User:Juttavd/Wikimania 2012 report

Introduction

I was very lucky to receive a Wikimedia Australia travel grant, which supported my attendance at Wikimania 2012. In this report, I would like to give a brief summary about my activities and share my experiences/learnings.

Ada Camp, 10-11 July 2012

Ada Iniative organised the second Ada Camp dedicated to create a space for people interested in women in open technology and culture from across many different communities. The conference was held in an unconference to discuss experiences, new ideas, best practices and be a catalyst for change. The event was an invite-only event and I was one of the few people that had also attended the first AdaCamp 2012 held in Melbourne in January 2012.

I was able to:

  • deepen the conversations around gendergap and gender-related issues, such as the Impostor Syndrome, Burnout, Design and Participation, the ideal environment
  • connect with more people passionate and interested in the topic from different parts of the world
  • strengthen the connections that I had made during the first AdaCamp 2012 as well as Wikimania 2011

Notes were recorded on pirate pad.

Wikimania 2012 (12-15 July) and Tech@State (12-13 July)

The Wikimania conference stretched over 4 full days with the last day being conducted as an unconference. The first three conference days consisted of open and closing plenaries as well as six parallel streams.

In this report, I would like to highlight a few presentations/presentation streams:

  1. Mary Gardiner, Co-founder of the Ada Initiative delivered an excellent keynote titled "Fostering diversity: not a boring chore, a critical opportunity"
  2. Many presentations were dedicated to the exciting Wikidata project as well as presentations in regards to the visual editor and improving user experience and engagement
  3. The Wikipedia Blackout was discussed in a panel session with different views being represented through the choice of panelists, see http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Blacking_out_Wikipedia
  4. Wikimania also featured a lot of other Wiki projects as part of the Tech@State stream, such as Diplo- and Intelli-pedia. I was a panelist and speaker in the institutional collaboration stream
  5. Of course, GLAM and chapter matters formed a large and important part of the conference, see dedicated stream in the conference schedule
  6. The GLAM Night Out, which was held on 12 July after the official conference schedule, was a particular Wikimania highlight for me. Financial conflicts of interest in health care and science were discussed by an excellent panel. A real eye opener!

You can view the whole schedule at http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule and access many presentation at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania_2012_presentation_slides.

Many presentation were recorded and posted on YouTube.

Final words

In my view, there is no better opportunity to connect, be educated and feel part of the movement than going to Wikimania. It is an excellent opportunity to learn more about free culture and copyright and all other current issues in regards to open data and meet Wikimedians from all over the world. Even though, I am not an editor, I have learnt so much, made so many great connections and feel part of this amazing movement. I am very grateful for that.

I truly hope that more and more Australians are going to attend in future, especially in 2013 as Hong Kong is reasonably close. However, be aware that you might schedule many of your future holidays in accordance with Wikimania.

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