Library of Alexandria to Host Wikipedia's Annual Conference in 2008

Saturday, 10 November 2007 10:00

The Wikimedia Foundation, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, announced today that it will stage its 2008 Wikimania conference at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. The event will take place next summer.

"We are honored that the Library of Alexandria, one of the most prestigious and historic libraries in the world, has provided the Wikimedia Foundation with this great opportunity. This is a very symbolic gesture. Today, Wikipedia and our other free content projects, play an important part in empowering world citizens to share in the sum of all human knowledge," said Florence Devouard, Wikimedia Foundation Board Chair.

Wikimania 2008 will be Wikimedia's fourth annual conference. The event brings together international contributors from various Wikimedia projects, as well as people interested in learning more about the projects, wiki technology, free content, and educational and social trends online. In previous years, Wikimania has been held in Frankfurt, Boston, and Taipei.

"We are delighted to secure the Wikimania 2008 event in Alexandria, for we believe in the wiki phenomenon. It is the harbinger of a revolution suited to the new age of the internet, and by supporting it, we are helping give birth to a new era and a new world where access to knowledge is a fundamental right and the sharing of knowledge is a fundamental duty," said Dr. Ismail Serageldin, the library's director.

The Library of Alexandria is one of the oldest libraries of the world. It houses thousands of books and manuscripts, a museum, a planetarium center, and several research centers. Currently, the library strives to serve as the world's window on Egypt, and as a leading institution of the digital age focused on cultivating learning, tolerance, dialogue and understanding worldwide.

As in previous years, Wikimania 2008 will include unconferences, seminars, and workshops. The Wikimania 2008 committee, comprised primarily of volunteers, will be organizing the event, and has already begun lining up sponsors.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. It operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most-visited websites. The Foundation was created in 2003 by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Visit : www.wikimedia.org