The successes and mishaps of building an accelerator program

We finally wrapped up the second edition of the Wikimedia Accelerator UNLOCK! Once again, five project teams went through the intense three-month program, working on solutions that have the power to strengthen trust in information and trust in technology. 

But no two editions are ever the same!

Throughout this second edition of the UNLOCK Accelerator we made it our mission to experiment and learn from new and previous challenges. It was particularly helpful to look back at our evaluation from the previous edition and implement some of our earlier findings. However, we also found that some learnings that went particularly well last year were not true to this edition, leading to some unexpected outcomes that surely kept the journey an exciting one.

Sharing our lessons learned with you

Therefore, we wish to share our core lessons learned from UNLOCK 2021 with the intention of highlighting and making freely available what went particularly well or poorly in the planning and implementation of the program. Perhaps we will also inspire someone who can use our recommendations as a helpful resource in the development of their own work.

In addition to its documentation purpose, with the third UNLOCK edition in the works, we also want to use the results to further develop and advance the program going forward. 

Here is a first glimpse of what we learned:

• Did you know that we ended up pairing some of the project teams with two coaches, creating a coaching tandem which ended up being a highlight both for the project teams as well as the coaches?
• Eradicating a jury meeting for the selection process of the participating teams and going fully virtual ended up not working as planned.
• This year, participants were much more eager to engage in cross-team setups, but it wasn’t the thematic theme of the program (Re)Building trust in the digital age that they bonded over most. 

Get the full lessons learned!

You want to get the full insights and understand the motives and needs behind all major successes and flops?

Download our lessons learned here:

The basis of this document are 1:1 feedback sessions as well as anonymous surveys with the participants of the program, regular debriefs and retrospectives with all persons involved in the implementation (e.g. coaches, jury members, organizational and communication team), as well as our own evaluation sessions following each milestone of the program.

Enjoy the read and stay tuned for UNLOCK 2022 where we will certainly have more successes and mishaps to share!