There is something I really like with Waterfront Congress Centre. I can´t put my finger on it, for sure it´s not the slow WiFi-connection. Probably its the sensation of what this building means for me. It was the entrance for my carrier with the web. From student to blogger to working in the business. Now I´m back here again and its for Internetdagarana 2013
Starting the day with a coffee in the darkness listening to Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia article of course) who founded Wikipedia is a inspiring start to any day. Especially with a coffee ;)! Now 12 years after Wikipedia launched 2001 has grown insanely. When it first came most of the articles was a bit dodgy. You didn´t really know what was correct or not. Nowadays since the number curators of Wikipedia is growing the accuracy of the platform is reliable. But always check the facts elsewhere on several different places.
Some astonishing fact about Wikipedia that Jimmy Wales presented are:
- 30 million articles in 285 languages
- 8 languages over a million articles
- 46 languages with over 100 000 articles
- 120 languages with 10 000 entries
- 223 languages have at least 1000 entries
- 516 million monthly unique visitors
- 87% male curators COME ON WOMEN – JOIN!
- 26 is the average age of the curators
- Wikipedia has doubled the % of PhD:s
The best part of his keynote was the project Wikipedia Zero. Its a foundation from Wikimedia thats fighting for making Wikimedia free to access and use from wherever and for whoever, both for people to read and to update and make articles. They are targeting everything from telecom companies to anyone who could make this possible. Check out the moving open letter made by 12 graders in South Africa begging the telecom carriers making Wikipedia free of charge. (Movie is embedded under)
With ”only” 3 billion people having access to broadband we have a long way to go. Like most developing countries the are moving straight to mobile. Yet again its a global responsibility to think mobile first if you want to have the users with you. I got that fact drilled into me pretty hard while working in web development and design.
At first it wasn’t easy. The format would disagree with one another, a change in one could drastically affect the look for the other. There was always new divi update information to read up on, and that was just one of many tools constantly updating, changing, and dare I say, not always improving. As with most things, I was able to persevere and come out the other side wiser. I’ve found myself teaching this very fact to the new guys at times. Adapting will always be part of web dev and design.
Rebecca MacKinnon fighting against the control
In the same fashion as Jimmy Wales wanting to liberate the web for the people Rebecca MacKinnon is fighting for the freedom of speech and less governmentally controlled web. Her keynote really expressed the concern for the regulations som countries have, like the ”Firewall of China”.
She showed an activist movie made in Pakistan that want to terminate the ban of YouTube in the country. Both keynotes opening Internetdagarna 2013 gave a sense of a movement to the event. That we all were here to help the progress of technology and internet being liberated to everyone in the world from locked in knowledge and boosting our collective intelligence! Very important cornerstones to the development of humankind and our future and a great start to the event and the two days coming!
Hugs for YouTube! #KholoBC from Ziad Zafar on Vimeo.
All links possible are made to Wikipedia in loyalty to Wikipedia and the free web! Thanks @amelsec for letting me use the picture of Rebecca MacKinnon.
