Wikimedia CH/Newsletter/09/2017
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Please find Wikimedia CH's newsletter for the month of September.
If you wish to share an event or activity through this newsletter, please feel free to send us a message at info@wikimedia.ch. Have a nice reading!
What happened in September? edit
Hack the City in Chiasso (August 31th - September 1st, 2017) edit
Hack the City 2017, the Southern Swiss Hackathon, has been held during the last days of August as third edition of the successful format created by Barbara and Ryan Vannin involving local startups, local programmers and talents and local associations.
It was a long marathon of 4 days, 2 days of presentation and 2 days of hackathon involving 6 teams to work around a project, released with free license. The hosting place has been "Spazio Officina" in Chiasso.
Wikimedia CH has been in the jury together with important stakeholders like the Canton Ticino, the Bank of Canton Ticino, RSI, Lastminute.com, Netcomm (the Swiss association of e-commerce), Fondazione Agire and Tecnopolo, Startup.ch, The University of Lugano, SUPSI, etc.
The special mention of Wikimedia CH was for the winner team: Montelabs, a team of a Brazilian researcher and a student of the University of Stuttgart, both working remotely.
They developed a blockchain digital ID solution that allows governmental agencies to provide services and to run public consultations in a secure and transparent and easy way.
Why this special mention? Because blockchain is used a lot to produce virtual coins (i.e. bitcoins) but these two students used a solution which was originally created for a commercial use and adapted it to a project of “social innovation”.
Any additional information is available in the dedicated blog: blog.hackthecity.ch.
Wiki Alps Forum (WAF) in Trento (September 1st - 3rd, 2017) edit
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The Wiki Alps Forum (WAF) is a group of motivated German, Austrian, Swiss and Italian people of the Alpine region. Apart from the geographical and cultural-spatial interrelations, they are also interested in the Alpine region as the habitat of innumerable animal and plant species. Founded in January 2016 with only two countries, the organisators work to become France a member too.
The trip to Trento was the second day of a several-days-long event, and it was hosted by activists of the autonomous region Trentino-Alto Adige. They organized a nice sample of cultural heritage and natural science. The main attractions were the visits of the Library of Trento and the Museo Diocesano Tridentino (German) as well as the Viote Alpine Botanical Garden. Almost 200 photos were taken and uploaded. Read the full report of this event in German or Italian. In June 2018, WMCH intends to invite WAF to Switzerland.
3rd Swiss Cultural Hackathon in Lausanne (September 14th-16th, 2017) edit
On September 14th-16th, the cultural Hackathon gathered librarians and archivists from several institutions at the University of Lausanne. Quite a few exciting projects took place, including a visualization of the correspondence networks of Jung and Rilke, and a lot of new data on theatre in Switzerland was connected to WikiData. OpenGuesser, the geography/archival image matching game, got updated, and the demo can be accessed here. The CHUV's collection of historical medical objects was uploaded to Commons, so if you'd like to know how a stethoscope used to look like in the early 20th century, you can go to this page. A report with highlighted projects can be read here.
Wikidata workshop during HackZurich (September 14th, 2017) edit
Three weeks ago, one of the largest hackathons in Europe took place in Zurich. Organized at the initiative of Open Data Zurich in cooperation with Universität Zürich (UZH), were it took place, the 30 participants edited 43 different articles in total. The main focus "of the workshop was to provide information and training about Wikidata, the free knowledge base that anyone can edit and use". Wikimedia Switzerland sponsored the pasta bar for lunch to all auditors and the welcome dinner for the external speakers. Read the full report of Dynamic and Distributed Information Systems Group.
New and old encyclopedias edit
Corriere del Ticino, the main newspaper of the Italian Switzerland, has published two pages about Wikipedia last Saturday, 7th October in the section of cultural pages as a reply to the main Italian encyclopedia: Treccani. The section contains a long dissertation about the advantages of online encyclopedia, a description of the five pilaters and an inteview to Ilario Valdelli, member of the staff about the differences with the traditional encyclopedias.
The Wikimedia 1914-18 Europeana Challenge edit
On the occasion of the centenary of WWI and as part of Europeana 1914-1918, we challenged Wikimedia affiliate organisations to create a portfolio of their activities related to 1914-1918. WMCH received a special mention for its detailed and beautifully produced portfolio. You can find out more about the challenge on this page.
Announcements edit
Scholarships for WikiConventon francophone edit
For those who just found out they are free on October 19th-21st, or on any one of those three days, registrations for this French-speaking meet-up are still available. The conference fee is € 20. Rooms are still available in the pre-reserved hostels, without any need to book. Just register on this page, so the organization team can count you in. You will still need to organize your own journey to Strasbourg, and its cost is then to be settled with the Expense Report with WMCH.
More information about this event, registration and so on can be found on WikiConvention francophone.
List of coming events edit
| Date | Events | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 11.10. - 15.10.2017 | German-French Edit-a-thon at the Frankfurt Book Fair | Frankfurt, Germany |
| 14.10.2017 6.00PM | Stammtisch im Huusmaa | Zürich, ZH |
| 19.10. - 21.10.2017 | WikiConvention francophone | Strasbourg, France |
| 20.10.2017 09:00AM – 05:00PM | DINAcon 2017, Conference for digital endurance at Welle7 Workspace with 21 sessions about Open Source, Open Data, Blockchain, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, The Things Network etc. At least with two wikipedians (Hadi, Gestumblindi) as speakers | Bern, BE |
| 20.10.2017 06:00PM – 06:00AM | DINAcon HACKnight | Bern, BE |
| 25.10.2017 12:15PM – 1:30PM | discussion / information event Vom Umgang mit Wikipedia. Eine Herausforderung für Forschung und Lehre an der Universität? L’usage de Wikipedia à l‘université. Un défis pour la recherche et l’enseignement ? | Fribourg, FR |
| 28.10 - 29.10.2017 | WikidataCon dedicated to the Wikidata community, organized for and with the community. | Berlin, Germany |
| 26.10 - 27.11.2017 | 2nd edition of Media in Piazza dedicated to education. | Locarno, TI |
| 04.11.2017 10:00AM – 4:00PM | Edit-a-Thon in the National Library | Bern, BE |
| 16.11. - 19.11.2017 | GLAM-on-Tour at Monte Verità (Sign in obligatory, deadline October, 29th!) | Ascona, TI |
| 17.11. - 19.11.2017 | WikiDACH Barcamp | Mannheim, Germany |