Invitation to Wikimania 2008

Have you ever tried Wikipedia? Do you want to know about other projects based on wiki? Do you want to learn how to write, edit and share in this new revolution?

If your answer is YES, then you are invited to join us in Wikimania 2008, the fourth annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation, which supports Wikipedia and its sister projects. Bibliotheca Alexandrina will be hosting the event from July 17-19, 2008.

Wikimania is an international conference where the enthusiastic community behind the Wikimedia projects gathers to meet, exchange ideas, report on research and projects, and discuss the future of the Wikimedia projects. It is a community event, which is also open to the public and to researchers. Experts and activists in free knowledge, wiki culture, multi-lingual and multi-cultural projects, and massively collaborative open systems can exchange ideas with active Wikimedians in a highly participatory and energetic, discussion-driven format.

Conference themes this year include:

·"Wikimedia Communities", including the topics of conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; multi-lingualism and languages and cultures

·"Free Knowledge", including open access to information; ways to gather and distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and usability; and free content in the Middle-East/Africa

·"Technical infrastructure", including issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; Wikimedia's technical infrastructure; and new ideas for development

·"Scientific track", including research into massively collaborative work; open and free content creation; community dynamics; and the social or economic aspects of the Wikimedia projects

The four conference tracks are parallel, featuring prominent keynotes and invited speakers along with submitted talks on the conference themes, workshops, as well as informal discussions. Eminent speakers include Ahmed N. Tantawy, the Technical Director of IBM in the Middle East and Eliane Metni, the founding director of the International Education Association, Tim Spalding, the founder and lead developer of LibraryThing; Eric M. Johnson, the team leader for the Knowledge Management Action Team at the U.S. Department of State and Usama Fayyad, Yahoo!'s executive vice president of Research & Strategic Data Solutions.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is honored to be hosting this event, as it stands in line with its aim of spreading knowledge and allowing it to be available to all. By hosting the event in Africa and in the Arab region, we are assisting in creating true IT empowered nations out of our developing countries, if by merely drawing the people’s eyes to this side of the globe.

For registration, please visit http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration

There are special discounts for students:

· 35 % discount for all students in Egyptian Universities. kindly send your National ID or Passport + Faculty ID Card after you register to: Wikimania-registration@wikimedia.org

· 50 % discount for group students more than 10 persons, each individual is to register separately and the group list is to be sent afterwards along with the IDs in a separate email to: Wikimania-registration@wikimedia.org

So JOIN US and invite your friends!

For more inquiring about discounts, please contact us by email Wikimania-registration@wikimedia.org

:) Sincerely,