This blog post is an interview with Sana Sabir (User:CosmicCodex) reflecting on how WikiWomen+ Summit 2026 influenced her perspective on community, technology, AI, and women’s participation in Wikimedia. She highlights the importance of women supporting one another, the value of human-curated knowledge in the age of AI, and the many ways women can contribute to technical spaces without being programmers. Most importantly, Sana shares concrete plans to take her learnings back to her community through workshops, translation, documentation, and efforts to address knowledge gaps. 

For young Wikimedians, in-person events offer something that online collaboration often cannot – the chance to build genuine relationships, find mentors and peers, exchange ideas across communities, and return home with the confidence to turn inspiration into action. Over the years, the WikiWomen+ Summit has been one such space where women and allies from across the Wikimedia movement come together to share experiences, learn from one another, and explore how they can shape a more inclusive and sustainable future for free knowledge. 

As part of the WikiWomen+ Summit Core Organizing Team, I spoke with Sana about her experience at the Summit, the sessions that influenced her thinking, and the actions she plans to take after returning to her community.

Finding strength in community

When asked about the most valuable part of the Summit, Sana’s answer was not about a particular session or speaker. It was about the women she met.

“The women themselves. Being surrounded by resilient, welcoming leaders who uplifted and encouraged each other without judgment was transformative.”

For Sana, one of the most powerful aspects of the Summit was the openness between participants. Whether someone was an experienced Wikimedian or relatively new to the movement, people were willing to share, discuss, care and support one another.

That experience gave her a stronger sense of belonging within the global Wikimedia community.

“Realizing I’m part of a global network of women actively shaping the future of knowledge gave me renewed energy and solidarity,” Sana said.

Rethinking Wikimedia’s role in the age of AI

One session that particularly changed Sana’s perspective was Christophe’s talk on the next 25 years of Wikimedia.

The discussion about artificial intelligence made her reconsider how she viewed the relationship between AI and Wikimedia. Rather than seeing AI only as a challenge, she came away thinking about the unique value of human-curated and contextual knowledge.

As AI becomes increasingly widespread, Sana believes that Wikimedians have an increasingly important role to play in safeguarding & preserving knowledge that is grounded in human experience and context.

The idea of Wikimedians as “spearheads of knowledge” particularly stayed with her.

It shifted her perspective from asking how Wikimedia might simply respond to AI to thinking about what human contributors can uniquely provide in an increasingly automated information environment.

Looking for what is missing

Another important takeaway for Sana was the need to focus not only on what exists in Wikimedia projects, but also on what is still missing.

Inspired by the discussion around Women in Red, she wants to bring this approach into her own community by organising workshops that help contributors identify gaps in local knowledge.

For Sana, this means looking for overlooked subjects, stories, and perspectives that may not yet be adequately represented.

“We must preserve human context and ensure overlooked stories are documented before they’re erased by generic data models.”

This idea connects the work of individual contributors with a much larger question: whose knowledge gets documented, and whose stories remain invisible?

Making technology more accessible

Experience and insights from this year’s Summit also prompted Sana to think about the challenges women continue to face in Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem.

She highlighted issues including translation gaps, AI-related bias, copyright transparency, declining readership, and the need for more women to participate in technical contribution.

But one of her strongest takeaways was that technical contribution does not have to mean becoming an expert programmer.

Bee Piovesan’s session particularly influenced this perspective.

Sana realised that women can contribute to Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem in many ways: by usage of translating tools, documenting them, improving accessibility, and helping communities build or use technology that responds to their actual needs.

“I don’t need to be an expert coder; I can contribute by translating tools, documenting them, and making them accessible to other communities.”

For someone who wants to see more women participate in the Wikimedia technical ecosystem, this can be an important shift in thinking. Technical spaces can become more inclusive when contribution is understood beyond writing codes.

An unexpected lesson about editing

Not every takeaway from the Summit was technical.

One moment that surprised Sana was hearing contributors describe editing Wikipedia as something that could be personally meaningful and even therapeutic.

Some contributors shared how focusing on one edit at a time could provide attention, purpose, and a sense of visible progress.For Sana, this offered a different perspective on editing. Contributions are not only about adding knowledge to Wikimedia projects; they can also be personally fulfilling.

It was an unexpected reminder that community participation can affect contributors in ways that go beyond the measurable output of edits or uploads- Satisfaction is a success too 🙂

What should come next?

When asked what she would like to see at a future WikiWomen+ Summit, Sana had a practical suggestion: more hands-on workshops for non-technical participants.

She would like women to have more opportunities to learn how to translate, document, and work with Wikimedia tools, rather than feeling that technical contribution is reserved for experienced developers.She also suggested exploring ways to make Wikipedia more reader-friendly for women, particularly in conversations around gender gaps in readership.

For Sana, inclusion is not only about bringing more women into existing spaces. It is also about making those spaces easier to understand, participate in, and shape.

“You don’t need to code”

Sana’s message to women who are interested in Wikimedia but have not started contributing is simple:

“You don’t need to code.”

There are many ways to begin: editing an article, translating a tool, documenting technical resources, or helping others use Wikimedia projects.

She encourages women to start small and find a form of contribution that feels meaningful to them.

“The community is welcoming, and your perspective matters. Just start small; your voice is essential.”

It is a message that reflects one of the central themes of her Summit experience: there is no single correct way to become a Wikimedia contributor.

Turning a Summit into action

Perhaps the clearest indication of what the Summit meant to Sana is what she plans to do next.

Her first step is to share her learnings with the women of Wiki Club AMU and discuss what their community could address together.

She also plans to document and translate a Wikimedia tool for her community, simplify complex articles to make them more accessible, and continue exploring editing as a personally meaningful practice.

These are concrete actions that connect the Summit to community work beyond the event itself.

When asked to describe her WikiWomen+ Summit 2026 experience in one sentence, Sana called it:

“An empowering revelation that women can code, translate, document, heal, and lead in shaping the future of knowledge, addressing AI bias, simplifying language, and building tools we actually need.”

Her answer brings together the different ways she now sees participation in Wikimedia: through technology, documentation, translation, community building, and leadership.

The Summit gave her new perspectives, but the next step is turning those perspectives into action.

And perhaps that is one of the most valuable outcomes of a community event—not simply leaving with new ideas, but returning home with the confidence and motivation to do something with them.

About the interview

This interview was conducted by Gauri Gupta on behalf of the WikiWomen+ Summit Core Organizing Team.

Sana Sabir (CosmicCodex) is a Wikimedia contributor and member of the Wiki Club AMU community.

The responses have been lightly edited for clarity and flow while retaining the substance of Sana’s reflections.

When I applied for Train the Trainer (TTT) 2026, I expected to learn how to organize better events, facilitate workshops, and become a more effective trainer.

Over three days in Hyderabad, I certainly learned those skills but I also came away with something far more valuable: a new understanding of how strong Wikimedia communities are built and sustained.

Rather than focusing only on editing or technical skills, the program explored the people behind Wikimedia the contributors, organizers, mentors, and volunteers who make free knowledge possible. Through discussions, hands-on activities, and collaborative exercises, TTT encouraged participants to think beyond individual contributions and toward building welcoming, resilient communities.

Here are some of the lessons that stayed with me long after the program ended.

Communities come before content

One of the biggest surprises on the first day was that very little time was spent talking about editing, and all.

Instead, sessions explored trust, belonging, leadership, contributor motivation, and community participation.

The panel discussion “What Makes Us Stay? Trust and Participation in Communities” highlighted something every Wikimedia community experiences: attracting contributors is only the first step. Helping people feel welcomed, supported, and valued is what encourages them to stay.

Another activity challenged participants to analyze contributor data across language communities. Looking at the gap between the large number of people who consume knowledge online and the relatively small number who actively contribute made me rethink community growth. I realized that successful outreach is not measured only by how many people join an event it is also measured by how many continue contributing afterwards.

The sessions on leadership, trust, and the Universal Code of Conduct reinforced another important message: healthy communities are built intentionally. Trust is earned through respectful collaboration, inclusive spaces, and consistent support for newcomers.

Wikimedia Commons is about preserving knowledge not just photographs

Before attending TTT, I believed I already understood Wikimedia Commons.

I had uploaded photographs, organized Wiki Science competitions, and knew the basics of licensing and file uploads.

The Commons sessions completely changed that perspective. Rather than focusing on uploading more images, the discussions emphasized documenting knowledge in ways that remain useful for future contributors. We explored why metadata, categories, descriptions, geolocation, and licensing all play an essential role in making media discoverable and reusable. One idea particularly stayed with me. Commons does not necessarily need another photograph of a monument that has already been documented hundreds of times. It needs photographs that document the subject well.

That simple idea changed the questions I ask before uploading an image. Instead of asking whether I can upload a photograph, I now ask whether it genuinely helps someone understand a place, object, or tradition better.

The photo walk around the IIIT Hyderabad campus gave participants an opportunity to apply these ideas immediately. Rather than simply taking attractive photographs, we practiced documenting subjects from angles that communicated information clearly and added educational value.

The licensing session also helped demystify Creative Commons licenses through practical examples, making it easier to understand how open licensing enables collaboration across Wikimedia projects.

Good communication keeps communities growing

The final day focused on communication an area that is often overlooked but essential for sustaining volunteer communities.

A session on Visual Storytelling in Practice demonstrated how photographs and personal stories can help communicate knowledge more effectively than facts alone. It reminded me that contributors often remember stories long after they forget presentations.

Another workshop explored communication strategies for different audiences. Working in groups, participants designed outreach plans tailored to specific communities rather than relying on a single approach for everyone. That exercise reinforced a simple but important lesson:

There is no single Wikimedia audience. Students, teachers, heritage enthusiasts, language learners, and professionals all engage with Wikimedia for different reasons. Effective outreach begins by understanding those motivations.

The session on Wikivoyage also introduced me to another Wikimedia project that I had not previously explored in depth. It demonstrated how documenting travel knowledge, local culture, and places contributes to the broader free knowledge ecosystem.

Finally, a session on community communication platforms highlighted how mailing lists, Telegram groups, discussion forums, and social media help communities stay connected long after events have ended.

Building a community is not only about organizing an event. It is about creating ongoing conversations.

Learning by doing

One aspect of TTT that I particularly appreciated was its emphasis on practical learning.

Rather than relying entirely on presentations, participants engaged in group discussions, storytelling exercises, communication planning, case studies, and hands-on Commons activities.

These exercises encouraged us to apply ideas immediately instead of simply listening to them.

The collaborative nature of the program also created opportunities to learn from participants representing different language communities, projects, and experiences across the Wikimedia movement.

That diversity of perspectives became one of the most valuable parts of the training itself.

What changed after TTT?

The impact of Train the Trainer extended well beyond the three days of the program.

It changed how I think about community building.

Instead of focusing primarily on organizing events, I now think more about contributor retention, mentorship, and creating welcoming spaces for newcomers.

It changed how I contribute to Wikimedia Commons.

I now pay much greater attention to documentation quality, metadata, licensing, and preserving local heritage through meaningful photographs.

It also influenced my later work within the Wikimedia movement. Many ideas that I developed while preparing proposals for WikiConference India, as well as my growing interest in documenting local heritage and strengthening community communication, can be traced back to discussions and activities during TTT.

Most importantly, the program encouraged me to think beyond individual edits and toward strengthening the communities that make those edits possible.

Why programs like Train the Trainer matter

Every Wikimedia community faces different challenges, but many of those challenges share common themes: welcoming newcomers, retaining contributors, building trust, documenting knowledge responsibly, and communicating effectively.

Train the Trainer creates a space where volunteers can exchange experiences, learn from one another, and return home with practical ideas that can be adapted to their own communities.

For me, the greatest takeaway was not a single workshop or activity.

It was a shift in perspective.

Wikimedia is sustained not only by articles, photographs, or software, but by people who collaborate, mentor, listen, and continue learning together.

That is what I brought home from Train the Trainer 2026 and it is why I believe programs like TTT continue to play an important role in strengthening the Wikimedia movement.