Grants:TPS/Discott/Wikimania/2014/Report
Welcome back from Wikimania 2014!
Participant
editen.Wikipedia
I am also a board member of the Wikimedia chapter in South Africa (recently elected president of Wikimedia ZA).
Outcome
edit- Option 3: New Creation: What was one useful outcome that was created at the event for the Wikimedia movement?
- Add a link to something new that was created as a result of your participation in this event (for example, you might link to a new tool that you and your co-participants worked on at the Hackathon, or to pages created in a workshop you participated in).
- African meetup: I helped organise and run a meetup for African Wikipedians at Wikimania, more information about which can be found on our 2014 Chapter's report here.
- Met with Wikimedia CH (Switzerland) to discuss the rollout of Kiwix in South Africa. This directly led to me applying for, and successfully obtaining, a grant on Wikimedia ZA's behalf to obtain 2 offline wireless Kiwix devices for demonstration and rollout purposes in South Africa. If we are successful this could lead to the rollout by government or other non-profit-organisations of the offline Kiwix system in South Africa. I am particularly excited at the prospect of rolling it out in rural schools. Very exciting!
Connections
editWhere to start!? I love connecting with people at Wikimania and always find that I never have enough time to talk with everyone I want to or even plan to. Having said that below are some of the most important connections I had at Wikimania 2014:
- Because I am the organiser of Wiki Loves Monuments in South Africa I connected with the usual crowd around organising and hosting Wiki Loves Monuments. We discussed strategy and coordination around hosting this year's event. I have just completed this year's WLM on South Africa and feel that it was a great success. Meeting the team at Wikimania, I feel, helped in achieving this success.
- Connected with Wikimedia CH (Charles Andres) about Kiwix, see above for more information on that.
- Connected with Wikimedia UK to discuss future cooperation and inter chapter cooperation.
- Connected with previous hosts of Wikimania: connected with and discusses issues and experiences of hosting a Wikimania in preparation for future possible bid for Wikimania in Cape Town. I discussed this with: Edward Saperia (Wikimania 2014) and Deror Avi (Wikimania 2011).
- Members of Wikimedia ZA who are now based in Europe as well as some key staff at the Wikimedia Foundation.
- Chatted with Andy Mabbett about mass uploads onto Commons as well as his voice biography project. Also connected with Roger Bamkin to discuss rolling out a Cape Town version of Jobergpedia.
I could go on but I will stop there.
Anything else
editI took load of photographs at Wikimania but did not think to categorise them. In lue of that here is a selection of some of them:
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Conservatory at the Barbican on one of the first hackathon days.
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The plenary session, this picture did the rounds on facebook during the event.
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A picture Julie Anne Workman took of me at the Open Street Map event in the Fountain Room.