DailySummary

Daily Summary

Sunday

Welcome to the last day of Wikimania 2014!

We are proud to announce that this year's conference, having attracted 2000 visitors, has been the biggest Wikimania to date.

The wide range of sessions that have taken place in the last three days focused on themes such as social machines, open data, democratic media and the future of education. Throughout the conference, we been able to reflect on both how far the project has come and what direction it should embrace in the future. In the light of the recent controversies regarding the new "right to be forgotten" policy and the David Slater copyright issue, the conference has provided us with the space to reinforce the key message which have guided the project since its creation, and which will continue to shape our future. Historically, Wikimania has been instrumental in communicating the vision to our ever-growing public and this year has been no different. We are grateful to all our speakers and attendees who have helped make the anniversary 10th Wikimania an open, creative and diverse space, therefore celebrating the very principles upon which Wikipedia was created. 

Today's featured sessions focus on news and media, including speeches from Carl Miller, Research Director for Centre for Analysis of Social Media at Demos, Dan Gillmor, author of "We the Media" and Danny O'Brien, the International Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Heather Ford, a journalist, researcher and open source activist spoke this morning about breaking news on Wikipedia, and The Democratic Media Roundatble discussed ways to encourage more people to use Wikipedia as their news source.

We're looking forward to today's workshops dedicated to tackling the gender issue and making Wikipedia a more diverse space.

"Ten Years of Wikimania: Now What?" will offer an interesting insight into the history of the conference and discuss what direction the project should be taking in the future.

The closing ceremony will start at 4:30 PM and it will include an address from Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder. The ceremony will be followed by a closing party with lots of music and entertainment, going on till midnight.

We would like to take this opportunity to thanks all speakers and atendees for making Wikimania 2014 a truly unforgettable experience. We also owe a big thank you to the 200+ volunteers who worked tirelessly to make sure the conference ran smoothly.

Saturday

Good Morning, Wikipedians!

Welcome to the second day of Wikimania 2014! We are looking forward to the wide range of informative sessions scheduled for today.

Yesterday we heard from, among others, Sir Nigel Shadbolt, the Chairman of the Open Data Institute, who spoke about the pioneering concept of social machines and the power of human interaction online.

There were a wide variety of sessions, ranging from 'Wikipedia and Medicine' and 'Machine aided article translation' to 'The state of wikiHow'.

'Which Law Applies to Wikipedia?' touched upon the findings in the Transparency Report published earlier this week and explored the legal challenges facing Wikipedia in its pursuit to provide free access to the sum of human knowledge to everyone.

In the afternoon, Elizabeth Marincola, the Chief Executive Officer at the Public Library of Science and our keynote speaker, talked about the Library's continued work to provide open access to scientific knowledge in the face of mounting pressure from commercial publishing houses.

The evening session featured WikiGeeks, a geek-based comedy show, and performances from a number of wonderful musicians, including Michael Baker, Tom Green, James Green, Richard Black, Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz, Power of Two, The Slumberjacks and Signatures.

We hope you are enjoying the conference as much as we are and we're looking forward to seeing you today!

Friday

Good afternoon! Welcome to Wikimania 2014.

The conference officially started last night with greetings from Edward Saperia, the Conference Director, Jon Davies, Chief Executive Wikimedia UK and Lila Tretikov, the Executive Director of The Wikimedia Foundation.

A packed Barbican Hall sang 'Happy Birthday' to Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia Founder, who then spoke about the controversy around “right to be forgotten”. This policy allows European citizens to request that links to pages with ”inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” information about them be removed from search results. Wales said that “history is a human right” and that the law amounts to censorship.

Our keynote speaker, Salil Shetty, Secreatry General of Amnesty International, emphasised the values Wikipedia and Amnesty International share and reiterated that both organisations can learn a lot from each other.

The opening ceremony concluded with live music from Tape Parade, Tankus the Henge and Emma Garrett.

Today, the conference will feature, among others, a Q&A with Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, an Open Data Roundtable, and, in the evening, and a series of entertainment and music sessions.

The footage of the opening events is here and the live stream is here.