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العربية  • English

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Helana Fola and Mina Saber are students of French Literature at Ain Shams University in Cairo, and neither had given much thought about contributing to Wikipedia or doing translations until they enrolled in Dr. Hoda Abaza’s French course in spring 2012. Dr. Hoda had signed up to participate in the Cairo Pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program, and was encouraging her students to translate high-quality articles from the French Wikipedia into the Arabic Wikipedia.

Helana Fola

“When I learned that I would write content for the Arabic Wikipedia, I was scared,” Helana says. “How will I write information that’s will be readen by millions?”

Helana didn’t want to translate articles from the French Wikipedia; she wanted to improve content about the Arab world on the Arabic Wikipedia. So Helana created the article on the Arabic Wikipedia events of 2011 in Egypt . She revised the article over and over, and with input from Wikipedia Ambassadors and other Arabic Wikipedia editors, she brought the article up to a Featured Article status on the Arabic Wikipedia.

“My favorite part about writing for Wikipedia is that I learned something new that’s useful to me and to my community,” Helana says. She’s also working on an article that had the chronology of the January 25 revolution in Egypt and has signed up to continue helping new students in the Wikipedia Education Program as an Ambassador in Cairo.

Mina Saber

Mina has also discovered translation skills from the Wikipedia assignment in Dr. Hoda’s class. He chose to translate and expand the article on the 2012 French presidential election (French original) (Arabic version).

“I was interested to know about the election and the political parties in France,” Mina says. “Dr. Hoda gave me the idea and I wrote the article using a lot of French newspapers and French Wikipedia articles as reference.”

Mina really enjoyed working on Wikipedia, and he was looking for his next topic to work on when tragedy struck the Ain Shams campus. Dr. Alaa Fayez, the president of Ain Shams, died in a car accident, and Mina decided he would write the article about him on the Arabic Wikipedia. Mina followed that by translating a Featured Article from the French Wikipedia about the history of Jews in Germany.

“My translation skills have improved, as have my knowledge and performance,” Mina says of the Wikipedia assignment. “My favorite part was having a new experience writing long articles on Wikipedia and seeing the page view statistics.”

Like Helana, Mina is now serving as a Wikipedia Ambassador to help new students learn how to edit Wikipedia in the next term of the Wikipedia Education Program. He credits Dr. Hoda and the Ambassadors, especially Faris El-Gwely, with helping him discover a passion for editing Wikipedia.

“I really liked the Wikipedia program, and I am happy we were given the opportunity to participate in this project,” Helana says.

LiAnna Davis, Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager

العربية

طلاب الأدب الفرنسي في القاهرة يكتشفون مهارات الترجمة من خلال مشروع ويكيبيديا

هيلانا رأفت و مينا صابر من طلاب الأدب الفرنسي في جامعة عين شمس في القاهرة، وكلاهما لم يفكرا كثيرا في المساهمة أو الترجمة في ويكيبيديا حتى التحقا بمادة الأدب الفرنسي لدى الدكتورة هدى أباظة في ربيع عام 2012. كانت الدكتورة هدى قد قامت بالتوقيع على المشاركة في مشروع برنامج ويكيبيديا التعليمي التجريبي في القاهرة، وقامت بتشجيع طلابها على ترجمة مقالات ذات جودة عالية من ويكيبيديا الفرنسية إلى ويكيبيديا العربية، أو كتابة مقالاتهم الخاصة.

هيلانا رأفت

“لقد أصبت بالرعب عندما علمت أنني سأكتب محتوى لويكيبيديا العربية،” كما تقول هيلانا. “كيف سأتمكن من كتابة معلومات سيقرأها الملايين؟”في البداية لم ترغب هيلانا في ترجمة المقالات من ويكيبيديا الفرنسية، لقد أرادت تطوير محتوى عن العالم العربي على ويكيبيديا العربية. أنشأت هيلانا مقالة أحداث 2011 في مصر على ويكيبيديا العربية ، وتعلقت بها. قامت بتنقيح المقالة مرارا وتكرارا، وبمساهمة من سفراء ويكيبيديا وغيرهم من محرري ويكيبيديا العربية، أوصلت المقالة إلى حالة المقالة المختارة على ويكيبيديا العربية.

“الجزء المفضل لدي حول الكتابة في ويكيبيديا هو أنني تعلمت شيئا جديدا مفيدا لي ولمجتمعي ،” كما تقول هيلانا. وهي تعمل أيضا على مقال عن التسلسل الزمني لثورة 25 يناير في مصر. ووافقت على الاستمرار في مساعدة الطلاب الجدد في برنامج ويكيبيديا التعليمي كسفير في القاهرة.

مينا صابر

وقد اكتشف مينا أيضا مهارات الترجمة من خلال التحرير على ويكيبيديا في صف الدكتورة هدى أباظة. ولقد اختار ترجمة وتوسيع مقالة 2012 انتخابات الرئاسة الفرنسية.

وقال مينا “كنت مهتما بالتعرف على الانتخابات والأحزاب السياسية في فرنسا، قامت الدكتورة هدى بتزويدي بالفكرة وكتبت المقالة باستخدام الكثير من مقالات الصحف الفرنسية ومقالات ويكيبيديا الفرنسية كمرجع.”

استمتع مينا حقا بالعمل في ويكيبيديا، وكان يبحث عن موضوع للعمل المقبل حين وقعت مأساة في حرم عين شمس حيث توفي الدكتور علاء فايز رئيس جامعة عين شمس في حادث سيارة، وقرر مينا انه بإمكانه كتابة مقالة عنه في ويكيبيديا العربية. تبع مينا ذلك بترجمة مقالة مختارة من ويكيبيديا الفرنسية عن تاريخ اليهود في ألمانيا.

يقول مينا عن فوائد ويكيبيديا “تحسنت مهارات الترجمة لدي، وكذلك معرفتي وأداءي، كان الجزء المفضل لدي هو حصولي على تجربة جديدة لكتابة مقالات طويلة في ويكيبيديا ورؤية إحصاءات مشاهدة الصفحة.”

هيلانا ومينا يخدمان الآن كسفيرا لويكيبيديا لمساعدة الطلاب الجدد في المرحلة التالية على تعلم كيفية تحرير ويكيبيديا في برنامج ويكيبيديا للتعليم. ويدينان بالشكر للدكتورة هدى أباظة وللسفراء، وخاصة فارس الجويلي، لمساعدته على اكتشاف شغف تحرير ويكيبيديا.

“أنا أحب حقا برنامج ويكيبيديا، وأنا سعيدة لإعطاءنا الفرصة للمشاركة في هذا المشروع،” كما تقول هيلانا.

ليانا ديفيس، مدير اتصالات برنامج ويكيبيديا للتعليم

Dr. Abeer El Hafez teaches Spanish to undergraduate and master’s students at Cairo University, but she understands the importance of making information available to her students on Wikipedia in their native language of Arabic. So she jumped at the chance to participate in the Wikimedia Foundation’s Cairo Pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program. Dr. Abeer received support from trained Wikipedia Ambassadors in exchange for having her students edit Wikipedia articles as part of their coursework.

Dr. Abeer talks about her experiences in Arabic.

With 13 students who all added significant information to Wikipedia, Dr. Abeer’s course ranked at the top of pilot participants in terms of contributions. Her students worked on a total of 31 articles on the Arabic Wikipedia, with some students making edits to the corresponding Spanish Wikipedia entries as well. To teach students the subject matter, Dr. Abeer told students to pick a writer from Latin America or Spain who had a high quality article on the Spanish Wikipedia. Students translated the article from the Spanish Wikipedia into Arabic.

In a few cases, when articles weren’t available on the Spanish Wikipedia, students researched and wrote articles from scratch for the Arabic Wikipedia, then updated the Spanish Wikipedia versions of the articles. One such example is the article on Laura Restrepo (in Arabic) (in Spanish), an author and journalist from Colombia. The article on the Spanish Wikipedia was a stub article, so Dr. Abeer’s student researched more information and expanded the article on the Spanish Wikipedia and created the article on the Arabic Wikipedia.

“The students were very motivated to do something practical,” Dr. Abeer said. “They got a chance to enhance the knowledge available to Arabic readers. The Wikipedia assignment is a great way to visualize their text for all of the Arabic world.”

Dr. Abeer says the traditional knowledge production at the university level can be mechanistic for some students, and mixing it up with an assignment like contributing to Wikipedia is a good way of challenging students. She looks forward to using Wikipedia with her undergraduates next term.

LiAnna Davis, Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager

تطوير مقالات ويكيبيديا العربية والإسبانية في أحد صفوف جامعة القاهرة

تدرس الدكتورة عبير عبد الحافظ اللغة الإسبانية لصفوف المرحلة الجامعية الأولى ومرحلة الماجستير في جامعة القاهرة، وهي تدرك أهمية

الدكتورة عبير عبد الحافظ تتكلم عن تجربتها في برنامج ويكيبيديا في التعليم.

جعل المعرفة متاحة لطلابها على ويكيبيديا بلغتهم الأم، اللغة العربية. لذلك قررت الاشتراك في تجربة القاهرة من برنامج ويكيبيديا التعليمي في مؤسسة ويكيميديا. تلقت الدكتورة عبير الدعم من سفراء ويكيبيديا المدربين بهدف أن يقوم طلابها بتحرير مقالات ويكيبيديا كجزء من واجباتهم الدراسية.

وبوجود ١٣ طالب قاموا بإضافة كم كبير من المعلومات إلى ويكيبيديا، حصل صف الدكتورة عبير على الترتيب الأعلى في البرنامج من قبل كمية المساهمات، حيث أن طلابها عملوا على ٣١ مقالة في ويكيبيديا العربية، بالإضافة إلى أن بعض الطلاب عملوا على مقالات مقابلة في ويكيبيديا الإسبانية أيضا. ومن أجل أن توصل الدكتورة عبير المعلومة بشكل جيد طلبت من طلابها اختيار أحد الكتاب من أمريكا اللاتينية أو إسبانيا والذي قد ألف عنه مقالة جيدة المستوى في ويكيبيديا الإسبانية، وقام الطلاب بترجمة تلك المقالات من الإسبانية إلى العربية.

وفي بعض الحالات التي لم تكن بها المقالات متوفرة باللغة الإسبانية، قام الطلاب بكتابة المقالات باللغة العربية بدءا من الصفر، ومن ثم أضافوا المعلومات إلى مقالات ويكيبيديا الإسبانية. أحد تلك الأمثلة هو مقالة لورا ريستريبو (بالإسبانية)، مؤلفة وصحفية من كولومبيا. كانت المقالة في ويكيبيديا الإسبانية عبارة عن بذرة قصيرة، حيث قام طلاب الدكتورة عبير بالبحث عن المعلومات وتطوير المقالة على ويكيبيديا الإسبانية وأنشأوا مقالة عنها باللغة العربية أيضا.

تقول الدكتورة عبير “إن الطلاب كانوا متحمسين جدا للقيام بشيء عملي، وقد حصلوا على الفرصة لتطوير المعرفة المتاحة للقارئ العربي. إن الواجب الدراسي على ويكيبيديا هو وسيلة رائعة لتحويل نصوصهم إلى مادة قراءة لجميع العالم العربي”

كما تضيف الدكتورة عبير بأن الإنتاج المعرفي التقليدي في المستوى الجامعي من الممكن أن يكون شيء آلي بالنسبة لبعض الطلاب، وبخطلها مع واجب مثل المشاركة في ويكيبيديا هو شيء جيد لتحدي الطلاب. وتتطلع الدكتورة عبير إلى استخدام ويكيبيديا مع طلابها في صفوف المرحلة الجامعية الأولى في الفصل القادم.

Juliana Bastos Marques

A new brochure released by the Wikimedia Foundation on-wiki and in PDF contains case studies of how university instructors around the world have used Wikipedia as a teaching tool. The brochure features 15 professors from 6 different countries, including 9 different assignments professors have used and 5 different ways of grading the assignments.

For example, Professor Juliana Bastos Marques of Brazil shares how she assigns her students to write Wikipedia articles for class. The 13-week assignment encourages students to critically analyze existing Portuguese Wikipedia articles on the course topic, then suggest improvements in a sandbox, with feedback from the professor and Ambassadors, and finally move their articles to the article namespace. More information about Professor Juliana’s assignment is available on the wiki version of the Case Studies brochure.

Dalia Mohamed El Toukhy

In another assignment featured in the brochure, Professor Dalia Mohamed El Toukhy of Egypt explains how she has used translations successfully in her course. Students are learning to be professional translators for French and Arabic, so she has students select high-quality articles from the French Wikipedia that are not available on the Arabic Wikipedia, and the students translate the French into Arabic. In this assignment, Professor Dalia explains, her students get real-world translation examples while improving the quality of the Arabic Wikipedia. See more information about this idea.

Read more ideas of Wikipedia assignments and how to grade them at http://education.wikimedia.org/casestudies.

Another aspect of the on-wiki version of the brochure allows any other professor who has done a unique assignment with a Wikimedia project to create his or her own profile on wiki. Using a guided template, professors can include information about what they did with their students and how successful the project was, including rankings of how the assignment met learning objectives. Professors from around the world are encouraged to add yourself to the on-wiki version of the brochure!

LiAnna Davis, Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager

On July 13, 2012, I had the pleasure to present, “Translation and Transnational Scholarship” at Wikimania 2012 at  The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In the presentation I spoke about my role as a Wikipedia Campus Ambassador in two of Professor Adel Iskandar’s graduate courses: New Media, Innovation, Community, & Dissidence (Fall 2011) and  Media and Communications in the Arab World (Spring 2012) at Georgetown University through the U.S. Education Program (WP:USEP). Each course had two Wikipedia components: article creation and in-class group edits. I became involved with the USEP  because I was eager to help students visualize news and history that had not been yet been represented as a part popular knowledge.

United States Education Program logo

The U.S. Education Program came to Georgetown in the Fall 2010 term and has since been incorporated into 14 courses university wide.  The program provides assistance to professors who want to integrate Wikipedia article creation and editing as part of a course. The support materials include not only wiki markup handouts and brochures, but also both online and offline points of contact. In the classroom, a Campus Ambassador (me, in this case) gives two tutorials, one that focuses on introducing the students to the culture of Wikipedia and one that focuses more on the technical aspects, such as how to contribute a photo and how to edit existing Wikipedia articles. In addition, the program includes the support of an Online Ambassador, who assists the students with more technical questions.

It was extremely enriching to watch the students become explorers during the course. They had to find and discover legitimate sources to not only support emerging social movements, but technologies as well. Students thus found creative ways of writing about technological phenomena as they unfolded in the Arab world, such as finding Arabic citations about the Rassd News Network (RNN), an Arabic Facebook feed, translating them, and making the topic notable for the Wikipedia community and public at large.

I would argue that the more interesting side of Wikipedia editing occurs on the article talk pages, where knowledge production takes place.  It helps students think critically about who decides what is notable or worth adding to the article’s content. It is not one person producing content, but multiple people collaborating together to decide what and how it should be said (and cited!). It is this collaborative aspect of Wikipedia editing that indirectly creates an incentive for academic research offline: What was the process of creating a Wikipedia article? Why was one source rejected and one not?  These questions help augment the following high impact learning outcomes: media and information literacy, critical thinking and research skills, and writing skills development. These outcomes help deepen student learning and engagement, both in and out of the classroom.

(more…)

Group photo of Cairo end-of-term conference participants on the second day of the conference.

More than forty professors, Ambassadors, students, and supporters of the Cairo Pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program gathered at Ain Shams University in Egypt this week for an end-of-term conference wrapping up the first term of the pilot.

By all accounts, the first term of the Cairo Pilot was a success. Professors encouraged their students to edit Wikipedia in the program, with assistance from Campus Ambassadors at Ain Shams University and Cairo University and Online Ambassadors from around the world who helped students virtually. We started small; seven classes joined, with a handful of students participating in each class. For most students, the assignment was optional, either for no grade or for extra credit, which meant that fewer students actually edited Wikipedia than initially signed up, but the results are stunning even given this caveat. A total of 54 students created user accounts through the pilot, and those students edited an incredible 246 Arabic Wikipedia articles. All told, they added 1.1 million bytes of content to the article namespace on the Arabic Wikipedia, which translates to about 372 printed pages of content.

For the Wikimedia Foundation, the Cairo Pilot served as a showcase and learning experiment that will pave the way for future projects on the Arabic Wikipedia. As a pilot, the program served as a proof of concept for using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in universities in Egypt. We had no idea if students would be excited about the assignment, nor if professors would feel like it was worthwhile in meeting course goals. But over the Cairo Pilot, we learned that the Wikipedia Education Program was a good fit for Egyptian universities, and the enthusiasm displayed by students, professors, and Ambassadors significantly exceeded our expectations.

Participants had the opportunity to share learnings with each other.

Although the project only served as a feasibility study, the information students added already made a difference. Mina Saber, a student in Dr. Hoda Abaza’s French class at Ain Shams University, started the article on the 2012 French Presidential Election on the Arabic Wikipedia. Soon, an experienced Arabic Wikipedian stumbled across the article and added more content, collaborating with Mina to make the article even better. Within the 30 days of the election, the article received more than 2,000 visits, meaning Mina’s work had a direct impact on Arabic speaking people looking for information on the French presidential election. His contributions came as an extracurricular activity, but one he truly enjoyed.

“When we do it for marks, we don’t have as much enthusiasm as when we do it for ourselves,” Mina said. “I prefer Wikipedia articles because it benefits other people, not just me.”

Ain Shams Professor Dalia El-Toukhy organized a group of her postgraduate French translation students to translate articles from French to Arabic as an extracurricular activity. She’s looking forward to continuing the project in the future.

“This was the first time the effort in translation for class was useful to a large number of people,” she said. “It exposes the students’ work to real-life experience.”

Dr. Hany Hosseiny, a mathematics professor at Cairo University, agreed. He asked his students to write articles on the historical origins of math topics, including the evolution of the subject. He’d edited the Arabic Wikipedia in 2006 when he noticed some errors in the coverage of mathematics topics, but he’d fallen away from the habit until he heard about the Cairo Pilot, which he eagerly joined.

“I wanted to give my students the opportunity to see what we do not teach, the history of these topics,” he said. “Doing something like this for themselves is the best way to learn what we don’t teach outside the classroom.”

Students and professors were assisted by Wikipedia Ambassadors, who provided technical support and information about Wikipedia. And at the conference, many students reported they would like to serve as Campus Ambassadors next term, assisting more students as they learn to edit the Arabic Wikipedia.

“I feel that I am serving Egypt,” said Campus Ambassador Doaa Seif. “As an Arab, I would like to see us serving our countries. I’m looking forward to the day when we have an even larger Arabic Wikipedia.”

LiAnna Davis, Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager

As students in Cairo enter their last month of Wikipedia-editing before their final exam period, we are more than happy to report that the outcomes of the Cairo Pilot so far have been truly impressive. In an earlier blog post one of us (Annie Lin) described the plans and goals of the Cairo Pilot — how and why we are working with university professors who are assigning students to edit the Arabic Wikipedia — and in a more recent blog post Annie provided mid-term updates. Now, as we near the end of the academic term in Cairo, we look back at all that the professors, students, and Wikipedia Ambassadors have accomplished, and we are amazed. Overall, the Cairo Pilot has been a huge success.

Students in Dr. Iman Ezzeldin's class work on Arabic Wikipedia articles about famous theatrical productions and playwrights.

Just to provide some examples: in one of the participating classes at Ain Shams University, a student created the Arabic Wikipedia article on the French presidential elections of 2012, and has built it into a long, substantial article, updating the content as results from the French presidential elections emerge. In the past 30 days alone, this article has received more than 4,000 unique views, demonstrating the public impact that students in the Cairo Pilot are having. In the same class, other students have added more than 100 kilobytes worth of content to an article about Egyptian events that took place in 2011.

We’ve also seen that having students translate articles is a highly effective way to improve the quality and quantity of the Arabic Wikipedia. At Cairo University, students have translated multiple Wikipedia articles about famous Latin American writers from Spanish to Arabic. At Ain Shams University, after translating two lengthy articles (on civil disobedience and the U.S. Bank Panic of 1907), students are moving on to translate yet another long article (on Cholangiocarcinoma, a type of cancer).

At the time of this writing, students in the Cairo Pilot have contributed more than 847,000 characters to the Arabic Wikipedia, which is the equivalent of approximately 565 whole pages. These numbers will increase further as students finish editing this month. We are also very excited that some students have already expressed strong interest in continuing to edit the Arabic Wikipedia even after the academic term ends.

We certainly also faced many challenges in the past months: for example, Ambassadors and students often have to cope with unreliable internet connections, the unstable political situation in Cairo occasionally disrupts schedules, and a few classes took longer to start editing Wikipedia. These challenges — as well as the successes — have given us many insights into what factors are important for the Wikipedia Education Program to be more effective, and these insights will be highly valuable as we begin working with the community to plan for future terms (more about this to come!).

Faris El-Gwely, Education Program Coordinator, Cairo
Annie Lin, Global Education Program Manager 

What a week it’s been in Alexandria.  Yesterday Wikimania 2008 officially wrapped up after 84 speaking events, as well as lightening talks and poster sessions.  The organizers handled up to 650 registered participants (with an excellent presence from the local Egyptian community), as well as a broad range of local and international media.

You can find pictures from the event on WIkimedia Commons and on the Wikimania site – though expect more to appear as participants complete their travel and get the real uploading underway.

This year Wikinews also released some stories on-the-spot , and as in previous years the Wikipedia Weekly crew were live podcasting from the depths of the conference center (see the Wikimania 2008 main page for the recent list).

But that’s not all.  The webcast team from the Bibliotheca Alexandrina has uploaded (and offered for live webstream) select videos from the conference, including the opening and closing ceremonies.

I’ll post more as we find it – but for now here’s your chance to get a glimpse of the event if you weren’t able to make it to Alexandria.

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

Yesterday we issued a slightly more detailed press release about next week’s Wikimania conference in Alexandria.  We discuss a few more details and provide some further quotes and schedule details.

And on that note, next week we hope to be blogging fairly regularly about activities taking place in this beautiful Egyptian city.  Many of the Foundation staff will be working at the conference on the ground, joining the hundreds of volunteers and enthusiasts at the New Library.

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications<

(Forward from the Wikimania 2008 program committee)

The Wikimania 2008 program committee is proud to announce the program for Wikimania 2008. Wikimania 2008 includes over 80 sessions from the Wikimedia community, the Free culture movement and other related subjects from all over the world. During the three-day program many Wikimedia and Free Culture related subjects will be covered by a wide range of speakers. Numerous ideas and topics will be discussed. Wikimania is a great place to share thoughts and have discussions on the Wikimedia projects and values and issues that are important for Wikimedia.

These presentations, discussions and workshops are presented by experts (by profession or by experience) on their topic. The program committee would like to share some of the highlights of the Wikimania 2008 program, presented by high profile speakers with both technical and free/open culture backgrounds. Some of this year’s speakers:

- Florence Devouard, Chair of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, speaking on the topic of communications between projects, stakeholders, and a global audience

* Eliane Metni, director of the International Education Association on The Global Educators’ Open Course, how teachers from all over the world work together on better educational material.

* Jimmy Wales – Founder of Wikipedia and Board member of the Wikimedia Foundation – will talk about freedom of speech, human rights and free culture. Jimmy Wales brings a long history of involvement in free and open culture projects created by large collaborative communities.

* Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria, will speak about the future in his talk “new paradigms for new tomorrows”

* Tim Spalding – Creator of LibraryThing, a prominent social cataloguing web application for storing and sharing personal library catalogues and book lists will talk about his project.

* Multiple sessions from various Wikimedia Foundation staff and advisory board members including: Erik Möller and Sue Gardner – Deputy and Executive Director – with a forecast for the Wikimedia Foundations upcoming year; Brion Vibber – Chief Technology Officer – discussing the current state of the MediaWiki software; and advisory board members Angela Beesley speaking about how wiki’s can be used to write more then an encyclopedia and Benjamin Mako Hill speaking on the topic
of Free Network Services.

* Schuyler Erle and Mikel Maron from Open Street Map – The free editable map of the whole world, created by volunteers, will speak about their successes and methods.

The program committee is thrilled to present such an extensive program with excellent speakers, and look forward to a successful conference.<

Wikimania is an annual conference put together by a team of local volunteers for Wikimedians around the globe.  The original conference, hosted in Frankfurt in August 2005, was put together as an opportunity for members of the growing communities to meet and talk with each other and those involved in wiki software development.

This year’s Wikimania is being held in Alexandria, Egypt, in the prestigious Bibliotheca Alexandrina.  The venue chosen was built both as a tribute to the Library of Alexandria of antiquity and as a center of knowledge and learning, which nicely compliments the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation.   The event, featuring a variety of presentations, panels, and workshops from wide ranging topics of interest to Wikimedians, educators, the free-culture community at large, tech geeks, and the public at large, runs from Thursday, July 17 and continues to Saturday, July 19, 2008.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Cary Bass, Volunteer Coordinator