Over 700 people have converged on Cape Town in South Africa to discuss Wikipedia and other websites owned by Wikimedia, its parent organization.
The annual conference, known as Wikimania starts on July 18 and ends on July 22.
[contextly_sidebar id=”vYAUZZx7jsrxCdsa5OlxGRUL2QyEL451″]Participants including members of the global Wikimedia movement – Wikipedia editors, Wikipedia events and projects coordinators, are discussing and sharing ideas around the future of Wikipedia.
The conference’s 2018 theme is bridging knowledge gaps: the ubuntu way forward. It represents the community’s interest to create conditions for the equitable sharing of information online. It is organized by Wikimedia South Africa and Wikimedia Foundation.
Speakers include Katherine Maher the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, internet geographist Dr. Martin Dittus, Artificial Intelligence expert Joy Buolamwini, and Prof. Sean Jacobs who focuses on trends in digital culture.
According to Sandister Tei, the representative of Wikimedia Ghana User Group, the community of Ghanaian Wikipedia editors, there are about six participants from Ghana this year.
“Ghana has one of the most active communities globally and our main job is to improve the content and recruit more editors in the country.”, She says. “Wikimania is that time of the year we engage with other Wikipedians from around the world so we can put our local work in good perspective…The sessions also build the capacity of our members, so they can engage people effectively to contribute to information about Ghana.”
Wikipedia is a multimedia encyclopedia that anyone can edit with over 5 million articles on the English Wikipedia alone. It is available in about 300 languages including Twi, Ewe, and Hausa.
Wikipedia is read about 15 billion times every month and updated by volunteer editors around the world including Ghana.
The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that supports Wikipedia and its sister free knowledge projects.
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Source: Wikimedia Ghana User Group