Education/News/February 2026/The history of the Wikimedia movement in a Brazil: a book about stories and projects
The history of the Wikimedia movement in a Brazil: a book about stories and projects
Wikimedia in Brazil: the power and challenges of free knowledge
Wikimedia Brasil has just launched the book "Wikimedia in Brazil: The Power and Challenges of Free Knowledge," which is now freely available on Wikimedia Commons and WikiSource. The book is divided into three thematic sections: Collaborative Communities, Education and Open Science, and Free Cultural Dissemination.
Organized by João Alexandre Peschanski and Amanda Chevtchouk Jurno, the work, published by EDUFBA, features 15 papers by professors, researchers, professionals, Wikimedia contributors, and enthusiasts of free knowledge, tracing the history of the Wikimedia movement in Brazil.
At the book launch, which included several authors and was broadcasted live on WMB's YouTube channel, Amanda Jurno described the work as "a photograph taken in front of a mirror, reflecting its authors in an incomplete freeze-frame of the present at the time it was materialized." She emphasized that, in such a dynamic movement and with so many rapid changes in the context of the internet, such as the popularization of artificial intelligence, it is difficult to portray the entire context of Wikimedia in Brazil.
In addition to this online launch, WMB will also be hosting a series of events across Brazil to discuss the book and the history of Wikimedia in the country. If you would like to hold an event at your institution, please contact our education team at educacao@wmnobrasil.org or alex.hilsenbeck@wmnobrasil.org.
Obelepédia 2026
Obelepédia, the final stage of the Brazilian Linguistics Olympiad – which has been held since 2021 and aims to create and improve language entries on Wikipedia – has a new format this year. After receiving funding from the Wikimedia Foundation, the 6th edition of the project is already making history with a larger number of participants: more than 60 students and 18 volunteer tutors representing 20 Brazilian states.
Since the beginning of February, high school students and recent graduates have been engaged in the activity. Each week, participants submit an entry and are evaluated on it. The expectation is that, by the end of Obelepédia, on March 8th, Wikipedia will have at least 50 edited or created entries on languages.
Open Science, Scientific Dissemination and Digital Technologies meeting
In another partnership, INCT-ADAPTA and Wikimedia Brasil jointly organized the Open Science, Scientific Dissemination and Digital Technologies meeting. Alex Hilsenbeck and Artur Corrêa, both from WMB, showed how Wikimedia socio-technical infrastructure projects can strengthen science through multiple media and informational languages. In addition, training was provided on integrating Wikimedia platforms for research, with a practical workshop to show research groups how to use Wikidata.
The highlight was considering Wikimedia platforms – such as Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikiversity – as part of the open science ecosystem. Instead of thinking of them merely as spaces for "dissemination" at the end of research, we can view them as socio-technical infrastructure aligned, from the outset, with the principles of free knowledge. The key point is that, in these experiences, Wikimedia platforms cease to be used only as a "showcase" and become a work environment as well: a place where forms of public writing are experimented with, controversies are negotiated, and ways of representing data and concepts in an open and verifiable manner are tested.
Meeting with ACT Health Promotion
ACT Promoção da Saúde (ACT Health Promotion), an organization dedicated to defending and promoting public health policies, has partnered with Wikimedia Brasil. The goal of this collaboration is to develop a project focused on information integrity to strengthen the promotion of public health on Wikipedia in Portuguese.
In February, WMB participated in the InovACT 2026 event, alongside other institutions, presenting how Wikimedia platforms, especially Wikipedia, constitute essential environments for the integration and dissemination of reliable health information.