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Wikimania hits Israel as conference opens

August 5, 2011 08:25
Jimmy Wales

By

Jennifer Lipman,

Jennifer Lipman

1 min read

Internet users with a penchant for obscure facts and seemingly random details have gathered in Haifa this week for the annual Wikipedia conference.

The three-day event Wikimania opened yesterday and will feature a speech by the online encyclopaedia's founder, Jimmy Wales.

Other guests include Tomer Ashur, the chairman of Israel's Wikimedia chapter, and hundreds of activists and citizen editors from the around the world. Attendees even came from Venezuela and Indonesia, countries which do not recognise Israel.

This year's event is the seventh, and the first to be held in Israel, a country known for it's IT and hi-tech industry. Previous locations have included Egypt and Poland.