The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown DC is more than the cornucopia of book stacks it appears to be from the street. Within its glass walls its librarians in various departments labor tirelessly creating programs for multitudes of patrons. Chris is one such librarian. He works with adaptive services teaching the blind how to use computers. This past year a group of students from his advanced class decided to go one step further. Every month or so they meet as a book club and pick a book that doesn’t have a Wikipedia article yet, listen to it, then return and, using the software Chris teaches them how to use, write an article as a group.

It is an amazing privilege to watch them at work. All of them are older folks and have varying amounts of experience with computers but they all take turns typing sentences, navigating the keyboards, counting keys from left to right to find the right letter and clicking it before searching for the next. Everyone participates in the process of writing and brainstorming content and, in the end, what they create is a new Wikipedia entry, expanding the horizon of shared information just that much further.

Their most recent article is about the book Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper and their next project is Outwitting Trolls. To put it in the words of an attendee, “We may get loud and rambunctious, but we pull through. We always pull through.”

Lisa Marrs, Outreach & Program Coordination, Wikimedia DC

Copyright notes: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. by David Monack, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license from Wikimedia Commons.

"Woman and Man" by Irene Lynch / oil stick on rubbed oil on prepared canvas" / approximately 8 feet x 6 feet / hangs unframed / c. 1983

Meet Irene.

Irene contributed $5,000 to Wikimania 2012, joining the likes of Google and WikiHow in sponsoring the international gathering of individuals who work in support of free global access to the sum of human knowledge. But unlike other Wikimania sponsors, Irene is not an internet company, non-profit organization, or philanthropic foundation. Irene is a 78-year-old private individual from New Jersey who describes herself as a “peace seeker, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.”

“My donation to Wikimedia Foundation was inspired by the very mission it espouses,” Irene says. “Without responsible freedom to learn and act, we cannot heal, we cannot grow in a truly healthful fashion.”

Irene is more than just a great grandmother who loves Wikipedia. She also describes herself as a storyteller and an artist.

Poem by Irene Lynch

“My life is my story,” she says. “There are times when I’ve speculated that I could have been born either in one of the Kansas City, MO public libraries, or the Nelson Art Gallery.  My mother spent so much time in them that I learned to read about four, and the arts became my passion.”

Irene cultivated her passion for culture and art through painting (see left), as well as through reading and writing poetry (she says her favorite poem is Ulysses by Tennyson). But it was her continuous pursuit of knowledge that she channeled into her love of the world’s largest encyclopedia.

“I so deeply appreciate what you’ve done for so many over the years!” Irene says of Wikipedia. “As a non-academic scholar and artist, you have sent in wonderful directions in my search for truth & justice, and human compassion.”

Irene will be attending Wikimania 2012 this July, joining an estimated 1000 domestic and international attendees. While on Wikipedia, she’s just one of over 450 million unique visitors, in Wikimania, she’s truly one in a million.

“It is an imperfect humanity we all share, and it is my hope to share conversations with like folks at this conference in DC,” she says. At 78, Irene is further proof that you’re truly never too old to keep learning and to fall in love with Wikipedia.

Everyone at Wikimedia DC thanks Irene for her gracious contribution and we all look forward to welcoming her to Washington, DC, this July.

Nicholas Michael Bashour, President, Wikimedia District of Columbia

Note: if you would like to leave a note for Irene, leave a comment, and Wikimedia DC will forward it to her.

Wikimania 2012 will take place in Washington, DC, July 10-15

Wikimedia District of Columbia is pleased to announce that we have obtained a travel discount on Amtrak for travel to Wikimania 2012 in Washington, DC, this July. Amtrak offers a 10% discount off the lowest available rail fare to Washington, DC between July 07, 2012 – July 18, 2012. This offer is not valid on the Auto Train and Acela service. Offer valid with Sleepers, Business Class or First Class seats with payment of the full applicable accommodation charges. Fare is valid on Amtrak Regional all departures seven days a week, except for holiday blackouts, which do not affect Wikimania dates.

Amtrak joins United Airlines and SkyTeam Global Meetings in offering travel discounts to Wikimania attendees. A discount of up to 13% is available for travel to and from Washington, DC-area airport between July 9, 2012 and July 18, 2012 on United Airlines, Continental Airlines or and flights operated by other airlines and branded United Express and Continental Express, and United codeshare flights operated by Lufthansa and All Nippon Airways. A discount of up to 10% is provided off published airfare for travel to and from Washington, DC-area airports between Monday, July 2, 2012 and Saturday, July 21, 2012 by Delta Airlines, Air France, Aeroloft, KLM, Alitalia, and Korean Air.

To obtain travel discount codes, please contact WikimaniaTravel[at]wikidc.org.

More than three months after the SOPA/PIPA protests, a big question still remains for the global Internet community: where do we go from here? The Wikimedia/Wikipedia community, which was divided over the decision to black out the English Wikipedia globally in January, faces a different but related question: have we done enough, and should we remain neutral moving forward? To help answer at least the first question, last week Wikimedia District of Columbia (Wikimedia DC), in partnership with the Washington European Society and the Estonian Embassy in Washington, hosted the inaugural event of the Embassy Outreach Initiative, “Internet Freedom & Open Government: an International Conversation.”

The event, hosted at the Estonian Embassy, featured a discussion with Danny Weitzner, Deputy CTO for Internet Policy at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy; Chairman Marko Mihkelson, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament; Ian Schuler, Senior Manager for Internet Freedom Programs at the US State Department; and Rebecca MacKinnon, Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a member of the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board. Adam Kushner, Deputy Editor of the National Journal, moderated the discussion.

The conversation on Internet freedom highlighted several global issues and programs, such as the State Department’s $76 million effort to support worldwide Internet freedom programs, but two significant points emerged that have a particular significance to the Wikimedia community’s goal of global free access to knowledge. The first was an assertion by both Weitzner and MacKinnon that what we can do on the internet today is not a product of random forces or serendipitous actions, but was the result of hard work, of conscious domestic and international policy decisions, and of global efforts by public and private groups to create the environment in which the current Internet culture exists. This is the same assertion that was at the heart of Sue Gardner’s statement on the eve of the January 18 Wikipedia blackout: that “although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not.”

The global dialogue on Internet freedom did not start on January 18, and it’s far from being over. There is no doubt that Internet freedom will always be a central component to the mission of providing free access to global knowledge. One has to only look toward the Uzbek Wikipedia, which was blocked in Uzbekistan for no good reason, to see an example of how attacking Internet freedom can impede our global vision and goals.

The second significant point from the discussion at the embassy was the perhaps deserved criticism that the Internet community has been largely reactive when it comes to Internet freedom, and it needs alternatively become more proactive and use its power constructively to influence or advocate for suitable alternatives. Stopping SOPA/PIPA and hindering the progress of ACTA did not solve the problems that they were designed to address, and there are already talks of what needs to be done next. The Internet community as a whole, and the Wikimedia community in particular, needs to figure out how it wants to shape the global conversation. We need to, as a movement, decide what role want to play in this dialogue or we run the risk of possibly facing another SOPA not too far down the road. But we also need to be careful to avoid sidelining or disenfranchising those in the movement who are not comfortable with (or legally restricted from) advocacy.

One thing to keep in mind is that promoting advocacy and facilitating dialogue are two different things. We don’t need to advocate for a particular viewpoint or policy to facilitate constructive dialogue about the issue as a whole, if that’s the role we want to play. Sometimes simply being present and making the decision makers aware of our existence and our needs makes a significant difference. SOPA, and particularly ACTA burst onto the scene after years of closed-door negotiations, and that’s part of the reason why the response to them was so intense. Many of the policymakers drafting them had no idea what the needs of the Internet community was, or even how the Internet works, because the Internet community was never a part of that conversation and these policymakers did not even think that the community’s opinion mattered. These policies, and way they developed, would have been radically different had we made our presence, needs, and significance known earlier.

Initiatives at Wikimedia DC, like the upcoming Open Government Project, are designed to do just that— to facilitate dialogue and allow the community to be an active participant, both online and offline, so that our needs are not ignored or misrepresented in the future. We at Wikimedia DC will always work toward the goal of empowering individuals across the globe through access to knowledge, and Washington, DC, is a great place for us to make an impact. After all, it was here where President James Madison wrote that “a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Nicholas Michael Bashour, President, Wikimedia District of Columbia

Note: The statements in this post are simply my own and do not represent the opinions of the Board of Directors as a whole

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 30, 2012:  Wikimedia, District of Columbia (Wikimedia DC) is pleased to announce that WikiHow has joined Wikimania 2012 as a Bronze Level sponsor.

“Wikimania is the preeminent gathering of the world’s knowledge philanthropists,” says Jack Herrick, founder of WikiHow. “Every year, people from all over the world convene to share ideas on how to accelerate the spread of free knowledge around the world. wikiHow.com has sent attendees to Wikimania since 2005. We are proud to support it again.

“The support of the great donors, sponsors, and volunteers, is what makes it possible for us to bring people from all over the globe to Washington, DC in support of global knowledge” says James Hare, coordinator of Wikimania 2012. “WikiHow has been a consistent supporter of Wikimania and of global collaboration, and we welcome their participation in Wikimania 2012.

WikiHow is a collaborative effort to build and share the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Like Wikipedia, wikiHow is a wiki, in that anyone can write or edit a page on the site. Thousands of people from all over the world have collaboratively written 135,446 how-to articles. Over 35 million people a month read wikiHow according to Google Analytics and Quantcast ranks WikiHow as the 150th most popular website. For more information, please visit www.wikihow.com

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. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects are the principal tools of the Wikimedia movement, encompassing resources that span more than 280 languages and include, aside from Wikipedia, a repository of more than 12 million free-use media files (Wikimedia Commons), a library of free and open source educational textbooks (WikiBooks), and a vast library of online library of free content publications (WikiSource), amongst others. It has been previously held in Frankfurt, Germany; Boston, Mass.; Taipei, Taiwan; Alexandria, Egypt; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gdańsk, Poland; and Haifa, Israel. For more information and to join Wikimania 2012’ 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, Wikimedia DC President and Wikimania 2012 General Manager

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 30, 2012:  Wikimedia District of Columbia (Wikimedia DC) is pleased to announce that the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) has joined Wikimania 2012 as a Copper-Level sponsor.

“The success of Wikimania depends on the kind support of donors, sponsors, and volunteers, and we’re extremely grateful for Encyclopedia of Life’s support,” says Nicholas Michael Bashour, Wikimedia DC President and General Manager of Wikimania 2012. “EOL is an invaluable resource that contributors across Wikimedia Projects can use to expand and enhance content on Wikimedia Projects that are accessible to millions of users around the globe. We are certain that the global Wikimedia community will benefit from EOL’s presence at Wikimania and we invite attendees to connect with EOL’s staff during the conference to learn more about this wonderful resource.”

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE (EOL) aggregates data on living organisms stored in databases around the world into an open, freely-accessible and trusted resource.   On EOL species pages – one for every form of life known to science – users will find text, maps, videos, sound and literature references, as well as active communities of volunteer scientists, educators, students and nature enthusiasts who work together to review, organize and extend EOL content. Organized as a consortium of leading research institutions and museums from across the world, EOL is pleased to collaborate with the Wikipedia community to provide global access to knowledge about life on Earth.  To learn more and get involved, please visit eol.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. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects are the principal tools of the Wikimedia movement, encompassing resources that span more than 280 languages and include, aside from Wikipedia, a repository of more than 12 million free-use media files (Wikimedia Commons), a library of free and open source educational textbooks (WikiBooks), and a vast library of online library of free content publications (WikiSource), amongst others. It has been previously held in Frankfurt, Germany; Boston, Mass.; Taipei, Taiwan; Alexandria, Egypt; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gdańsk, Poland; and Haifa, Israel. For more information and to join Wikimania 2012’s list of elite sponsors, visit 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, Wikimedia DC President and Wikimania 2012 General Manager

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 30, 2012: Wikimedia District of Columbia (Wikimedia DC) is pleased to announce that Google has joined Wikimania 2012 as a Diamond Level sponsor. Google’s support of Wikimania helps bring hundreds of people around the world who support open source, open culture, and free access to global knowledge.

“Google has been a strong advocate of open source, and we welcome their support of Wikimania 2012,” says Nicholas Michael Bashour, President of Wikimedia DC. “Through their Open Source Programs Office, Google has supported open source organizations and developers through such programs as Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in. Their support of Wikimania 2012, an international conference attended by hundreds of open source developers and advocates, shows a continued commitment to help expand and maintain an active, vibrant, and global open source community.”

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. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects are the principal tools of the Wikimedia movement, encompassing resources that span more than 280 languages and include, aside from Wikipedia, a repository of more than 12 million free-use media files (Wikimedia Commons), a library of free and open source educational textbooks (WikiBooks), and a vast library of online library of free content publications (WikiSource), amongst others. It has been previously held in Frankfurt, Germany; Boston, Mass.; Taipei, Taiwan; Alexandria, Egypt; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gdańsk, Poland; and Haifa, Israel. For more information and to join Wikimania 2012’s list of elite sponsors, visit 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, Wikimedia DC President and Wikimania 2012 General Manager

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.