News

The first Open Data Camp in Switzerland brings together thinker and creator to collectively make change happen.

Wikimedia CH supports this event - read more on opendata.ch

The Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire (BCU) - Lausanne and Wikimedia CH joined their competencies in the project Valdensia. The goal is to import 800 biographies of notable people in the Swiss canton of Vaud into Wikipedia, increasing their visibility and allowing anyone to correct and improve them. The project is planned to finish in November 2011. Read on ... .

swissGLAMour is a Wikimedia CH program which targets a better coverage of Swiss cultural heritage in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, like Wikimedia Commons. Part of it is also, in a medium/long term, a better cooperation between GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) and Wikimedia. In short term, and most exciting, watch the Wiki Loves Monuments Space, where WMCH will participate.

With 1-2% of its budget, Wikimedia CH is supporting to build up communities in Africa. The first attempt is in Bamako, Mali.

A dictionary Songhai - French is being created which contains around 3000 words by now. And a Map of Bamako replaced now the formerly empty spot on Openstreetmap. However many street names and points of interest are still missing.

Many thanks to Renaud Gaudin and Collegues from Kunnafoni, and Christian Wagner from Openstreetmap to support this.

Beside the on-going fundraising, our association is momentarily involved with the beginning of the international TAO project. On 26 October, the project dealing with involvement of elderly people to online communities has been kicked-off. An official project website is soon going to inform about it in detail. Wolf Ludwig, TAO project lead for Wikimedia CH since April, participated in the intense project preparations. Our partner Seniorweb together with the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Coop and Swisscom organized an information stand at the Coop-Center Wankdorf in Bern, where Wikipedians will explain how (not only) people over the age of 50 can get familiar with the Internet and the editing process on Wikipedia from the beginning of next year. Board member Charles Andrès is, for his part, staging Wikipedia courses at several universities for Third Age people in Romandie. More infos will soon be available on the TAO website.

In order to reach a broad involvement of the Swiss Wikipedia Community in the TAO project, we ask our members to fill out a poll - and hope for a high degree of participation!

Seniorweb, one of our partner organizations in the TAO project, has recently posted an interview with Mourad Ben Abdallah, President of Wikimedia CH. He answered questions about the autonomy of the Wikimedia chapters, about the Rösti barrier or about the expectations of the TAO Project (Third Age Online). The German version of the interview can be found here (a French language version is also available):

http://www.seniorweb.ch/type/magazine-story/2010-10-10-wikimedia-der-schweiz

PS: The TAO project will start on Tuesday 26 October, at 17.30 clock, with a public kick-off event. The event will take place in the auditorium of the Bern University of Applied Sciences at Hallerstr. 10 in Bern.