In spite of the calls by anti Israel forces to have the 2011 Wikimania conference cancelled in Haifa, the organisers have not succumbed to the pressure and this week sees the start of a very full program.
Over 480 participants have registered of which 360 are very 56 different countries. Wikipedia has today over 18 million entries on the web in 270 different languages and typically has 400 million hits a month.
On Tuesdsay and Wednesday there will be preliminary sessions prior to the main event starting on Thursdsay with over 125 presentations.
The event will conclude on Saturday night with a big beach party and I can imagine the boadwalk being crowded as it it is also the time of the community folk dancing which draws big crowds and takes place eveey week both on Saturday night and Tuesday evenings.
Finally on Sunday there are a number of tours available which will give the visitors a chance to see a country of the type not normally portrayed in the mass media.
Showing posts with label wikimania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wikimania. Show all posts
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Wikimania Comes to Haifa
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will mingle among hundreds of people from 52 countries in Haifa from August 4-7, at the annual Wikimania conference, held for the first time in Israel.
Started in 2005 and growing each year, the conference attracts people interested in free and open content/software, global development/education and new trends in the field of knowledge sharing in the Internet age. But mostly, it is a gathering place for those involved in Wikimedia Foundation projects -- primarily the world’s most popular source of information, the Internet-based encyclopedia, Wikipedia available in 279 languages.
A coup for Haifa
The multicultural Mediterranean seaside city – Israel’s third largest, after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv -- won out as the conference venue over Barcelona, Montreal, New York, Tokyo and Toronto. That’s a major feather in the cap of Deror Lin, an Israeli lawyer who is one of about 20 members of the three-year-old Wikimedia Israel group. Lin spearheaded the drive to bring Wikimania to Haifa, along with several other Wikimedia Israel volunteers eager to host Wikipedians from countries including India, China, Macao, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Bolivia, Venezuela and Chile.
“I was born in Haifa, and I think it’s a great city to show what the Middle East should be like, with all religions living and working together,” says Lin.
“This is the first time there will be a beach party at a Wikimania conference, and we have organized free tours for participants to Jerusalem, the Galilee and around Acco [Acre] and Haifa as well.”
The event at the Haifa Auditorium will include 125 sessions as well as workshops dealing with free content, open source, Internet-age copyrights, web communities and networks, education and knowledge acquisition.
Wales will deliver his annual "State of the Wiki" address. Deans from the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University are planned speakers along with Prof. Yochai Benkler, professor of law at Harvard University, and Joseph Reagle, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and author of Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia.
For more information on this fantastic event see
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/InnovativeIsrael/Wikimania-hits-Haifa-14-JUL-2011.htm
Started in 2005 and growing each year, the conference attracts people interested in free and open content/software, global development/education and new trends in the field of knowledge sharing in the Internet age. But mostly, it is a gathering place for those involved in Wikimedia Foundation projects -- primarily the world’s most popular source of information, the Internet-based encyclopedia, Wikipedia available in 279 languages.
A coup for Haifa
The multicultural Mediterranean seaside city – Israel’s third largest, after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv -- won out as the conference venue over Barcelona, Montreal, New York, Tokyo and Toronto. That’s a major feather in the cap of Deror Lin, an Israeli lawyer who is one of about 20 members of the three-year-old Wikimedia Israel group. Lin spearheaded the drive to bring Wikimania to Haifa, along with several other Wikimedia Israel volunteers eager to host Wikipedians from countries including India, China, Macao, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Bolivia, Venezuela and Chile.
“I was born in Haifa, and I think it’s a great city to show what the Middle East should be like, with all religions living and working together,” says Lin.
“This is the first time there will be a beach party at a Wikimania conference, and we have organized free tours for participants to Jerusalem, the Galilee and around Acco [Acre] and Haifa as well.”
The event at the Haifa Auditorium will include 125 sessions as well as workshops dealing with free content, open source, Internet-age copyrights, web communities and networks, education and knowledge acquisition.
Wales will deliver his annual "State of the Wiki" address. Deans from the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University are planned speakers along with Prof. Yochai Benkler, professor of law at Harvard University, and Joseph Reagle, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and author of Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia.
For more information on this fantastic event see
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/InnovativeIsrael/Wikimania-hits-Haifa-14-JUL-2011.htm
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