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Wikimedia Hackathon 2026/Program

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< Wikimedia Hackathon 2026
Revision as of 09:02, 1 May 2026 by Valerio Bozzolan (talk | contribs) (→Friday May 1st: update timetable since everyone is upstairs)


Logo for Wikimedia Hackathon
Milan, Italy – May 1-3, 2026

The Hackathon is participant-driven and gets its life from the active participation of its attendees. Below you will find some information on how to contribute to the program as an attendee.

Local communities are also welcome to organize pre-hackathon events, watch-parties or meetups in their region. More information about organization and funding is available on the satellite events page.


This year's hackathon will use the unconference format, with session lengths between 30 minutes and 60 minutes available.

Add your proposed session to the "Proposed Unconference Sessions" column on the Hackathon 2026 workboard with the #Wikimedia-Hackathon-2026 tag. Then add your session title and name to the schedule! Please ensure you link to your Phabricator task so interested participants can see the full details.

Be sure to follow the format listed in the #How to contribute section of this page.

If you're interested in a particular session, please be sure to demonstrate your interest by subscribing to the task in Phabricator!

Thursday April 30th

Participants arrive and get settled.

Registration will be between noon and 7pm on Thursday in the hotel’s main lobby. Registration on Friday morning will be in the hotel lobby from 8 - 9:30am and then will be colocated with the Help Desk on Floor 2 after 9:30am.

Friday May 1st

Time Main Space

(Floor 2)

Space 4

(Floor 1)

Space 5

(Floor 1)

8:00–9:30am Registration (lobby level)

Note: After 9:30 am the registration desk will be co-located with the Help Desk on Floor 2

9:30–10:45am Hackathon opening ceremony in Main Space (all participants)

Contact: Bee

Notes: Etherpad and Phab Task, livestream and slides (coming soon)

10:45–11:30am Break on Floor 2 (outside Main Space)
11:05–12:00am

10:45–11:45am

Hacking in Main Space (open 9am - 2am) Unconference session: WikiLinkua: Language Learning Platform using Wikidata and Wiktionary

Contact: Satdeep Gill & Silvia Gutiérrez

Notes: phab:T425045 & Etherpad

Unconference session: Wikipedia for Everyone: Closing the Accessibility Gap

Contact: Daimona Eaytoy, Piergiovanna, valcio

Notes: phab:T417138

11:45am–

12:00pm

Socializing and moving between levels to get to sessions and/or hacking spaces
12:00–

1:00pm

Unconference session: Being a developer in the age of AI taking over our profession: how do we deal with it as a community? (T420352)

Contact: Hay Kranen

Notes: The rise of AI and coding agents are causing a lot of discussion and debate within our community. Some people vehemently oppose any use of coding agents. Other people can't imagine ever coding without them.

I believe this topic is too important to end up in a simple support / oppose debate. There are many viewpoints and sides to this debate. Maybe we can at least map those viewpoints and sides so that we know where our community stands and we can find consensus.

Note taker: denisse

Unconference session: LATAM Technical Community Meetup

Contact: Pepe piton

Notes: phab:T423641

12:30–2:00pm Lunch in Ristorante Betulla
Time Main Space

(Floor 2)

Space 4

(Floor 1)

Space 5

(Floor 1)

2:00–2:30pm Hacking in Main Space (open 9am - 2am) (USED TO BE: Hacking in Space 4)

Unconference session: Experimenting with cross-wiki code collaboration Contact: Mateus Santos

Notes: phab:T424197

Unconference session: Modular and interoperable Commons Upload Tools

(T424782) Contact: User:Daanvr

Notes:

2:30–2:45pm Socializing and moving between levels to get to sessions and/or hacking spaces
2:45–3:00pm Hacking in Space 4 Alternate slot if the one in space 4 at 2pm won't work out

Unconference session: Experimenting with cross-wiki code collaboration Contact: Mateus Santos

Notes: phab:T424197

3:00–3:15pm Socializing and moving between levels to get to sessions and/or hacking spaces
3:15–3:45pm Huddle around a table - No presentations.

Overview of Parsoid architecture and high-level overview of the Parsoid codebase: Intro for anyone interested in hacking on Parsoid. Can also move this to an informal session and continue during normal hacking times for those interested in diving deeper.

Contact: Subbu

Unconference session: CommonsDB: Introduction and idea generation (phab:T423284)

Contact: Ainali

Notes: Etherpad

3:30–4:30pm Break on Floor 2 (outside Main Space)
4:00–4:45pm Hacking in Space 4 Unconference session: Geodata in wikiprojects (T422294)

Contact: Tohaomg

Notes:

5:00–6:00pm Socializing for some, nap time for others
6:30–8:30pm Dinner in Ristorante Betulla
5:00pm–

2:00am

Main Space is open for hacking

Saturday May 2nd

Time Main Space

(Floor 2)

Space 4

(Floor 1)

Space 5

(Floor 1)

9:00–10:00am Hacking in Main Space

(open 7am - 2am)

Unconference session: NeoWiki: AI-ready knowledge management system powered by ECHOLOT that combines collaborative editing and a knowledge graph. A new approach between Semantic MediaWiki and Wikibase. (T424367)

Contact: User:Krabina (talk)

Notes: Etherpad

Unconference session: One Portal to Rule Them All: The Unified Developer Front-Door (T423363)

Contact: Halley Coplin (WMF)

Notes: Come hear about our vision and motivations for creating a unified developer portal experience that brings our APIs and developer documentation together in a central location. The new front-door aims to offer a developer home base with consolidated reference docs, API etiquette guidelines, and guided onboarding. This session will also dip into the bigger picture, with broader discussions on how we might build and support a thriving developer community, improve first experiences, and make it easier for curious newcomers to become confident contributors. This work is a direct response to what you've been telling us in listening tours and the developer satisfaction survey, so come see how your feedback is starting to take shape, and keep your input coming!

10:00–11:00am Break on Floor 2 (outside Main Space)
11:00–11:45am Unconference session: Fifty Shades of Caching and How LLMs Paint it Black (T423452)

Contact: Effie Mouzeli

Notes: This talk session is practical deep dive into the caching technologies we use at Wikimedia and explore how the ongoing rise of the machines surge in LLMs traffic is steadily undermining their effectiveness. Structured into three parts, the talk covers both the underlying technology and the current challenges.

Note taker: denisse

Unconference session: CentralNotice Banner Editor: What's new and What's next (T424074)

Contact: Victoria Oyelola

Notes: The CentralNotice Banner Editor is a new visual editor for designing CentralNotice banners used across Wikimedia projects. This session introduces the tool, demos its current capabilities, and opens discussion on upcoming features, limitations, and possible improvements. It will include a short presentation with slides, a live demo, and time for Q&A and discussion.

Note taker: Ciell

11:45–12:00pm Unconference session: Thinking about Entity Usages and how to optimize them

T424793 Contact: Flanoz (talk)

Notes:TBA

Unconference session: MediaWiki Code2Code Search: Semantic Search to Find Code by Under-the-Surface Similarity (T425057)

Contact: Francesco Tosoni (super nabla), Indic MediaWiki Developers UG

Notes: This session introduces and discusses MediaWiki Code2Code Search, a semantic search tool that helps developers navigate the vast MediaWiki ecosystem, leveraging Jina AI embeddings and vector-based retrieval. The project emphasises long-term code stewardship through archival in Software Heritage (SWH) and promotes inclusive development with a multilingual UI that celebrates the diverse linguistic heritage of the global Wikimedia community. Future roadmaps focus on transitioning to the Codex design system and implementing dynamic indexing to keep pace with the evolving codebase.

12:00–12:30pm Group Photo — location TBC
12:30–2:00pm Lunch in Ristorante Betulla
Time Main Space

(Floor 2)

Space 4

(Floor 1)

Space 5

(Floor 1)

2:00–2:30pm Hacking in Main Space

(open 7am - 2am)

Hacking in Space 4 Unconference session: Building Pipelines for Marginalized Knowledge: From Wikibase to Wikidata and Back Again (phab:T423333)

Contact: Superraptor123 (talk), User:Superraptor123 (Clair Kronk)

Notes: This session will be a mostly practical and informal hacking session, where we briefly discuss the broader Wikibase environment and how Wikibase instances and Wikidata can be better connected. We will focus mostly on lgbtDB as a case study, but will also discuss broader applications for pipelining in relationship to GLAM institution Wikibase instances.

2:30–2:45pm Socializing and moving between levels to get to sessions and/or hacking spaces
2:45–3:00pm Unconference session: Wikibase Bootstrap set, a year retrospective and discussion for the future (T423677)

Contact: Superraptor123, Olea

Notes: (TBA)

3:00–3:15pm Socializing and moving between levels to get to sessions and/or hacking spaces
3:15–3:45pm Unconference session: Cool new things in JS + CSS (T423292)

Contact: Lucas Werkmeister (WMDE)

Notes: An overview over recent features in JavaScript and CSS that can be used in MediaWiki code since the last few years, with many “before/after”-style examples for how they can make your code nicer! Slides will be available afterwards.

3:30–4:30pm Break on Floor 2 (outside Main Space)
4:00–4:30pm Hacking in Space 4 Unconference session: Wikimedia LEADS: a proposal for a learning ecosystem (T424311)

Contact: Ismael Olea

Notes: TBA

4:30–4:45pm Socializing and moving between levels to get to sessions and/or hacking spaces
4:45–5:15pm Unconference session: How MediaWiki code gets deployed and things we are changing

Contact: Bryan Davis / bd808

Notes: phab:T424780

5:00–6:00pm Socializing for some, nap time for others
6:30–8:30pm Dinner in Ristorante Betulla
5:00pm–

2:00am

Main Space is open for hacking

Sunday May 3rd

Time Main Space

(Floor 2)

Space 4

(Floor 1)

Space 5

(Floor 1)

9:00–

10:00am

Hacking in Main Space

(open 7am - 2pm)

Unconference session: Sharing Journeys: What Welcomes & What Blocks the Path of Women+ into Wikimedia Tech (T423725)

Contact: Silvia Gutiérrez, Carla Toro, Giovanna Fontenelle

Notes: A 60‑minute unconference session for women+ to share lived experiences. Each participant will share: their name, what moves them (their passion), one barrier that has prevented them from accessing or staying in Wikimedia technical spaces, and one thing that lowered that barrier. A volunteer will take live notes projected on screen so everyone can see and correct them. We will then use a retroboard (or similar voting tool) to vote on the most significant barriers and enablers, merge similar items with the consent of the original sharer, and prioritize. If time allows, we will start drafting a public Diff post (a guide similar to NumFOCUS's unconference visa guide). Our guide will be titled something like: "Welcoming Women+ into Wikimedia Tech: A Guide Based on Lived Experience." If time is tight (hopefully because many of you want to participate!), facilitators will produce a first draft after the session and share it with all participants in this thread.

Unconference session: Wikimedia and the Social Web

Contact: User:EvanProdromou

Notes: The social web is a movement to implement federated social networks with open standards. How can Wikimedia projects encourage this effort? Benefit from it?

10:00–11:00am Break on Floor 2 (outside Main Space)
11:15am–12:15pm Unconference session: Tools That (Don’t) Break: A Toolforge Reliability Wishlist (T424354)

Contact: Arthur Puthin

Notes: This session aims to provide an open space for discussion around the reliability of Tools hosted on Toolforge, and what can be done on a platform level to improve the experience for maintainers. The WMF Developer Experience team is inviting new and experienced Toolforge users to contribute their view by sharing their own vision for what reliability should look like for Tools, so we can refine our understanding of how the platform can provide visibility into issues and enable maintainers to keep their tools running with confidence by providing improved monitoring and observability features.

Unconference session: API Glow Up: Shaping the Next Generation of Wikimedia APIs (T423361)

Contact: Halley Coplin (WMF)

Notes: Have you ever stared at our API docs and thought, "why are there four ways to do this and none of them really feel right?" Well you aren't alone, because we've asked the same thing and plan to start doing something about it! Come to this session to learn more about what we have in mind for taming the REST chaos, introducing structure to next generation Action endpoints (without breaking the current state), and how we might make our APIs more approachable for new users.

12:30–2:00pm Lunch in Ristorante Betulla
2:00–4:00pm Closing showcase in the Main Space — everyone should attend!

Contact: Bee

Notes: Etherpad and Phab Task, livestream and slides (coming soon)

4:00-5:00pm Wrap up!

All rooms and hacking spaces will be closed at 5:00pm - be sure to gather all your belongings before leaving.

5:30–10:00pm Shuttles provided to downtown Milan (see details here)

Room descriptions and capacity

Our main hacking spaces will be on the Floor 2 of the Voco Fiere Hotel Milan; the breakout rooms, quiet room, and the second hacking space (available Friday and Saturday afternoons) will be on Floor 1.

Floor 2:

  • Main Space - general hacking and where the opening ceremony and closing showcase will happen
    • Open from Friday: 9am - 2am; Saturday: 7am - 2am; Sunday: 7am - 5pm
  • Foyer off Main Space - breaks, snacks and socializing

Lobby level:

  • Event registration (on Thursday from 12 - 7pm; on Friday from 8 - 930am)
  • Space for attendees to socialize and play games

Floor 1:

  • Space 4 - Unconference sessions and hacking space
    • Friday
      • 1045am - 1pm: Unconference sessions
      • 1 - 11pm: Hacking
    • Saturday
      • 7am - 1215pm: Unconference sessions
      • 1215 - 11pm: Hacking
    • Sunday
      • 7am - 2pm: Unconference sessions
  • Space 5 - Unconference sessions and games
    • Friday
      • 1045am - 5pm: Unconference sessions
      • 630 - 11pm: Tombola Night
    • Saturday
      • 7am - 5pm: Unconference sessions
    • Sunday
      • 7am - 2pm: Unconference sessions
  • Space 6 - Quiet space
  • Ristorante Betulla - Where lunch and dinner will be provided

Room availability:

  • Our hacking rooms -The Main Space will be open until 2am on Friday and Saturday night; Space 4 will be open until 11pm.
  • Space 5 and Space 6 will be closed overnight starting at 6pm.
  • On Sunday, all rooms close at 5pm

How to contribute

You can use the Phabricator templates here to propose a project or sign up as a participant looking for a project

Propose a session, workshop, or project

  • Proposed Projects - Hands-on skill development workshops on topics around the technology stack of Wikimedia projects.
  • Proposed Unconference Sessions - Sessions or workshops covering any of the Wikimedia technical areas.

For any of the items listed above, use the proposal template. Also, indicate in the task description if your proposed activity is newcomer-friendly.

Get the word out

  • Add your name and interests - including things you can teach and things you want to learn about - to our participants page.
  • Email the organizers with any questions, we can help!

Sign up as a participant

If you want to work on something but you're not sure what, use the participant template to let others know that you are looking for a project.

If you're interested in a specific unconference session, you can indicate your interest by subscribing to the task.

You can also add yourself to the Volunteer sign-ups column if you would like to help with small tasks involved with running the Hackathon.

How to conduct your session and/or workshop

Here are some tips:

  • We have a Hackathon themed slide deck with best practices and more; please make a copy and add the information for your session.
  • You can propose sessions as presentations, workshops, discussions, or any other format that suits your requirements.
    • Feel free to host language- or community-specific sessions and/or meetups.
  • Session focus should be less on beginner-level workshops (unlike in some previous Hackathons), as this event brings together individuals who have already contributed to technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects.
  • If there isn't a dedicated space for your session, be prepared to run your session without a projector at a specific hackathon table in a quiet corner of one of the bigger rooms, in the foyer, or outside.
  • You are welcome to reach out to the event organizers to seek help to prepare, get feedback on your presentation, or any training support you might need a few weeks before the hackathon event.

Social gatherings and side events in Milan

Format to use for your event

  • What:
  • Meeting point:
  • Meeting time:
  • Duration:
  • Itinerary:
  • Register your interest, using your signature (4 tildes):

Thursday 30 April 2026

Hackathon participants arrive

Friday 01 May 2026

Hackathon kicks off!

  • What: Board games
    • Meeting point: Space 5
    • Meeting time: 5 pm
    • Duration: 5pm - 830pm
    • max 6 people: Register your interest, using your signature (4 tildes):
      1. Tohaomg (talk) 13:45, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Saturday 02 May 2026

Hacking!

  • What: Learning and Creating LGBTQIA+ Knowledge and History in Milan (moved from 1 May 2026 due to Labour Day)
    • Meeting point: voco Milan-Fiere Hotel lobby
    • Meeting time: 3pm
    • Duration: ~3-4 hours (flexible, you can message us if you want to meet us earlier or later)
    • Itinerary (flexible and subject to change, please feel free to add locations you'd like or recommend below):
    • Register your interest, using your signature (4 tildes):
      1. Superraptor123 (talk) 13:24, 14 April 2026 (UTC), User:Superraptor123 (Clair Kronk)
  • What: Raspberry JAM
    • Meeting point: Space 5
    • Meeting time:5:30 PM
    • Duration:1 hour
    • Itinerary:

Register your interest, using your signature (4 tildes):

  1. -- Suyash Dwivedi (💬) 14:58, 24 April 2026 (UTC)
  2. CorraleH (talk) 06:42, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Sunday 03 May 2026

Hacking and closing ceremony!

Visit to downtown Milan: Following the closing ceremony, shuttle buses will be provided so participants can visit downtown Milan. Shuttles will depart the venue at 530pm and drop off participants near the Duomo (at Piazza Fontana), then return to the venue at 10pm.

Participants are free to self-organize their visit in downtown Milan.

Monday 04 May 2026

Participants head home

Code of Conduct

The Wikimedia Hackathon will enforce the Universal Code of Conduct, Code of Conduct for Wikimedia’s Technical Spaces, and the Friendly Space Policy across all facets of the event. This includes various platforms, discussion channels, and local meetups. Your adherence to these guidelines ensures a respectful and inclusive environment for all participants.

We recommend all participants review these Trust & Safety policies prior to your arrival at the venue.

Individuals not cooperating with these policies may be asked to leave the event. A dedicated team will be available on-site to help support a safer environment for all.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to use the talk page or to reach out to hackathon@wikimedia.org.

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