This blog post was written by John Cummings, Wikimania support at Wikimedia UK
Last weekend the Wikimania Fringe Free Culture event took place at the Barbican Centre with 20 people attending from a range of cultural organisations, Wikimedia chapters, open knowledge projects and members of the public.
Saturday
A series of talks on topics related to open knowledge took place, presented by a wide range of speakers:
- Ed Saperia: An overview of Wikimania.
- John Cummings: Wikipedia and measuring free culture.
- Andy Mabbett: Wikipedia Voice Project, OpenStreetMap and ORCID.
- Daria Cybulska (Wikimedia UK): The UK Wikimedians in Residence programme.
- Bekka Kahn: Overview and progress report on the activities of the Open Coalition.
- Sebastiaan ter Burg (Wikimedia Netherlands): Creating an open (GLAM) ecosystem with the GLAMwiki Toolset and Wikidata.
- Navino Evans: Histropedia.
- James Morley (Europeana): the GLAMwiki Toolset.
Further notes on talks are available on the event Etherpad here.
Sunday
Sunday was used as a space for discussion of open projects, sharing knowledge and planning future work. The day included a tour of Conservatory at the Barbican Centre by the events Manager. Further photos of the event are available here.
Future Wikimania events
There are a number of future Wikimania events, culminating in Wikimania on the 8–10 August at the Barbican Centre.
- 21st – 22nd June: Future of Education Workshop
- 5th – 6th July: Open Data Weekend
- 19th – 20th July: Open Scholarship Weekend
- 6th – 10th August: Hackathon
- 8th – 10th August: Wikimania
Tickets for Wikimania are available here, early bird tickets are available until July 1st, all fringe events are free to attend.
- £55: Three-day ticket to Wikimania and hackathon
- £45: Three-day ticket to Wikimania
- £30: One-day ticket to Wikimania
Volunteering
There are many opportunities to get involved in Wikimania; we will need volunteers in the run-up to the conference and to help with the smooth running of Wikimania itself. For most tasks you don’t need to be a Wikipedia editor and you don’t need any experience – just a willingness to help! For more information see Your Wikimania Needs You! To register to volunteer at Wikimania please sign up here, for questions contact hera@wikimanialondon.org.