<div dir="ltr">To the full report: <a href="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Reports_-_March-September_2010">http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Reports_-_March-September_2010</a> <br>(Hebrew version: <a href="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/%D7%93%D7%95%D7%97_-_%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%A5_%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%98%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%A8_2010">http://www.wikimedia.org.il/%D7%93%D7%95%D7%97_-_%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%A5_%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%98%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%A8_2010</a>)<br>
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<span>Membership and Meetings</span></h2><b>Membership </b><br>At the end of 2009 there were 21 members <br>Since the beginning of 2010, nine members have joined the chapter. <br><br><b>General Assembly</b><br>On 24 June 2010, Wikimedia Israel held its annual general assembly in Tel Aviv. The meeting included elections to the executive board. Mr. Shay Yakir was reelected Chairperson of the Board. Two acting board members, Mr. Idan Dorfman and Mr. Asaf Bartov, were reelected for another term. Two new board members, Mr. Tomer Ashur and Mr. Rotem Simcha, were elected, filling in for former board members who had resigned or had not presented their candidacy for reelection. Mr. Tomer Ashur was appointed treasurer. <br>
<br>At the meeting, the Audit Committee, consisting of Mr. Harel Cain and Prof. Uzi Vishne, presented its findings and recommendations to the assembly. The Audit Committee also approved the financial reports for the year 2009 (calendar year). <br>
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<span>Financial report and Budget</span></h2>
<b>Financial Report 2009</b><br>At the end of 2008, the total assets of the chapter were: ILS 7,082.80 (equals to USD 1,898 or EUR 1,453)<sup id="cite_ref-forex_0-0" class="reference"><a href="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Reports_-_March-September_2010#cite_note-forex-0" title="">[1]</a></sup><br>
Of the aforementioned amount, ILS 6,076 (85.8%) came through donations to the chapter.<br>At the end of 2009 the total assets of the chapter were: ILS 73,479 (USD 19,694 or EUR 15,213)<sup id="cite_ref-forex_0-1" class="reference"><a href="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Reports_-_March-September_2010#cite_note-forex-0" title="">[1]</a></sup>. <br>
Of the aforementioned amount, ILS 70,204 (95.5%) came through donations to the chapter.
<br><br><div>
<a name="Projects" id="Projects"></a><h2 style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; font-size: 20px;">
<span>Projects</span></h2>
<a name="Wikimania_2011" id="Wikimania_2011"></a><h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline">Wikimania 2011</span></h3>
<p>The chapter volunteers are hard at work preparing Wikimania 2011
which will be held in Haifa. Negotiation took place with all hotels at
the conference area obtaining large discounts for attendees. Chapter
members are also working to obtain scholarships for the event. The
registration site is expected to be up and running by 1st January 2011.
</p><p>Most of the relevant information has already been entered to the official website of the conference: <a href="http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/" class="external free" title="http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org" rel="nofollow">http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org</a>
</p>
<a name="The_Wikipedia_Academy_Israel_conference" id="The_Wikipedia_Academy_Israel_conference"></a><h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline"> Supporting legislation that promotes free content availability </span></h3>
<p>Following lobbying by the chapter members, on 26th May the Knesset
(the Israeli Parliament) members voted 21 in favor and zero against a
bill drafted by MK Meir Sheetrit, i.e. unanimously supported the
proposed amendment to the copyright Law making state and IDF-owned
photographs free for use by the public. This vote in called a
"preliminary reading" and is the first of four votes needed. The
proposal was then passes to the Science and Technology committee of the
Knesset, where it will be formalized, amended, and then passed back to
the general assembly for voting into law.
</p><p>Chapter members have met with the Technology committee and with
the Ministry of Justice in order to better the wordings of the Law.
</p>
<a name="Lectures_and_Collaborations" id="Lectures_and_Collaborations"></a><h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline">The Wikipedia Academy Israel conference</span></h3>The Wikipedia Academy Israel conference is a professional conference
about the assimilation of Wikipedia in the educational system and the
academic sector, promoting the free content idea in Israel, using
organizational Wiki systems, and other similar subjects. The conference
is intended to host hundreds of people from the fields of information
handling, teachers, lecturers, students, and of course, the general
public. The first conference was held on the 3rd of May, 2009.
<p><a href="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Wiki_Academy_2010" class="external text" title="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Wiki_Academy_2010" rel="nofollow">The second annual conference</a>
took place on 14th June 2010 at the Tel Aviv University. More than 230
people attended the conference. 20 Academia's gave academic lectures.
The keynote speakers were Mr. Samuel J Klein, Member of the Board of the
Wikimedia Foundation, Director of Outreach of the One Laptop per Child
Project in the United States, and Prof. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger,
Director of the Information and Innovation Policy Research Center at the
National University of Singapore<b>, Author of "Delete" - On the Virtue of Forgetting Information in the Digital Age.</b>
</p><p>The conference was organized by Wikimedia Israel in collaboration with the School of Communication at the <a href="http://www.netanya.ac.il/content/_ArticlesLang/Article.asp?CategoryID=179&ArticleID=1707" class="external text" title="http://www.netanya.ac.il/content/_ArticlesLang/Article.asp?CategoryID=179&ArticleID=1707" rel="nofollow">Netanya Academic College </a> and the <a href="http://www.haifa.ac.il/" class="external text" title="http://www.haifa.ac.il" rel="nofollow">University of Haifa</a>, and through the sponsorship of <a href="http://www.niis.tau.ac.il/" class="external text" title="http://www.niis.tau.ac.il/" rel="nofollow">The Netvision Institute</a>, the <a href="http://www.student.co.il/?CategoryID=643" class="external text" title="http://www.student.co.il/?CategoryID=643" rel="nofollow">Tel Aviv University Student Union</a> and the Sagy Center for the Study of the Internet located at the Haifa University.
</p><p>The next academy will take place as part of Wikimania 2011.
</p>
<a name="Africa_Center_Project" id="Africa_Center_Project"></a><h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline">Africa Center Project</span></h3>
<p>As part of the annual delegation sent by the Institute of African
Studies in the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Wikimedia Israel, in
partnership with Amutat Hamakor, initiated a shipment of Linux-installed
computers including a static version of the French Wikipedia to
Cameroon and Benin.
</p><p>Wikimedia Israel collaborated with members of Wikimedia
Switzerland and Wikimedia France to produce an up-to-date static version
of the French Wikipedia (numbering about 1 million entries, and
including images), French being a major language of reading and writing
in Cameroon and Benin.
</p><p>The students also have portable installations of the offline
Wikipedia, so that they may install it on any other computers they may
run across in Africa and they have received training on using Linux and
Kiwix, the offline Wikipedia reader (free) software, so they may train
others to use the computers.
</p><p>Incidentally, the Linux version installed on those computers is
called Ubuntu Linux, 'Ubuntu' being an African word (in the Zulu
language) roughly translatable as "unity of mankind" or "mutual
reliance".
</p><p>Supporting and promoting the distribution of free knowledge in
developing countries is one of the five major goals identified by the
Wikimedia Foundation as central to its five-year strategy plan,
developed by thousands of members of the Wikimedia Movement.
</p><h2 style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; font-size: 20px;">
<span>Lectures and Collaborations <br></span></h2>
<a name="Wikimania_2011" id="Wikimania_2011"></a><p>
</p>
<a name="Supporting_legislation_that_promotes_free_content_availability" id="Supporting_legislation_that_promotes_free_content_availability"></a><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline"></span><p>Members of the chapter gave lectures about Wikipedia and Wikimedia
projects to several companies and groups in order to promote new writers
to join Wikipedia and other Wikimedia project.
</p>
<ul><li> A lecture about Wikipedia as crowd-sourcing was given by Asaf
Bartov and Dror Kamir at the Israeli Translators Association conference
in Jerusalem, on 9 February.
</li><li> A lecture about reading and editing Wikipedia and about the
Free Software and Free Culture movements was given by Amir Aharoni to
the in the Tel-Aviv branch of the youth movement Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed
on the 30 April.
</li><li> A lecture about Hebrew Wikipedia was given by Amit Avidan and
Dror Kamir to members of the "Shiluvim" students and alumni association,
on 5 May.
</li><li> A lecture about Wikipedia was given by Amir Aharoni to members of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, on 23 June.
</li><li> A lecture about Hebrew Wikipedia was given by Harel Cain to employees of Amdocs, a large hi-tech company, on 3 August.
</li><li> A lecture about Hebrew Wikipedia was given by David Shay to the communications students of Tel Aviv University, on 28 July.
</li><li> A lecture about the Hebrew Wikipedia, the Israeli Wikimedia
community and the outreach to Israeli Academics was given by Amir
Aharoni at the New York City Wiki Meetup on 29 August.
</li><li> A lecture about Wikimedia Israel -- successes and challenges
-- was given (via video-conference) by Asaf Bartov to the Bangalore
(India) Wiki-Meetup on 12 September.
</li><li> A lecture about Hebrew Wikipedia was given by Asaf Bartov to employees of OpTier Ltd., a software company, on 21 September.
</li></ul>
<p>A new project with the Israeli Library Association aiming to promote
collaboration between librarians and writers in Wikipedia has been
agreed upon, and the Association now encourages libraries to collaborate
with the chapter in hosting lectures about Wikipedia to be held in
libraries for librarians and for the general public.
</p>
<a name="Elef_Milim" id="Elef_Milim"></a><h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline">Elef Milim</span></h3>
<p>The Elef Milim Project brings together Wikipedians for fun
educational activity aiming at enriching the free image repository with
pictures of sites, buildings and landscape in Israel. It is a series of
field-trips to different sites in Israel, organized and guided by those
Wikipedians who are experienced in tourist guiding, history and/or
geography.
</p><p>In Hebrew Elef Milim can be translated as "a thousand words" - a
reference to the proverb a Picture is worth a thousand words - or as "a
thousand miles" - a reference to a journey of a thousand miles begins
with a single step.
</p><p>In total 33 tours took place as part of this project. At the
relevant time period of this report, the following tours took place:
</p>
<ul><li> The <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Acco" class="external text" title="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Acco" rel="nofollow">27th field-trip of Elef Millim project</a>
took place on 5th March 2010, to the Old City of Akko. The tour guide
was one of the city councilwomen and a local resident of the old city,
who introduced to us the residents of the old city.
</li></ul>
<ul><li> The <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Herodion" class="external text" title="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Herodion" rel="nofollow">28th field-trip of Elef Millim project</a>
took place on 9th April 2010, to the mountain desert fortress of
Herodion built by king Herod the Great near Bethlehem south of
Jerusalem.
</li></ul>
<ul><li> The <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Nahariyya" class="external text" title="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Nahariyya" rel="nofollow">29th field-trip of Elef Millim project</a> took place on Firday, 7th May 2010, to the northern city of Nahariya.
</li></ul>
<ul><li> The <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Muslim_Quarter" class="external text" title="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Muslim_Quarter" rel="nofollow">30th field-trip of Elef Millim project</a> took place on Tuesday 18th May 2010, to the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.
</li></ul>
<ul><li> The <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Ramat_Rachel" class="external text" title="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Ramat_Rachel" rel="nofollow">31st field-trip of Elef Millim project</a>
took place on Friday 11th June 2010, to the Kibbutz of Ramat Rachel
near Jerusalem. During the tour we visited the Kibbutz, heard about the
discoveries in the archeological site were a large palace from the First
Temple period has been discovered, and unriddled the odd discoveries
there. We also saw various sculptures such as the Olive Columns by the
artist Ran Morin, and have met with the artist.
</li></ul>
<ul><li> The <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Yagur" class="external text" title="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elef_Milim_-_Yagur" rel="nofollow">32nd field-trip of Elef Millim project</a> took place on Friday 6th August 2010, to the Kibbutz of Yagur near Haifa.
</li></ul>
<a name="International_Wikimedia_Chapters_Conference" id="International_Wikimedia_Chapters_Conference"></a><h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline">International Wikimedia Chapters Conference</span></h3>
<p>In March 2010 two delegates from Wikimedia Israel, Itzik Edri and
Asaf Bartov, participated in the International Wikimedia Chapters
Conference, held in Berlin, Germany. The 3-day conference was attended
by delegates from more than 20 Wikimedia chapters worldwide, and
consisted of knowledge- and experience-sharing, working groups, and
focused discussions on particular issues, such as institutional
partnerships, fundraising, and outreach.
</p><p>The Israeli delegates participated in the Communications and
Developing World working groups. In the communications working group,
Itzik shared his experience both as Wikimedia Israel spokesman and as a
professional media expert in his day job. Asaf undertook to summarize
and present the results of the Developing World working group's
discussions (<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/2/24/Proposed_Agenda_for_Wikimedia_in_Developing_Nations.pdf" class="external text" title="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/2/24/Proposed_Agenda_for_Wikimedia_in_Developing_Nations.pdf" rel="nofollow">A Proposed Agenda for Wikimedia in Developing Nations</a>), and has proceeded to recruit volunteers and coordinate the creation of a dedicated Wikimedia mailing list for discussing <a href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/devnations-l" class="external text" title="https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/devnations-l" rel="nofollow">Growing Wikimedia in Developing Nations</a>.
</p>
<a name="Other_Projects" id="Other_Projects"></a><h2 style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; font-size: 20px;">
<span>Other Projects</span><br></h2><ul><li> <a href="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Free_image_collection_project" class="external text" title="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Free_image_collection_project" rel="nofollow">The Piki Wiki Project</a>
</li></ul>
<ul><li> <a href="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/The_Hebrew_Wikipedia_mobile_poster_exhibition" class="external text" title="http://www.wikimedia.org.il/The_Hebrew_Wikipedia_mobile_poster_exhibition" rel="nofollow">The Hebrew Wikipedia mobile poster exhibition</a>
</li></ul>
<a name="Wikimania_2011" id="Wikimania_2011"></a>
<p>
</p>
<br></div></div>