Wikimania 2008 Begins at the BA
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Alexandria—
The Fourth annual Wikimedia Conference “Wikimania 2008” began at the BA on Thursday, 17 July 2008. Dr. Ahmed Darwish, Minister of State for Administrative Development, gave an address in the Conference opening session, on behalf of HE Dr. Ahmed Nazeef, Egyptian Prime Minister.
Dr. Ahmed Darwish spoke about the challenges and opportunities of information and communication technology. He addressed the issue of community participation in information and knowledge dissemination and gave several recommendations to involve researchers in the information revolution, encourage public cooperation, and work on awareness campaigns.
Florence Devouard, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation, took the floor and spoke of reach, participation, and quality of the Wikimedia projects. She stated that holding this year’s Conference at the BA, is an exceptional opportunity as it shares several common objectives with the Wikimedia Foundation, most important of which is access and sharing of knowledge. She spoke about Wikimedia ,its foundation and the previous Wikimania Conferences. She focused on community participation and empowering people to have better lives by leveraging free and open knowledge.
Mohamed Ibrahim, Lead of Wikimedia Organizing Committee, expressed his profound thanks to Dr. Ismail Serageldin for his full support to the organizing committee and for agreeing to host Wikimania 2008 at the BA. He spoke about increasing awareness of free knowledge and the free software movement among Arabic speakers. Jokab Voss, Program Committee, gave a brief on the Conference’s main tracks, plenary, and parallel sessions.
Dr. Hoda Baraka, Deputy Minister of Communication and Information Technology, gave a presentation entitled “Education and the Wiki Paradigm; A Tug of War?”, in which she spoke about the relation between education and information technology. She gave a brief on the history and development of education in Egypt, and how information technology was first introduced in Egyptian schools in 2002. On the Egyptian Education Initiative, she quoted Mrs. Mubarak remarks in the World Economic Forum “The Egyptian Education Initiative is a tremendous opportunity to provide Egypt’s greatest asset, its people, with the skills necessary for the 21st century."
Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria, gave a presentation titled “New Paradigms for New Tomorrow”. Dr. Serageldin addressed several issues, mainly: the problems and promises of our age; freedom of expression; freedom of access; what the BA is doing; the importance of upholding our values; and the role of youth. He referred to the credo of the Library of Alexandria, “all information, to all people, at all times”. He also highlighted the role of the BA towards realizing both sides of the coin; freedom of expression and freedom of access, in addition to being a center for the dissemination of knowledge.