Alice Wiegand is the Vice Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the governing
body responsible for overseeing the nonprofit that supports Wikipedia and its sister free knowledge sites. Alice has an extensive background across the software development and information technology sector. Alice currently is head of IT and organizational development at the city administration of Meerbusch. Previously, she served as the personal aide to the Mayor of Meerbusch. Alice has been a supporter and contributor to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia free knowledge projects since 2004. Before joining the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees in 2012, Alice served on the Board of Wikimedia Deutschland for three years.
THURSDAY, October 13, 2016 | MAIN STAGE | 16:30 – 17:00
Wikipedia and the spirit of collaboration: how openness leads to innovation
Openness drives almost every aspect of Wikipedia and its sister projects the open contributor model that allows anyone to edit, the collaborativelydeveloped software that powers the sites, and the articles and images that can be freely used, reused, and remixed by anyone, for any reason. This openness, powered by a global community of volunteers, has allowed Wikipedia to become one of the largest and most popular websites in the world, and also spurred it’s more
recent venture into the realm of open knowledge open data. Alice Wiegand, Vice Chair of the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia, will discuss the value of openness on Wikimedia sites as well as the ways in which Wikipedia’s open model can lead to innovation across the internet.