Wikimedia South Africa/Wikimania 2018

Wikimedia ZA group photograph at Wikimania with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia Foundation ED Katherian Maher.

Wikimania Cape Town 2018
Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town is now over. As host organisation Wikimedia ZA would like to thank everyone who attended and the many people who helped make this year's event such a success. We would like to give a very special thanks to the Wikimedia Foundation for the technical and financial support to make the event a reality as well as all of our event volunteers. We would also like to thank our event sponsors Interactive Africa, WikiHow and Google as well as supporting organisations such as Wesgro, Goethe Institute and the University of Cape Town.

During this year's Wikimania we welcomed around 700 attendees from 60 countries attending almost 80 presentations and an additional two days of pre-conference events and workshops. A total of 170 news stories in the foreign and local press reported on the event thereby greatly increasing awareness of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia community in South Africa. Exact numbers will be released when the Wikimania 2018 report is released.

Wikimedia ZA increased its membership by almost 40 new members. Wikimedia ZA is still an entirely volunteer organisation but after this event the need to further professionalise the chapter has become clearer to support a larger membership base and the many more organisational partnerships we have developed at the conference.

For a brief outline, filmed at Wikimania, on the theme of the 2018 event check out this video made by the Wikimedia Foundation: Wikimedia 2018: How do we bring free knowledge to everyone around the globe?