Strengthening tools, relationships, and LATAM technical community – Diff

From May 1 to May 3, 2026, I attended the Wikimedia Hackathon in Milan, Italy, representing Wikimedia Chile. While I was the only participant traveling from Chile, several Wikimedians from across Latin America joined the event, making it an especially valuable space for regional connection and collaboration.

More than code: why being there matters

Hackathons are often framed as places to “write code together”, but for me their value goes beyond shipping features. I can contribute code from home, what is much harder to replicate online is the chance to meet the people behind the systems, build trust, and have focused conversations with key contributors and maintainers.

In Milan, I met with people from the Wikimedia Foundation, maintainers and admins of community infrastructure, and contributors working on tools and workflows that support newcomers on Wikipedia. These in-person conversations helped align perspectives, understand constraints, and identify opportunities that are difficult to surface asynchronously.

Themes that resonated: data reuse and infrastructure from Latin America

Across discussions (formal and informal) two themes felt particularly relevant from a Latin American perspective:

• Data reuse and open infrastructure: how we can better reuse Wikimedia data to build tools that matter locally, and how to sustain them over time.
• Strengthening regional technical capacity: how to grow and support a community that can maintain tools, document solutions, and contribute consistently from our side of the world.

These topics are not abstract for us: infrastructure and sustainability often look different in regions where resources, connectivity, and institutional support vary widely. Talking about them in a global technical space made the need for regional strategies and mentorship even clearer.

LATAM technical community session: shared challenges, concrete next steps

For the second time at a Wikimedia Hackathon, we held an official session to articulate and strengthen the Latin America technical community. Around 12 people joined, representing countries such as Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, and Colombia, among others.

We used the session to discuss recurring challenges in the region, including how to onboard new contributors, how to avoid working in isolation, and how to make technical participation more sustainable. From that conversation, we agreed on a few concrete next steps:

• Map the wants and needs of the region in a more structured way (so we’re not guessing what matters).
• Continue regular LATAM technical community calls, using them for coordination, sharing, and visibility.
• Set up mentorship pathways, to help newcomers move from interest to contribution with support.

As part of the wider hackathon program, I also joined a session about women in tech, focused on beginning to map barriers and experiences. We plan to share a separate Diff post about that discussion.

Hacking outcomes: updates to Geo Editores and Geo Conflictos

Alongside community work, I contributed to improvements in Geo Editores and Geo Conflictos.

In Geo Editores, the tool is now available in English and prepared for additional translations. We also implemented dark mode, added a new visualization, and created a section to compare different Wikimedia projects. These changes are already live.

For Geo Conflictos, the main progress was on the data modeling side. Because environmental conflicts are not always represented consistently in Wikidata, we worked on identifying a better modeling approach, so the tool can retrieve and display items more reliably, strengthening the foundation the tool depends on.

Looking ahead

Personally, the hackathon reinforced why these gatherings matter: they help me stay connected to the technical side of the Wikimedia movement, build relationships, and be more involved in the conversations that shape our shared infrastructure.

At the same time, it also highlighted something I would love to see more of: spaces to discuss technical “political” decisions, the questions about trade-offs, priorities, and governance that deeply affect communities and tools. That might be something to propose for other conferences or future formats.

Next steps after Milan are to continue development, onboard more contributors to the tools, and keep investing in the LATAM technical community through mapping, calls, and mentorship.

Know more about Wikimedia Chile’s Tech work here. If you’d like to contribute to our repositories or join the Latin America technical community calls, feel free to reach out at [email protected].

Related