With more than 500 million unique users a month, Wikipedia ranks as one of the top five most visited websites in the world. From 6-10 August 2014, up to 8,000 people will attend its annual flagship event at The Barbican Centre.
As well as founder Jimmy Wales, talks will be given by thought leaders from the fields of free culture, education reform and edtech, open data and big data, open access research and social software design, as well as a full programme of related workshops, panels and discussions.
The 2014 conference marks the 10th anniversary of the event, and for the first time the conference will be significantly expanded to include a large programme designed for members of the public, organised in conjunction with Barbican Business Events.
The event will kick-off with a 48 hour ‘hackathon’ with public events taking place over the subsequent three days.
Anthony Hyde, general manager of Barbican Business Events comments: “London is a centre for digital culture and innovation and we are delighted Wikimedia has chosen the Barbican for its 10th anniversary event. The conference will include a substantial public programme which will see up to 8,000 people come through our doors during the five days. The whole event, including the public programme will once again provide an opportunity for the Barbican to demonstrate its unique ability to bring together creative, artistic and commercial events as we work on both the logistics and content for this groundbreaking conference. The Barbican is the ideal venue for events of this size because of its flexible spaces; not only can we accommodate larger audiences for key speakers but also but smaller educational sessions.”
Started in 2005, Wikimania has previously been held in Germany, United States, Taiwan, Egypt, Argentina, Poland, Israel and Hong Kong.
