I've got family in Italy. Most of them are into engineering, should I ask them for the Good schools around Milan and Turin?

We (you) can still create a task to focus on Italy.

@Nemo_bis @Qgil @AlexCella I am yet to disclose my wiki activity to my contacts in real life.
When I do, I'll surely help ;-)

In T925#1033996, @Ricordisamoa wrote:

@Nemo_bis @Qgil @AlexCella I am yet to disclose my wiki activity to my contacts in real life.
When I do, I'll surely help ;-)

I'm not sure who you want not to know what, but 1) WMIT doesn't disclose your identity to members, 2) you can work with WMIT without saying your full name, 3) you can work with university people who don't (yet) know you, telling your name only to them and not to others.

Also, you can help me draft letters or phone calls etc. without directly "putting your face" on them.

In T925#1013822, @Qgil wrote:

Do university departments need to be convinced with papers? It looks like the problem is that they are not aware of this program, and if they are they have no idea who to contacts or where to start. I think that personal contacts among students or teachers might make wonders. If a wikimedian knows someone in an engineering department, we could just follow up that cue. A single successful contact in one university might provide better results than a general mailing to several universities.

At FOSDEM I spoke with a couple of people from Paris and Barcelona that were looking forward to help promoting GSOC / OPW in their centers. For this round, I will simply focus on them. @Nemo_bis, @Ricordisamoa, if you can work with one university in Italy that would be great. @AKoval_WMF, if you could provide one good contact with one university, that would also help.

We can coordinate here the type of information that we provide to our contacts in universities. It looks like all of them need more or less the same pitch and the same type of approach.

In fact I'm from Spain and it is true that we are not aware of this kind of programs, not via University anyway, at least not in Madrid. I'm finishing my computer engineer degree, and just this year I had a teacher that talk to us about Google Summer of Code, and by that I get here, and it is a pity because I'm really interested in this project and I am sure there's more people here that would like to participate in something like this but they don't know about it. So since I know about Google Summer of Code (and now with Phabricator's projects) i talk about it with the people trying to extend this information. I'll talk with my University to try to promote this kind of projects and see if I can provide a good contact, if it is useful.

Thank you very much @CAcosta90! If you found this task and commented on it, I guess you did some research around. :)

Meh, it looks like we are missing this train in this round. Students must submit their applications between March 16-27. There is no time to prepare anything that is not happening yet.

Unless someone has a better idea, I propose to discuss the lessons learned and try to start sooner with better tactics for the next round.