Wikimedia Australia turns 18
On 6 August 2008, Wikimedia Australia became an incorporated association. Eighteen years later, the chapter has reached the age at which, in this country, you can vote, sign a contract, serve on a jury and shout your mates a beer!
How we got here
The Wikimedia Foundation recognised Wikimedia Australia as a chapter on 4 March 2008, and an incorporation meeting followed on 20 April, with around twenty Wikimedians joining by conference call from Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Hobart. Consumer Affairs Victoria promptly knocked back the first application — our statement of purpose, apparently, was too short. A rewrite did the trick, and incorporation came through on 6 August 2008.
Our first event arrived the following year: GLAM-WIKI 2009, hosted with the support of the Australian War Memorial, which set the pattern for nearly two decades of work alongside galleries, libraries, archives and museums. Since then, there has been Freopedia, Australia's first WikiTown, in Fremantle in 2012; a long partnership with Paralympics Australia that put Wikimedians on the ground at London and Sochi; and a steadily growing body of work supporting Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property and Indigenous Data Sovereignty in the Wikimedia movement.
Read a full list of ongoing and past partnerships.
In 2022 Wikimedia Australia welcomed two full-time staff for the first time and hosted ESEAP Conference 2022 in Sydney. From 2023 we gradually increased the team, reaching three staff — two full-time and one part-time — by 2025. As of July 2026 all three positions are full-time.
There is a neat coincidence in the numbers, too! The chapter is in its eighteenth year and its eighteenth committee term. Every one of those terms has been filled by volunteers who put their hand up.
Come and be part of the next eighteen
Everything Wikimedia Australia does depends on members and volunteers. As of 6 August 2026, Wikimedia Australia proudly has 100 members.
If you edit, photograph, translate, tidy references, or just think free knowledge is worth backing, join us — and mark 20 September in your diary for this year's Annual General Meeting.
Happy birthday, WMAU.