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Annual Report 2021 Wikimedia CH | Full-length report

Muriel Staub, Wikimedia CH Board President (3 - see the photo credits at the end of the page)

A word from the president

Wikipedia turned 20 in 2021. It’s almost impossible to imagine our lives without it – and the dimensions of its existence are overwhelming: in Swiss official languages alone, Wikipedia is more than 6.8 million articles strong. And together with its sister projects like Wikidata or Wikimedia Commons, it has become an essential infrastructure.

On an organizational level, Wikimedia CH reached another milestone in 2021 by becoming financially independent – meaning we are no longer relying on the support of the Wikimedia Foundation. With this important step, we were able to “release” funds from the foundation to go elsewhere and support other Wikimedia chapters, groups or individuals worldwide – who are not based in a wealthy country with generous individuals and a great local funding infrastructure.

With this newfound freedom, we dare to dream and start to envision our future together – by working hard on our five-year strategy. This strategy aligns with the Wikimedia Movement Strategy 2030 and guides us in how to focus our resources in the areas we aim for the greatest impact. Preferably, it will also help us flourish as a learning organization that continuously builds, experiments, adjusts and learns.

In 2022 and beyond, Wikimedia CH will continue to serve our communities and our mission – and do everything in our power to advocate for free knowledge.

From the bottom of our hearts, we say: Thank you to all the people out there who make these things possible. Thank you to the Wikipedians and Wikimedians, to this community, the Movement, the donors and partners – and to the team, the board and the members of Wikimedia CH. Merci, Grazie, Danke for your dedication, tenacity and passion for free knowledge and for extending Swiss heritage, culture and innovation throughout our country and worldwide.

Let’s keep taking good care of Wikipedia and all projects fostering free knowledge.

And let’s be kind and take good care of each other.

Muriel Staub

Wikimedia CH Board President

Jenny Ebermann, Wikimedia CH Executive Director (5)

A word from the executive director

Despite the continuing pandemic and the challenges it presented, 2021 was a successful year for Wikimedia CH. Our programmatic activities centered around three main focal points: Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary, 50 years of women’s suffrage in Switzerland and our new five-year strategy.

Our celebration of women’s suffrage attracted new partners and volunteers and developed and strengthened existing bonds. It was the first year we linked many events to a common theme, and we discovered that it built momentum and engagement. So too did flagship events such as the 20th-anniversary celebrations and the inaugural in-person WikiSwiss Awards.

Our first-ever bilingual workshop responded to the needs of today’s community members, while our work establishing an Innovation Lab laid the necessary foundation to support tomorrow’s members. Plus, our chapter’s new strategy for 2022-2026 will guide us in making substantial impacts over the next five years and learning from our work so that we continually evolve.

Looking to 2022, we will capitalize on the lessons learned in 2021. We will begin implementing the new five-year strategy while continuing to adapt our activities and organization to the ever-changing environment and Switzerland’s multilingual needs. As the pandemic enters its third year, we aim to leverage our team’s flexible, virtual nature and expertise, navigating the digital landscape to continue to build our reputation as a trustworthy partner in online knowledge.

I am exceedingly proud to serve alongside the chapter’s staff and board members and to be surrounded by a community, partners and stakeholders devoted to a concept as deeply fundamental as open knowledge. We contribute to the foundations underpinning not only our own work but the lives and livelihoods of millions worldwide. As we enter 2022, I look forward to working together to advance free knowledge for an informed and open society in Switzerland and beyond. And to close with the words of Thích Nhất Hạnh: The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment.”

Jenny Ebermann

Wikimedia CH Executive Director

Strategy at a glance

Our mission

Wikimedia CH’s mission is to:

Our strategy

The Wikimedia Foundation officially recognizes Wikimedia CH as the Swiss chapter of the global Wikimedia Movement. We support and advance free knowledge, focusing on four impact directions:

  1. Program GLAM – We collaborate with galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) throughout Switzerland to provide digital access to memory institutions’ collections and artifacts. We aim to share the country’s culture and history in a sustainable format and across all borders.
  2. Program Education – We deliver and collaborate on education programs that advance learning for children and adults at every level. Our work supports lifelong learning as well as teachers and trainers at schools, universities and other higher education institutions.
  3. Program Community – We help the community of Wikipedians in Switzerland grow by supporting existing contributors and cultivating new ones. Among other activities, we train and mentor Wikipedia editors and support our community’s diverse and multicultural interests with targeted programming.
  4. Partnership & Outreach – We believe in using our unique position in the field of information exchange to be an influencer on national and international issues concerning open access and open knowledge. We offer our viewpoints on copyright, technology and more.

2021 snapshot:

Key metrics for the year

1.5 million people reached in Switzerland

300 newly registered users among 1,200 total participants

30,000+ content pages created or improved across all Wikimedia projects

10,000 items of content reused by other Wikimedia projects, showing we focused on quality impacts over mass uploading

GLAM

(Galleries, libraries, archives and museums)

In 2021, Program GLAM partnered with GLAM institutions in and outside Switzerland and collaborated with fellow chapters. The program built digital competence and technologies to improve access to cultural heritage and diversity. This year’s GLAM program was also packed with events celebrating 50 years of women’s suffrage in Switzerland. Existing and new collaborations coalesced around this theme. For example, we joined longtime partner Who writes his_tory? to lead an edit-a-thon concentrating on Swiss women filmmakers, described in detail in GLAM’s upcoming highlight section.

We strengthened and developed partnerships around the women’s suffrage celebration. And at the same time, we ensured a holistic Program GLAM and investigated ways to sustainably scale the program and build team capacity. One of many examples is Program GLAM’s work to share technological knowledge, which we achieved via two different approaches. First, we offered events that made tech-related knowledge more accessible, such as GLAM on Tour at the Enter Museum (a museum of technological artifacts and their manuals) and our various activities with the library of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Library). Second, we further advanced our own technologies and continued sharing them with the GLAM community, Wikipedia chapters and people around the world. They include the WMCH Map Service and GLAM Statistical Tool, allowing users to learn about GLAM resources throughout Switzerland and other countries and to easily discern how best to improve related knowledge shared on Wikipedia.

An ad for WMCH Map Service (9).

Highlight activity

50 Years Swiss Women’s Suffrage was a hallmark of Program GLAM in 2021. Multiple events contributed to a year-long celebration that inspired fantastic community engagement and helped develop new GLAM partnerships under a unifying theme. In fact, a new opportunity emerged as professionals from participating GLAM institutions asked us to repeat a similar event in their own organization. All event formats worked well – online, hybrid and in-person.

50 years of women’s right to vote in Switzerland, celebrated as Wikimedia CH’s theme for 2021 (11).

Of particular interest was a virtual edit-a-thon about Swiss women filmmakers that was part of the schedule for the Solothurn Film Festival. Led by representatives of Who writes his_tory? and Wikimedia CH, the workshop focused on Wikipedia articles about women in film and women’s suffrage in three languages (German, French and Italian). This edit-a-thon was our chapter’s first bilingual workshop, taking place in both French and German. (Italian was also an option. While there were no Italian-speaking participants, articles in Italian were created and edited during the event.)

In 2016, volunteer group Who writes his_tory? began a German-language initiative to increase and improve Wikipedia information about art and feminism. With this 2021 event, Program GLAM and Program Community partnered to reach German- and French-speaking community members alike. Furthermore, the writing workshop was a fantastic way to integrate the Wikiverse into the film festival, continuing the Who writes his_tory? partnership with this decades-old heritage institution that celebrates Swiss film productions.

Key program activities

  • Offered GLAM on Tour at the Enter Museum, allowing participants to interact with thousands of technological artifacts. Technical manuals and reference books helped to improve Wikipedia articles.
Tape recorder from the Swiss brand Revox, in the Enter Museum (12).
  • Readied the GLAM Statistical Tool for a global rollout as it continues to garner great feedback from other chapters.
  • Improved the WMCH Map Service software so that international cards can load faster, making the application more user-friendly for chapters and GLAM institutions outside Switzerland. Also, formulated new requirements for the WMCH Map Service, to be implemented in early 2022.
  • Following the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, set up a project page to share the International Council of Museums (ICOM) appeal to preserve the country’s art and cultural treasures on Wikipedia and other Wiki platforms. We have worked closely with ICOM on past International Museum Day events and did the same this year.
  • With the German and Austrian chapters, joined #1Lib1Ref for the first time and created project pages in German and French, issuing a call to add reliable evidence to Wikipedia articles where it is missing.
  • Produced various activities with the ETH Library – e.g. GLAMHack 2021 and WikiProject ETH Portraits. Uploaded library content onto Wikimedia projects (including a complete gallery of women elected to the national parliament in 1971) and organized workshops.
  • Led activities for International Museum Day 2021 in collaboration with border chapters, including a Wikidata Contest, a social media campaign and an article with ICOM.
  • Supported International Archives Week 2021, focusing on the theme “Empowering Archives.”
  • Contributed to the Memoriav OpenGLAM Online Symposium with an opening speech, a Wikiverse presentation and a Wikimedia Commons workshop in French with simultaneous translation in German.
  • Collaborated to ensure that the world-famous fossil collection of Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle Neuchâtel is now available on Wikimedia Commons and its attached scientific data is searchable on Wikidata.
  • Developed and financed Wikidata introduction courses for GLAM in German and English in cooperation with the OpenGLAM CH working group.
  • Facilitated a successful event with the political think tank Foraus to create and edit Wikipedia articles about women in foreign politics.

Program impact

  • We created a thematic focus that tied back to the mission: 50 years of women’s suffrage in Switzerland. It gave many of the year’s activities cohesion and focus, which helped us reach new GLAMs and volunteers with a subject that interested them.
A balloon campaign for women’s suffrage, Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich (14).
  • Part of the women’s suffrage events included a collaboration with Program Community to lead the first bilingual (French/German) workshop, ensuring that a larger part of the Wikipedia community could join the event.
  • We also developed new partnerships, including a partnership with the Swiss Jesuits, who have a first-class library in Zurich and a large archive on the order’s activities in Switzerland. They showed great interest in strengthening their partnership with Wikimedia CH. The first Wikipedia workshop took place in 2021, with a continuation planned for 2022.
  • Our GLAM Statistical Tool continued to receive great feedback from other chapters. This feedback helps us ready the tool for a global rollout.

Looking ahead

As Program GLAM turns its focus to 2022, we will introduce a new theme to leverage this year’s lessons. The Year of Sound celebrates the 100th year of radio in Switzerland and focuses on music, soundwaves, and other audio heritage. Just as with our women’s suffrage celebration, we intend to engage co-organizers and build a cohesive set of events around the new theme. We’ve already issued a call to Wikimedians, GLAMs and partners to participate, edit related Wiki content and/or plan events. Also, a workshop at the Swiss Postal Services, Telegraphy and Telephony (PTT) archives is already planned, as is a conference at the Enter Museum.

Of course, we will continue serving the interests across the spectrum of GLAM topics beyond the Year of Sound. Our longtime practice has been to scale programming that has proven successful in the past. The structure of GLAM on Tour events — whereby Wikipedians are invited to an exclusive, multi-day excursion at a select GLAM institution — is one that our community has always favored. As such, we are planning four GLAM on Tour events for 2022, including one confirmed with the Zurich Central Library.

Along with programmatic planning, Program GLAM will focus on improving and scaling operations in 2022. We will explore how to build the team’s capacity to manage our expanding program. Also, we will help integrate Wikimedia tools and workflows into Swiss GLAM institutions.

Education

As in past years, Program Education supported education for all age levels in 2021, particularly around tools for educators, digital innovation and access to education. We continued building and supporting scalable, reusable partnership models and free platforms for educational content. We also explored how to build the team to manage both educational activities and a new innovation space starting in 2022. Last, we helped teach learners how to write Wikipedia articles and evaluate an article’s quality to build digital skills and literacy.

This work was in line with Program Education’s strategy to provide material and tools to trainers, emphasizing the Theory of Change model where teachers can leverage their unique relationships with students to transform education. In Switzerland, educators are hungry for technology and new methodologies, and Wikimedia CH can provide solutions, particularly around online learning and open knowledge. These interests align with Wikimedia CH’s new five-year strategy (2022-2026), which adds Experimentation & Innovation as a fifth impact direction (in addition to the four current directions). As such, much of Program Education’s work in 2021 centered on building the foundation for innovation going forward.

Highlight activity

Program Education provided consistent funding to several free platforms that are pursuing their own independent programs to make educational content accessible to kids: (1) Wikimini, an online encyclopedia for and by students (older children help younger ones write entries); (2) Dicoado, a dictionary for and by students available in Switzerland’s French linguistic area; (3) Chinderzytig, a newspaper for young people published by an association of teachers; and (4) Klexikon, a German online encyclopedia for children aged six to twelve years modeled after Wikipedia. Wikimedia CH’s own openedu.ch offers even more tools for educators, providing them with a platform to search which Wikimedia and associated projects are available for their lessons.

Klexicon bookmarks (18).

Thanks in part to our support, several of the platforms were improved in 2021. Of note:

  • Wikimini was migrated to a new data center to ensure reliability and improved performance.
  • Dicoado received a complete restyling and improved user interface. The team is also planning to open the platform in other languages.
  • Chinderzytig instituted a new strategy to propose more solutions to Switzerland’s German-speaking schools.

This work was essential to lay the groundwork for launching an Innovation Lab in 2022 as part of our Experimentation & Innovation impact direction. Our partnership model supports innovative projects and aims to advance innovation in the field of education. Each platform reports back to Wikimedia CH on its progress. Already, we have created a synergy with Chinderzytig and Dicoado by championing the new ideas they have shared with us. For example, Dicoado made software improvements in 2021, including implementing a chat feature, and the project leader shared with us the lessons learned from their implementation and related training.

Key program activities

Switzerland’s Wiki Science Competition 2021 (19).
  • Continued work on openedu.ch by mapping the European key competences to Wikimedia projects so that educators understand and use our platforms.
  • Supported three Wikipedia for Peace camps in collaboration with ongoing partner Service Civil International (SCI). An online camp about women’s suffrage was held in February, and another online camp about SCI history took place in April. In September, we supported the week-long in-person camp Wikipedia for Peace: Climate Justice. At each camp, participants learned how to write Wikipedia articles and learned about inspiring activists, events and organizations.
  • Financially supported Switzerland’s participation in the international Wiki Science Competition, the largest photo contest in the world. For the second time, Switzerland also held a national contest with its own jury and prizes; the contest included Liechtenstein.
  • Advanced lifelong learning in science through edit-a-thons in partnership with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
Women in Science, an EPFL edit-a-thon (20).
  • Contributed to a scientific paper on Wikipedia as a tool for academic teaching, working with the University of Zurich and garnering interest from other chapters.
  • Partnered with institutions to support university-level education, helping students learn to contribute to Wikipedia. Some examples include (1) Partner: University of Bern. Program: Bachelor-level seminar about “Women at the PTT” in cooperation with the historical PTT archives. (2) Partner: University of Neuchâtel. Program: Bimonthly online WikiNeocomensia meetups for future GLAM professionals. (3) Partner: Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). Program: A joint project for students in the Applied Languages program to undertake real translation assignments from Wikipedia.
  • Collaborated with educators to support learning at the high school level and below, leading lessons and workshops for both teachers and students about using Wikipedia and other projects in an academic context. For example, we taught students how to evaluate the quality of a Wikipedia article and create their own articles with Lernfeld Wikipedia, a project of the 3BZ class of Muttenz High School. We will have a follow-up in 2022 with the same ambassador.

Program impact

  • Our work with Wikimini, Klexikon, Chinderzytig and Dicoado – as tools that can operate in the academic context – created a strong model, learnings and synergies in 2021 to develop an Innovation Lab starting in 2022.
  • Also in preparation for the forthcoming innovation space, we continued to improve and promote openedu.ch by ensuring that educators relying on the European Union’s educational rubric can see how openedu.ch and Wikimedia projects align with the key competences.
  • Finally, in 2021, we began developing an Education strategy that focuses on free learning platforms to make education more accessible.
openedu.ch (22).

Looking ahead

In 2022, Program Education will incorporate a substantial portion of its work into Wikimedia CH’s new Experimentation & Innovation impact direction to enable innovation in education. We will build the team’s capacity with a dedicated resource to create the Innovation Lab.

This work aligns with the Wikipedia Movement Strategy. One of the strategy’s priority initiatives is to “enhance communication and collaboration capacity with partners and collaborators” (under the recommendation “coordinate across stakeholders”). The Innovation Lab will provide a sandbox where collaborators can invent and explore together. Another priority initiative is “continuous experimentation, technology, and partnerships for content, formats, and devices” (under the recommendation “innovate in free knowledge”). Similarly, the Innovation Lab’s reason for being is to inspire new educational technologies that make learning more accessible.

Throughout 2021, we worked closely with relevant partners and stakeholders to amplify our efforts and augment our sustainability and efficiency without reinventing the wheel. We’ll do the same in 2022. Our goal is to identify promising tools gaining momentum in Switzerland’s education community and help them flourish without competing with one another.

Community

As in past years, Program Community focused its activities on community health, community building, recruitment and international collaboration. Our 2021 activities were dominated by the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia, 50 years of women’s suffrage in Switzerland and the WikiSwiss Awards. In collaboration with Program GLAM, we held our first-ever bilingual workshop as part of the women’s suffrage theme, making the event more accessible to Switzerland’s German- and French-speaking communities. Thematic events also included the sixth edition of Women for Wikipedia.

The Swiss flag icon developed to celebrate Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary (25).

Program Community also launched a flagship event with our first-ever awards ceremony to honor key volunteers throughout Switzerland, as explained in Community’s highlight section. We enhanced our international relationships at WikiCons and Wikimania, and we promoted interests valued by our community, including the topic of Black people and culture, as well as climate change. We hope the WikiSwiss Awards and all our activities will continue to build connections and show our gratitude for years to come.

Highlight activity

Ulrich Lantermann, Community Manager for the German-speaking part of Switzerland, honors the community member with the username Hadi. The 5- and 10-year awards are in the foreground (27).

In 2021, Wikimedia CH conceived of and realized the first-ever WikiSwiss Awards and the accompanying in-person celebration on 12 June in Lucerne. We welcomed 55 guests to the event, and many of the attendees met in person for the first time. It received almost universally positive feedback and was a valuable networking opportunity. In addition to the awards, the half-day ceremony included a celebration of Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary, a networking lunch, two keynote presentations and a panel discussion. Read more about the speakers and the future of data in the Partnership & Outreach highlight later in this report. Or watch our video about the ceremony.

The WikiSwiss Awards honored the extraordinary work and dedication of the community’s volunteers. In particular, this year’s awards were given to those Wikipedians living in Switzerland who’d been active for at least the past five years and enhanced Wikimedia projects in German, Italian, French, Alemannic or Romansh. The winners contributed a minimum of 10,000 edits, including contributing consistently to Swiss-related content (at least 50 edits and 1,000 bytes in a single article) in the main categories related to Switzerland.

At the awards ceremony, we also celebrated the winner of Wiki Loves Switzerland 2020. While this contest actually occurred the year before, we handed out the award at our 2021 ceremony. You can read more about Wiki Loves Switzerland in Wikimedia CH’s Annual Report 2020.

Winner of Wiki Loves Switzerland 2020, awarded at the 2021 WikiSwiss Awards. An alphorn player taking a break after playing Swiss folk music for tourists on Mt. Pilatus (28).

Key program activities

Torchlight procession for women’s suffrage in Zurich. The banner reads, “We love our country too. Let’s be responsible for it” (29).
  • Of note among the events celebrating 50 years of women’s suffrage: In response to a clear demand from our community, we held the first-ever bilingual event: the January 2021 virtual edit-a-thon about women in film presented in German and French. This same event was the first time a community group had evolved to create a dual-language event. The Who writes his_tory? initiative has been a German-language volunteer group for years but changed their typical programming to offer a more explicit welcome to the French-speaking community. The event’s successes included 11 articles created and 20 more improved by the 12 or so French-language participants (see the event dashboard). Moreover, Programs GLAM and Community collaborated to support the event, lending expertise in both fields. (More details about the edit-a-thon are in GLAM’s highlight section.)
  • Participated in WikiCons. WikiCon Francophone was a 100% virtual event organized by a team out of Tunis, Tunisia. A hybrid German WikiCon included live activities in Erfurt, Germany, and worldwide online participation. Ulrich Lantermann, Community Manager, shed light on the topic “Wikipedia in Education” and presented current projects from Switzerland.
  • Supported weekly online meetups and an edit-a-thon with Noircir Wikipedia to improve articles about Black people and culture, recruit new Wikipedians and support international outreach.
An atelier by Noircir Wikipedia at the Brülhart Gallery, which features contemporary art by African women (30).

Program impact

Advertisement for the Edit-a-thon on Women in Film at the Solothurn Film Festival. It was the chapter’s first-ever bilingual event and marked an expansion in the language communities embraced by the event’s host, Who writes his_tory? (32).
  • In 2021, Program Community held the chapter’s biggest in-person event ever (hosting 55 people) to celebrate Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary and the WikiSwiss Awards.
  • In another first, we supported the first-ever bilingual activity, meeting a clear need from the community. The edit-a-thon about Swiss women filmmakers at the Solothurn Film Festival was held in German and French, expanding access to the Who writes his_tory? events that have been offered only in German for years.
  • Program Community attracted new editors and re-energized existing ones with the chapter’s thematic focus. Even workshop series that have been offered for years supported the theme. For example, WikiProjekt Schweiz, a series of writing ateliers, included a workshop at the Historical Museum in Baden on women’s historical biographies and another workshop at the Gosteli Foundation, the archive on the history of the Swiss women’s movement in Worblaufen near Bern.
  • Throughout the year, we continued to build our experience around successful virtual and hybrid events.

Looking ahead

In 2022, we plan to further explore how to scale our Community efforts to better engage volunteers. As mentioned in Program GLAM, we learned in 2021 that our chapter can build engagement and interest with a thematic focus and that we should engage co-organizers to marshal needed resources and extend the impact of thematic programming. These same lessons apply to Program Community. As part of our efforts, we will recruit a junior-level Community Manager to involve community members more actively. We will also promote community members’ ongoing involvement in yearlong thematic events centered around the Year of Sound.

Operationally, we will look at revamping some or all train-the-trainer programs so that trainers who prepare institutions’ instructors to host future workshops on their own are compensated for their time and effort – a clear demand from our community.

Partnerships & Outreach

A slide is from a presentation describing Wikimedia CH’s belief in and advocacy for open access and open knowledge — in Switzerland, throughout Europe and across the globe (35).

Wikimedia CH believes in using its unique position in the field of information exchange to be an influencer on issues concerning open access and open knowledge — in Switzerland, throughout Europe and across the globe. We offer our viewpoints on copyright, digital sustainability, technology and more, creating partnerships and reaching out to other actors in the various fields wherever possible. In 2021, our activities focused on national advocacy to influence policy while building upon existing relationships and starting new ones with like-minded organizations. For example, we continued our longtime affiliation with Parldigi, the Swiss parliamentary group on digital sustainability founded in 2009 that became an association in 2021. We also presented projects and examples of our work promoting free knowledge at the first Swiss Virtual Expo.

Furthermore, we began exploring a new focus on environmental issues and climate change. We collaborated with Klima-Allianz Schweiz, a new alliance for our chapter, and Alliance Digitale, which added the topic of climate change to its activities.

Our fundraising remained crucial to obtain a budget for 2022 activities, while our communication activities supported all our initiatives.

Highlight activity

As the Program Community highlight mentioned, the WikiSwiss Awards Ceremony was a half-day event that brought the community, donors and partners together for meaningful discussions and networking opportunities. While honoring the dedication of our volunteers, we also took time to discuss the future of data. Attendees were given the following prompt ahead of the event to spark discussion.

The monopolization and capitalization of knowledge: What is knowledge worth in the digital age? Who will control access to knowledge in the future? How can knowledge be made more democratic?
Attendees at the WikiSwiss Awards discuss the future of data (37).

Two keynote speakers addressed this theme. The first was Monique Morrow, an American telecommunications engineer and president and co-founder of Humanized Internet, a nonprofit organization active in protecting the digital identities of underrepresented populations. The second speaker was Hannes Grassegger, who is, among other things, a technology reporter, economist, former financial analyst, member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Experts Community and author of “Das Kapital bin Ich” (Kein & Aber Verlag, Berlin/Zürich, 2014) about why we should own our data. After the keynotes, four panelists discussed the same theme with attendees. (Watch our video about the ceremony, which includes highlights of the presentations.)

Key program activities

  • Participated in Parldigi meetings around topics like open knowledge, electronic identification devices and data privacy. Attended a hybrid online parliamentarian dinner on artificial intelligence.
  • Of note among our activities as part of Parldigi: Wikimedia CH has worked for years at the political level to shape opinions about open knowledge. A key example is our advocacy for free access to images made on behalf of the government (e.g. see the 2019 impact report discussing our past work). The issue won major support this year when the Federal Council supported a motion approving the copyright release of images created on behalf of the Confederation.
  • As a founding member, officially launched WikiFranca under Swiss legislation at the French-speaking WikiCon in November. The nonprofit association will build partnerships with institutions and cultural networks, providing the French-speaking community with reliable and diversified sources.
  • Conducted significant outreach around Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary. Activities included (1) singing “Happy Birthday” live on Zoom with the team, partners and Jimmy Wales (access via Facebook); (2) producing a video (see it at 57:34 of this YouTube video) for Wikipedia’s global virtual birthday party, which we shared on all channels; and (3) incorporating a celebration for longtime Wikipedians at the first-ever WikiSwiss Awards (described in the Community and Outreach highlight sections).
  • Joined online meetings for the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU (FKAGEU) and the Alliance Digitale, the latter of which included adding the topic of climate change to the alliance’s activities.
  • Joined the Klima-Allianz Schweiz, an alliance of civil society organizations committed to climate justice. Also worked with other diverse stakeholders on environmental topics related to data.
  • Continued professionalizing our communication and fundraising practices, including creating new plans, sending out successful fundraising campaigns, improving our donor database, allowing donations through Twint and ensuring outreach tools are compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
  • Spoke at Swiss Post in Bern as well as on other occasions to share best practices around transparency, virtual work, women in leadership and organization.
  • Presented projects and examples of our work to promote free knowledge at the first Swiss Virtual Expo, a virtual 3D exhibition for companies, people and projects that animate the Swiss business scene. Our partner organization ated - ICT Ticino hosted the expo for its 50th anniversary.
Wikimedia CH presented our work to promote free knowledge at the first Swiss Virtual Expo, hosted by our partner ated - ICT Ticino for its 50th anniversary (38).
  • Continued supporting Kiwix, which was selected as a finalist for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Solve Challenge in Digital Inclusion, coming out on top of 1,800 other applicants this year.
  • Collaborated on international public relations concerning China blocking the Wikimedia Foundation request for observer status at the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), issuing media releases in Switzerland in German, French, Italian and English: China again blocks Wikimedia Foundation’s accreditation - Wikimedia.
  • Launched Wikimedia CH’s new YouTube channel in August – a useful outlet for video material.
  • Began work on key messages around Wikimedia CH’s vision, mission and work. This work is critical to better position the chapter, communicate the value of its work and develop consistent, cohesive outreach messages for the whole team.
New webpages on the Wikimedia CH site, including a link to the chapter’s new YouTube launched in August 2021 (39).

Program impact

  • Wikimedia CH helped attain a positive result from advocacy work around free access to images, earning the Federal Council’s support of Motion 21.4195 to release Confederation images on the Open Government Data Portal. This motion was on the agenda of the National Council on 18 December. Since a member of parliament opposed it, any decision was postponed to 15 March 2022. However, the principle of public access defined in the Open Government Data Strategy should be applied to images. In the future, they should be accessible to all and usable free of charge.
  • We built up our newsletter outreach, increasing our subscribers by more than 7,000, a 33% increase from January 2021 to January 2022.
  • We collaborated closely with the Wikimedia Foundation’s communication team for the first time. As a result, Jimmy Wales joined our Zoom celebration of Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary. Plus, we got a global echo on our awareness campaign with ICOM to protect Afghanistan’s cultural heritage.
  • The chapter advanced our climate change activities by creating a new partnership with Klima-Allianz Schweiz and strengthening our existing partnership with Alliance Digitale.
  • We emphasized a collaborative approach with partners to communicate about events, even teaming up to create several key visuals for our social media campaigns. Examples are the edit-a-thons at the EPFL and the edit-a-thon Les femmes du Jura with the Canton of Bern and Memoires d’ici.
Following the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Wikimedia CH supported ICOM’s appeal to preserve the country’s art and cultural treasures. This image is of a head of Buddha meditating from Haḍḍa, a Greco-Buddhist archeological site in Afghanistan (41).

Looking ahead

Wikimedia CH is a founding member of WikiFranca. As such, in 2022, we will continue supporting and helping to develop its new structure as a nonprofit association, aiming to build a viable partnership that continues to grow in its service to the French-speaking Wiki community.

More broadly, our chapter will continue maintaining and expanding current activities and advocating for issues important to the Wikimedia Movement, such as copyrights, freedom of panorama and net neutrality. We’ll also remain committed to environmental issues and climate change – a topic we began exploring in 2021 – especially as they relate to data and open knowledge. Wikimedia CH will analyze how to support and align with the Wikimedia Environmental Sustainability Covenant. Finally, we will proceed with defining the chapter’s key messaging to align with our vision, mission and values.

Looking ahead as a chapter

Our four impact directions – GLAM, Education, Community and Partnership & Outreach – intertwine with and support one another. And just as each program makes Wikimedia CH more than a sum of its parts, we strive to grow together to enhance the chapter as a whole. Beginning in 2022, Wikimedia CH plans to pursue a new five-year strategy, which includes the new Experimentation & Innovation impact direction. We also aim to become a learning organization that advances continuous, collective learning within our organization and with partners.

Specific to our programming, we will capitalize on our 2021 lessons learned by offering our community a theme around which we can build common interests, partnerships and engagement. To celebrate 100 years of radio in Switzerland, we will highlight 2022’s theme, Year of Sound, throughout many of our activities.

Beyond thematic activities, we’ll remain committed to scaling and leveraging past success rather than “recreating the wheel.” These include activities like the GLAM on Tour series, Lernfeld Wikipedia, the WikiSwiss Awards and our advocacy work with Parldigi. Similarly, we’ll continue advancing successful technologies, including the GLAM Statistical Tool, WMCH Map Service and openedu.ch.

Finally, we plan to build capacity in several areas, which is key to enabling our team. We recognize that with our chapter’s success comes more responsibility to follow through with similar programming. So, we will explore how to build the team’s capacity to expand Program GLAM’s activities, support Program Education’s work in the Innovation Lab and advance Program Community’s recruitment efforts. We’ll also foster more co-sponsorship opportunities and explore compensation for our train-the-trainer program(s) to extend our reach in partner organizations.

Finances 2021

Operational expenses

Revenues, total: CHF 3,200,756.54

Membership fees (CHF)

Budgetary distribution in Switzerland, total: CHF 1,514,344.38

Distribution of total funds (WMCH & Wikimedia Movement), total: CHF 4,335,999.33

Support free knowledge!

Join us in supporting access to free and unbiased knowledge. Besides being an active member in Wikimedia CH, or a contributor to Wikipedia and its sister projects, you can give tax-deductible financial support. Wikimedia CH is an independent non-profit. Your donations directly support some of the most popular collaborative reference projects in the world.

Wikimedia CH would like to thank the staff, community, board, partners and donors for making these projects possible. Together, we are working towards a diverse, open and, above all, knowledgeable society in Switzerland and beyond.

Photo credits

  1. The Matterhorn, a Swiss icon. Photo by Alma Chen, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  2. A wooden bridge over the Little Emme River in Hasle, Entlebuch. Photo by Gabrielle Merk, own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  3. Muriel Staub, Wikimedia CH Board President. Photo by Wikimedia CH.
  4. Shore of Lake Zug near Cham. Photo by Gabrielle Merk, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  5. Jenny Ebermann, Wikimedia CH Executive Director. Photo by Wikimedia CH.
  6. Sunrise at Lake Neuchatel on the Neuchatel side from the area of Bevaix, Neuchatel. Photo by Cembre, own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  7. Longines manual winding pocket watch, Model 4 Grand Prix, silver casing, manufactured approximately 1900. Rear view with wear marks and clockwork visible. Enhanced resolution. Photo by Franz van Duns, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  8. Swiss National Museum, Zurich. Photo by Ank Kumar, own work, CC0.
  9. An ad for WMCH Map Service. Image by Ilario, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  10. The Swiss women’s suffrage campaign. Photo by Comet Photo AG (Zürich), from the collection of the ETH Library. Published on Wikimedia Commons in cooperation with Wikimedia CH, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  11. 50 years of women’s right to vote in Switzerland, celebrated as Wikimedia CHs theme for 2021. Image by Lantus (talk), Wikimedia Deutschland, CC0.
  12. Tape recorder from the Swiss brand Revox, probably model D36 from the early 1960s, in the Enter Museum, Solothurn. Photo by Bobo11, own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  13. Heidi Specogna, a Swiss filmmaker, at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley (USA). Photo by Amzine123, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  14. A balloon campaign for women’s suffrage, Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich. Photo by Wolfgang Lindroos, Comet Photo AG (Zürich), from the collection of the ETH Library. Published on Wikimedia Commons in cooperation with Wikimedia CH, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  15. Swiss radio channels, SRG SSR (Swiss Broadcasting Corporation). Photo by Romi.Hofer, own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  16. Alpine bearberry (Arctostaphylos alpinus) in autumn colors at the Ofen Pass. Photo by Martingarten, own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  17. Swedish student, age 11, edits Wikimini using an Ipad. Photo by Sara Mörtsell (WMSE), own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  18. Klexicon bookmarks with a colorful background. Photo by Ziko, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  19. Switzerland’s Wiki Science Competition 2021. Photo by Ilario, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  20. Women in Science, an edit-a-thon held 11 February 2021 by the EPFL, a public research university in Lausanne. Photo by Ilario, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  21. Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on this planet. Cellulose nanocrystals are nanometer-sized rods that can be isolated from, for example, wood or cotton sources. Interestingly, the cellulose nanocrystals form self-assembled structures in water. Here, you can see a polarised optical microscopy image of the cellulose nanocrystals, which truly look like a Van Gogh painting. Photo by GwennDelepierre, own work, CC BY 4.0.
  22. Screenshot of openedu.ch. Photo by Ilario, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  23. A day in the large open space of the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence, managed by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) and the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). Photo by Marian Duven, own work, CC BY 4.0.
  24. High-resolution view of Zurich from the Quaibrücke, downstream on the Limmat River. This view shows some of the most important landmarks in Zurich: The towers of Fraumünster, Grossmünster and St. Peter (whose clock has Europe’s largest dial). The historic old town is on the right side of the river, and the area around the famous Bahnhofstrasse on the left. This panorama was constructed from two exposure layers with 13 images each, so from a total of 26 individual exposures. Photo by Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  25. The Swiss flag icon developed to celebrate Wikipedias 20th anniversary. Image by Lantus (talk), Wikimedia Foundation, CC0.
  26. Wikimedia CH celebrates 20 years of Wikipedia and premieres the WikiSwiss Awards at Neubad Luzern in Lucerne. Photo by Kerstin Sonnekalb (WMCH), own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  27. Ulrich Lantermann, Community Manager for the German-speaking part of Switzerland, honors the community member with the username Hadi. Photo by Lantina, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. Overlaid on the photo: The 5- and 10-year awards for the Wikimedia CH WikiSwiss Awards. Image by Lantus (talk), own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  28. Winner of Wiki Loves Switzerland 2020, awarded at the 2021 WikiSwiss Awards. An alphorn player taking a break after playing Swiss folk music for tourists on Mt. Pilatus. The player is mesmerized by the beauty of Switzerland’s landscape. Photo by Jeremy Blatti, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  29. Torchlight procession for women’s suffrage in Zurich. The banner reads, We love our country too. Let’s be responsible for it.” Photo by Heinz Baumann, Comet Photo AG (Zürich), from the collection of the ETH Library. Published on Wikimedia Commons in cooperation with Wikimedia CH, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  30. An atelier for Noircir Wikipedia on 18 December 2021 at the Brülhart Gallery in Geneva, which features contemporary art by African women. Photo by Flor (WMCH), own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  31. One of the most popular streets in Zúrich. Photo by Ottavio.Giovanniello, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  32. Advertisement for the Edit-a-thon on Women in Film at the Solothurn Film Festival in January 2021. It was the chapter’s first-ever bilingual event and marked an expansion in the language communities embraced by the event’s host, Who writes his_tory? Image by Debora (WMCH), own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  33. Tireless seagulls after a cruise on Lake Lucerne. Surrounded by popular excursion mountains and peaks, Lake Lucerne offers arguably the greatest scenic variety in Switzerland, characterized by a mild lake climate, boat cruises with five historic paddle wheel steamers and 15 elegant salon motor vessels, and the city of Lucerne. Photo by Dghosal, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  34. Lake Lugano, Paradiso. Photo by Gabrielle Merk, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  35. This slide is from a presentation describing Wikimedia CH’s belief in and advocacy for open access and open knowledge — in Switzerland, throughout Europe and across the globe. Image by Ilario, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  36. A community member asks a question during the panel discussion at the inaugural WikiSwiss Awards in June 2021. Photo by Kerstin Sonnekalb (WMCH), own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  37. At the WikiSwiss Awards Ceremony in June 2021, attendees also took time to discuss the future of data using the following prompt from Wikimedia CH: The monopolization and capitalization of knowledge: What is knowledge worth in the digital age? Who will control access to knowledge in the future? How can knowledge be made more democratic? Photo by Kerstin Sonnekalb (WMCH), own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  38. Wikimedia CH presented projects and examples of our work to promote free knowledge at the first Swiss Virtual Expo, a virtual 3D exhibition for companies, people and projects that animate the Swiss business scene, hosted by our partner ated - ICT Ticino for its 50th anniversary. Image by Ilario, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  39. New webpages on the Wikimedia CH site, including a link to the chapter’s new YouTube channel launched in August 2021. Image by Ilario, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  40. Multiple scans from the Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite have been stitched together to create this complete image of Switzerland. The southern part of the country is dominated by the Alps, some of which are snow-capped. One of the more obvious features in the lower central part of the image is the curved x-shape of the Aletsch Glacier, the largest in the Alps. Owing to climate change, the glaciers in this region are showing long-term retreat. Photo by the European Space Agency, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
  41. Following the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Wikimedia CH set up a project page to share the ICOM appeal to preserve the country’s art and cultural treasures on Wikipedia and other Wiki platforms. This image is of a head of Buddha meditating from Haḍḍa, a Greco-Buddhist archeological site in Afghanistan. This sculpture is featured in the Musée Georges Labit Toulouse, an archaeological museum located in Toulouse, France, dedicated to artifacts from the Far-Eastern and Ancient Egyptian civilizations. Photo by Didier Descouens, own work, public domain.
  42. Bern at sunset. Photo by Giles Laurent, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  43. The arm of Lake Lucerne in Uri Canton from Sisikon. Photo by Gabrielle Merk, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  44. Lake Thun and Niesen, a mountain peak in the Bernese Alps. Photo by Gabrielle Merk, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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