Wikimania 2017 Opening: Jimmy Wales and Gabriella Coleman in conversation - Community and information in a partisan world
From Ewan McAndrew
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From Ewan McAndrew
Themes of the conference included the advancement of Free Knowledge, the role of academic and cultural institutions within the movement, privacy and rights, and the role of technology to further those objectives. Wikimania 2017 also featured a deeper look about the role of the Movement within the Francophonie, and a number of program elements focusing on advancement of French within the projects.
Beyond the main event, there are other related events: the hackathon where the technical community around the Wikimedia projects join together to work and contribute, and multiple preconferences.
The event was held in and around the Centre Sheraton Montréal, in Montréal, Canada from August 9 to August 13, 2017.
Gabriella (Biella) Coleman holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. Trained as an anthropologist, her scholarship explores the intersection of the cultures of hacking and politics, with a focus on the sociopolitical implications of the free software movement and the digital protest ensemble Anonymous. She has authored two books, Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking (Princeton University Press, 2012) and Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (Verso, 2014), which was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2014 and was awarded the Diana Forsythe Prize by the American Anthropological Association.
Jimmy Wales is founder of the online non-profit encyclopaedia Wikipedia and co-founder of the privately owned Wikia, Inc. including its entertainment media brand, Fandom powered by Wikia. Wales serves on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit charitable organisation he established to operate Wikipedia. In April 2017, Jimmy launched WikiTribune - a news website involving professional journalists working alongside volunteers to curate fact checked and reliable articles. In 2006 Jimmy was named in Time magazine’s ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’ for his role in creating Wikipedia.
Evan Prodromou is an Internet entrepreneur and wiki and software developer based in Montreal. He founded Wikitravel, Identi.ca and StatusNet, and is currently working on Fuzzy.ai, an artificial intelligence service for developers.