On 27–29 August UWC Dilijan College in Armenia will host the 5th annual meeting of the Central and Eastern Europe Wikimedia affiliates, Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016 (#WMCEE2016), organized by Wikimedia Armenia and the Wikimedia Foundation and supported by the Scholae Mundi Armenia Foundation.
The meeting will bring together leading professionals from the most important fields of the Wikimedia movement, as well as officials from the Wikimedia Foundation led by the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Katherine Maher who will take part in this conference for the first time.
Participants from 27 countries, including Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Iran, Israel, Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine and the USA will gather at UWC Dilijan College in order to discuss topical issues in the Wiki movement.
During the three-day meeting, participants will present the activities undertaken in their Wikimedia affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation representatives will present free/open source software news, examining the social and technical aspects of the topics in relation to free knowledge and free content.
“Wikimedia CEE Meeting in Armenia became possible due to the hard work of the Armenian wiki-community. This conference is very significant both for Wikimedia Armenia and UWC Dilijan. I hope that after the conference the college students will also contribute to Wikipedia, editing in their native languages. I hope that our collaboration with the Scholae Mundi Armenia Foundation will continue with new initiatives”, said Susanna Mkrtchyan, the president and co-founder of Wikimedia Armenia.
The meeting is a unique opportunity for the Armenian Wiki community to learn more about the Wikimedia movement, to show what programmes are being implemented in Armenia and to exchange experience.
“It’s a great honour for us that UWC Dilijan College is hosting such a significant conference for Wikimedia, in which the technology of equal access to a quality education in Armenia will form part of the discussion. We hope that the cooperation of the Scholae Mundi Armenia and Wikimedia Armenia foundations will lay the groundwork for further disseminating the world’s best educational practices in the country”, said Veronika Zonabend, co-founder of Scholae Mundi Armenia.