Second Annual Wikimedia Foundation Conference Begins; Annual Global Gathering of Wikipedians, Scholars, and Technologists to Open Friday, August 4.BOSTON -- The Wikimedia Foundation's second annual international conference, Wikimania 2006, will open on August 3, 2006. The three-day conference, focusing on Wikipedia, its sister projects, and the use of wikis See wiki. to organize knowledge, will be held August 4-6 at Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (colloquially, Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard Law is considered one of the most prestigious law schools in the United States. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This year's event will bring together more than 400 Wikimedia contributors, enthusiasts, and scholars from a wide range of fields. Community members from Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects are attending the conference from dozens of countries, thanks in part to travel scholarships from Nokia, Wikia, and the Open Society Institute. The conference will feature presentations by Lawrence Lessing, free culture advocate and chair of Creative Commons; Brewster Kahle, founder of the Open Content Alliance; Mitch Kapor, chair of the Mozilla Corporation; Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; and more than 50 other presenters from the project and research communities. "The response to the Wikimania conference has been phenomenal," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. "The growth of the wiki as a form of information sharing has transformed the communications process for many people around the world. In less than ten years, this new medium has taken on a life of its own Memory Burn A Life Of Its Own was released by Noise Kontrol in 2002. Memory Burn is made up of several high profile musicians who came together to create this special work. ." About Wikimania Wikimania highlights the latest Wikimedia project developments, wiki research, and practices in peer production, as well as the people behind this work. Community and outside experts will discuss the growth and goals of the Wikimedia projects with analysis and criticism through a series of workshops, panel discussions and presentations. It is also host to the Wikimania Awards, an annual ceremony recognizing the best free content created during the year from around the world. The Harvard Law School campus is generously providing space for Wikimania activities, with support from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society
About the Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an international non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. Wikimedia operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects anywhere, including Wikipedia, one of the 20 most visited websites in the world. The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of existing projects, and is based in St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg (often shortened to St. Pete) is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. The city is known as a vacation destination for North American and European vacationers, as well as a politically important battleground in U.S. Presidential politics. , USA. Wikimedia has local chapters in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Serbia and Montenegro Serbia and Montenegro (sûr`bēə, mŏn'tənē`grō), Serbian Srbija i Crna Gora, former country of SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula, a short-lived union (2003–6) of the republics of Serbia and the much , and Poland. Most of the Foundation's operations are funded by reader and contributor donations. |
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