Dear Wiki Community, It is with great pleasure that we - the Wikimania Steering Committee[1] - announce that Wikimania will be hosted virtually from August 13-17th, 2021 [2] and that the Core Organizing Team (COT) has been selected and fully onboarded. Since 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia, Wikimania 2021's theme is 20 years of Wikipedia and all the humans that make it possible. We'll look back at our history and celebrate our future. We thank everyone who applied to the call for volunteers [3] - it was a tough selection process given the impressive number of strong applicants we received. However, The Wikimania Steering Committee is pleased to announce that after due deliberation and assessment, we selected a total of 9 individuals from our broad community who will lead the way in organizing the first ever virtual Wikimania. The official Core Organizing Team members are the following: 1. Vanj Padilla 2. Anna Torres (Anna Torres (WMAR) 3. Susanna Mkrtchyan (WikiTatik) 4. Winnie Kabintie 5. Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 6. Yamen Bousrih (Yamen) 7. Gnangarra 8. Bodhisattwa 9. Lodewijk (Effeietsanders) We trust that each COT member has the skills, dedication and willingness to come together and bring to life our very first virtual edition of Wikimania and to help create the necessary spaces for our community to continue to thrive and work together. We had originally foreseen the need for 4-6 individuals to form the COT but after such strong applications, we decided to extend that number to 9 individuals, given the great team that we identified could work together and flourish. We invite you all to participate in Wikimania 2021 and to contribute to its content and success. The COT will be reaching out to some applicants who marked their availability to be volunteers in their application, but we also encourage you to let us know if you would like to be considered for volunteer roles and opportunities for Wikimania 2021. With this said, as the functioning Wikimania Steering Committee, we would like to make public our endorsement of the Core Organizing Team and our trust that they will move forward with the great responsibility and excitement of bringing to life Wikimania 2021. The COT will soon be announcing more information around Wikimania 2021 and how you can get involved - so please stay tuned. Please save the dates in your calendars, we hope to see you there! Sincerely, The Wikimania Steering Committee [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Committee [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2021 [3] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2021:Call_for_volunteers _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l