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On Saturday, Boston was
chosen by an 11-person jury to be the host city for next summer’s Wikimedia
conference (aka Wikimania
2006). The week-long event on global
collaboration and free knowledge is being sponsored primarily by HLS’s
Berkman Center for
Internet & Society. Over 50
speakers and 600 attendees from around the planet are expected to
attend – an energetic mix of Wikimedia contributors;
wiki maintainers and developers; academic researchers in law,
technology, and sociology; and librarians, educators, and
entrepreneurs.
You can see part of last year’s program and
schedule on the old Wikimania
website. This year will be even more amazing; to help out, sign up on our volunteer page.
The decision followed a month-long bid
process that culminated in a deadlocked jury and a week of
overtime
deliberation.
The two finalist bids, for Boston
and Toronto,
were both so strong that a jury vote earlier this month was
inconclusive. After asking for more information from both
bids and from
the global Wikimedia community, a second vote this past weekend was
5–4 in favor of Boston,
with 2 abstentions.
The Toronto bid
included a generous offer of from the University of Toronto’s
Knowledge Media Design
Institute, including free use of their new Bahen Centre for Information Technology,
and was supported by an impressive local team.
The Boston bid is
supported by its own local team; by the Berkman
Center (offering space, funding
and enthusiasm); by the MIT Media
Lab‘s electronic
publishing group (offering to host part of the event); and by
many smaller local
groups of the Boston event in various ways.
Boston to host Wikimania 2006, after close contest …
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Congratulations!
Comment by t 10.25.05 @ 3:08 amFrom your friend 🙂
Hi, Sam —
Comment by Lisa Williams 10.26.05 @ 12:30 amI looked at the volunteer page, but I wasn’t sure where to offer this kind of help: I’d like to help with transportation (I have a station wagon and would be happy to make a number of trips to the airport, or to pick up large bulky things). I also have a guest room that I would be delighted to fill with a Wikipedian. I probably wouldn’t be good at organizing or scheduling things, but I’m fantastic at saying yes to random requests at the last minute :).