Mary Gardiner, Co-founder & Director of Operations and Research at the Ada Initiative, to keynote Wikimania 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 23, 2011:  Wikimedia, District of Columbia (Wikimedia DC) is pleased to announce Mary Gardiner as the keynote speaker for Wikimania 2012, the international Wikimedia conference. Mary will be speaking at the opening session of the conference on Thursday, July 12, 2012.

“We’re very excited to have Mary Gardiner open the conference this year,” says James Hare, coordinator of Wikimania 2012. “Mary has been a strong advocate for open source and has worked extensively to elevate the role of women and increase their participation in open source and open culture. Her work fits perfectly within our vision of empowering individuals around the world through free and open access to the sum of human knowledge. We look forward to welcoming her to Washington, DC.”

MARY GARDINER is co-founder and Director of Operations and Research at the Ada Initiative and founder of the first and largest women in open source organization in Australia, AussieChix, which she subsequently expanded into Oceania as Oceania Women of Open Technology. Mary has served as a council member for Linux Australia, the largest non-profit funder of open source projects in Australia and as program chair for linux.conf.au, the largest Linux conference in the southern hemisphere.

THE ADA INITIATIVE is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture, which includes open source software, Wikipedia and other open data, and open social media. Co-founders Mary Gardiner and Valerie Aurora each have ten years of experience in open source software, open culture communities, and women in computing activism. The Ada Initiative is named for Countess Ada Lovelace, widely acknowledged as the world’s first computer programmer. She is also the world’s first open source programmer. For more information, visit adainitiative.org

WIKIMANIA has been, since 2005, the premier annual international gathering of experts, academics, and enthusiasts whose vision is to empower people around the world through free access to global knowledge. It has been previously held in Frankfurt, Germany; Boston, Mass.; Taipei, Taiwan; Alexandria, Egypt; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gdańsk, Poland; and Haifa, Israel. Additional information on the conference can be found at www.wikimania2012.org

WIKIMEDIA DC is the official regional chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware. A non-profit educational organization, Wikimedia DC is dedicated to the advancement of general knowledge and the collection, development, and dissemination of educational content under a free license or in the public domain.

Contact: Nicholas Michael Bashour, Vice-President

Phone: (313) 377-4589, E-Mail: Press@wikidc.org

Contact for Ada Initiative: press@adainitiative.org

The theme for this year’s Wikimania is “Explore. Engage. Empower.” For us, this is more than just a theme, slogan, or motto. It both encapsulates what we want the attendees of Wikimania 2012 to get out of the conference and it also embodies the spirit of the host city, Washington DC. While Wikimania has typically not had a “theme,” we felt that having a theme that fits well within the spirit of Washington, DC would help us better create an engaging and remarkable experience for the Wikimania attendees.

Being at Wikimania, and particularly being here in Washington, DC, gives open culture and free knowledge enthusiasts a great opportunity. We feel that Wikimania, above all, is about exploring new possibilities, engaging in active discussions and dialogue, and taking what was learned back so that all can continue the work to empower people around the world through global knowledge. What better place to promote the power that free knowledge brings than the city where President James Madison wrote, “A people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives”?

“Engage. Explore. Empower.” is the theme that best encompasses everything that we hope to offer the attendees this year. Through a series of three blog posts, we will explore and expand on this theme to help you get excited about our city and our conference, and so that you can see just what we have in store for you this year at Wikimania 2012.

Explore.

The first thing we hope Wikimania attendees do is to explore everything that the city has to offer. Washington, DC is more than just the Capital of the United States, and exploring the city is definitely an important part of the Wikimania experience. DC is home to a truly international population.  More than 170 embassies and international cultural centers call DC their home, and an average of about 20,000 international students come to the city to study in some of the world’s best universities.

DC is also home to some of the world’s most prominent cultural institutions. The Library of Congress, the largest library in the United States, is one of the gems of DC. With 535 miles of bookshelves and around 45,000 reference books in the Reading Room alone, there’s plenty to explore within the library’s walls. If one library isn’t enough, there are also 25 different branches of the District of Columbia Public Library, including the historic Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. DC is also home to more than 30 museums and cultural centers, including the 19 museums and 9 research centers of the Smithsonian Institution, all of which offer free admission.

In the evening, after the workshops and sessions are done, we want you to meet the wonderful people of DC and explore the vibrant city nightlife. If pure entertainment is your thing, then you’ll be happy to know that DC has a truly enormous number of entertainment offerings. One good place to start is at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Steps away from the George Washington University campus, where Wikimania 2012 will take place, the Kennedy Center offers opera, symphony, theater, and a variety of special events, including free Millennium Stage events at 6:00 pm every day of the year!

If you like your evening events mixed with a little bit of international culture, then DC is definitely the place you want to be. If cultural events at Asia Society, the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, The Africa Society, or the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington can’t keep you busy, maybe you can check out the literary events at Politics & Prose, Busboys & Poets, or Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. And after you’ve had your fill of entertainment and culture, you can check out one of DC’s many award winning restaurants and bars.

We hope that when you come to DC, you will explore the city and its full offerings. We know you will be exhilarated by what you find here, and that will definitely elevate your Wikimania experience. When you truly enjoy exploring DC, then you will definitely get the most out of exploring the conference itself. Our goal is to have Wikimania attendees return to their homes on July 16 having explored everything the conference and the city have to offer, engaged with the other attendees and with the people in the city to spread the message of free global knowledge, and we want to them to be excited about using this experience to empower people in their cities, states, and countries. We’re excited to have everyone here in DC and we will do our best to help you explore everything that the city has to offer. We can’t wait to share Washington, DC with you. See you in July!

Nicholas Michael Bashour

Vice-President

Wikimedia DC

Image: United States Capitol in daylight by Kmccoy.

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 6, 2012:  Wikimedia District of Columbia (Wikimedia DC) is partnering with the U.S. State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy to bring the international conference “Wikimania 2012” to the nation’s capital on July 12-14, 2012. The conference will take place at George Washington University.

“Our partnership with the Office of eDiplomacy centers around our shared vision of advancing global cooperation through collaboration on knowledge-sharing initiatives,” says James Hare, coordinator of Wikimania 2012. “Bringing together key international players in the Wikimedia movement is a key step toward achieving Wikimedia DC’s goal of global empowerment through access to knowledge and fits well within Secretary Hillary Clinton’s call for 21^st Century Statecraft.”

Since 2005, Wikimania has been the premier annual international gathering of experts, academics, and enthusiasts whose vision is to empower people around the world through free access to global knowledge. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects are the principal tools of the Wikimedia movement, encompassing resources that span more than 270 languages. Wikimania has been previously held in Frankfurt, Germany; Boston, Mass.; Taipei, Taiwan; Alexandria, Egypt; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gdańsk, Poland; and Haifa, Israel. Additional information on the conference can be found at www.wikimania2012.org

ABOUT WIKIMEDIA DC. Wikimedia District of Columbia is the official regional chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware. A non-profit educational organization, Wikimedia DC is dedicated to the advancement of general knowledge and the collection, development, and dissemination of educational content under a free license or in the public domain.