Wikimedia, the Essential Infrastructure For Open Knowledge
Florence Devouard has been a major player in the Wikimedia world for 22 years. She was the second Chairperson following founder Jimmy Wales. Today, the Wikipedia is one of the top 5 websites used in the world. Florence talks about how they achieved this, becoming a trustworthy source of verified and referenced information.
The 2030 mission is ambitious and inclusive – way beyond the online encyclopedia we all know. The most striking ideas in our conversation are her thoughts about the challenges that lie ahead:
Finances –making information available free for everyone costs money
New user habits – sharing in a media that fits today’s world of video and audio, chunked, short pieces
AI – the current spread of generative AI, and how people are using chat GPT to get info, decreasing the use of the Wikipedia that has actually been scraped by AI providers
Freedom in the world in particular what has been happening with the Wikipedia in Russia the last few years
Getting data about climate change out into the open
The sidebar offers more information about Florence as well as links to some of the Wikimedia Foundation initiatives.
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