UCT welcomes Wikimania 2018

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is a proud supporter of Wikimania 2018, the first such gathering of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, and focused this year on boosting locally relevant African content on Wikipedia.

About 700 volunteers are expected to attend the annual gathering of the Wikimedia Foundation, which is being held from 18 to 22 July at the Cape Southern Sun Hotel.

This year’s organising general chair Douglas Scott is the knowledge manager at The Safety Lab, an innovation and test centre focused on safety and security in the Western Cape, which has among its official partners UCT’s Centre of Criminology.

The theme of Wikimania 2018 is Bridging Knowledge Gaps: The Ubuntu Way Forward, with the aim of assessing what’s missing, then working on strategies to close the knowledge gaps on the Wikipedia and Wikimedia sites.

Delegates, who comprise members of the global Wikimedia movement, will volunteer their time and expertise to edit and improve Wikipedia articles, to create bots, and to organise events and projects that attract more knowledge, the organisers said.

“Wikimedia is also looking to expand its non-Western topics, where there is still not enough locally relevant content about Africa, particularly that which is gathered from African perspectives or shared in African languages,” they added.

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