2024/Press release

WikiConference North America 2024 brings Wikipedia's annual regional conference to Indianapolis for conversation about equity, reliability, and AI in open knowledge

On October 3–6, the conference with hundreds of attendees from across the USA, Canada, and Mexico will spotlight Indiana institutions while bringing together the regional Wikipedia editing community and allies from cultural heritage, education, and tech sectors—with primary support from the Central Indiana Community Foundation, the Wikimedia Foundation, and Indiana University Indianapolis University Library.

Friday, October 3 will be proclaimed WIKIPEDIA DAY in Indianapolis by Mayor Joe Hogsett, recognizing the city's significant contributions to the free, online encyclopedia.

Members of the press are invited to register to attend WCNA for free by contacting press@wikiconference.org.

INDIANAPOLIS, SEP. 18, 2024 — WikiConference North America will be held in Indianapolis from Thursday, October 3 to Sunday, October 6, 2024. WikiConference North America is the annual regional conference of Wikimedia enthusiasts and volunteers in the continent, drawing attendees from across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In honor of the occasion, Indianapolis mayor Joe Hogsett has proclaimed October 4 as Wikipedia Day, citing "the deep involvement in the broader open knowledge movement" of Indianapolis residents and institutions.

The conference sessions will be held in Hine Hall, on the campus of our host organization, Indiana University Indianapolis University Library. Several hundred participants are expected to attend over seventy different conference sessions. Topics will include inclusivity, community outreach, technology, institutional partnerships, and the past, present, and future of Wikimedia projects.  

All day Thursday will be WCNA's annual "Culture Crawl" event, where editors and the public learn about and participate in cultural and institutional outreach in conjunction with many of downtown Indianapolis' museums and attractions. Culture Crawl participating sites include the Indiana Statehouse, the Herron Art Library, the Indiana State Capitol, the Indiana Supreme Court Law Library, the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, Lucas Oil Stadium, the Walker Legacy Center, the Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana War Memorial Museum, the Ray Bradbury Museum, the Indy Liberation Center, and a number of independent bookstores, with guided walking tours offered by Indiana Landmarks.

A Thursday evening reception at the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library will feature a panel on intellectual freedom with bestselling Indiana author Leah Johnson, activist librarian Stephen Lane, and moderated by Jason Aukerman, the Director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at IU Indianapolis' School of Liberal Arts.

On Friday, the Indiana State Library will host a reception for all WCNA attendees, which will include entertainment by Depths of Wikipedia's Annie Rauwerda.

Featured speakers at WikiConference North America include:

• Maryana Pinchuk is a Principal Product Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, leading the Foundation's "Future Audiences" initiative to research and develop new product strategies for ensuring that Wikimedia projects survive and thrive for generations to come. She has been a Wikimedian since 2010.
• Hannah Clover, who edits under the username Clovermoss, is the youngest Wikipedian of the Year award recipient. Clover collected the stories of over 200 editors through her "editor reflections" project. She also advocated for new editors and those editing on smartphones.

Other topics will include representation of women on Wikipedia, Wikipedia sister projects like Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata, and the formation of a North American Wikimedia hub. This year, over 90 travel scholarships were awarded—including 25 for Mexican and Canadian residents—allowing more attendees to participate without regard to cost than ever before. Many Wikimedia Foundation employees are expected to be in attendance, showcasing their work. Being held in the midst of Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States, there will be a significant focus on Latinx topics, with a Hispanic Heritage edit-a-thon and screenprinting activity facilitated by EquisLabs. Editathons are events where editors collaborate to create and improve Wikipedia articles on particular topics. There will also be an keynote address honoring the legacy of Effie Kapsalis, a beloved figure in the community who worked within the Smithsonian Institution to promote open access, Wikipedia, and gender equity before her passing in 2022.

WikiConference North America is an all-volunteer conference run by editors and participants in the Wikimedia movement, with assistance from our sponsors and partners: the Indiana University Indianapolis University Library, The Indianapolis Foundation Library Fund, the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia District of Columbia, and the Indiana State Library.

Members of the public interested in attending can register at https://pretix.eu/wcna/2024/. More information can be found on the conference website, https://wikiconference.org. For media inquiries, please contact press@wikiconference.org.

ABOUT THE CENTRAL INDIANA WIKIPEDIA PARTNERSHIP & WIKIMEDIANS OF INDIANA USER GROUP

The Wikimedians of Indiana User Group is a formal affiliate user group of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is run as a program of the Central Indiana Wikipedia Partnership, a group of organizations collaborating to improve the representation of Indiana’s heritage on Wikipedia. The Indianapolis Foundation’s Library Fund has generously funded the partnership—run by Indiana University Indianapolis University Library—whose main aim is to increase the capacity of central Indiana institutions to engage with Wikipedia by working together on programs such as staff training, contributing digital collection images by Wikimedia Commons, holding public editing events, and more.

ABOUT WIKICONFERENCE NORTH AMERICA

WikiConference North America began as WikiConference USA, held at New York Law School in 2014. In 2015, WikiConference USA was held at the National Archives in Washington DC. In 2016 its name was changed to reflect its new geographic scope, and the first Canadian WikiConference North America was in Montreal in 2018. WikiConference North America is a recognized affiliate user group of the Wikimedia Foundation.

About WIKIPEDIA

Wikipedia celebrated its 23rd anniversary in January 2024.  The English language Wikipedia now contains over five million articles, and there are now Wikipedia encyclopedias in 294 languages. Tens of millions of editors around the world have created accounts on the English language Wikipedia alone, and over 100,000 edit each month.  The Wikimedia volunteer movement encompasses all of those encyclopedias, as well as other projects including Wiktionary (a free dictionary), Wikimedia Commons (a free repository of images, video, and other media), Wikidata (a free metadata repository), and many others. The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, located in San Francisco, supports and operates all of these Wikimedia projects.  

ABOUT THE WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects; build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content; support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES

WikiConference North America Press Team

press@wikiconference.org