Hi all,
In the past years I have organized (alone and together with Deror Lin or Nicole Ebber) the Wikimania presentation 'The Coolest Projects' where I tried to give an inspiring overview of some of the amazing things Wikimedia affiliates are doing in our movement - sometimes against the stream. I have enjoyed it a lot and learned a huge amount of stuff from the volunteers I spoke with in preperation for this presentation.
I decided however that 2013 will have been my last presentation on this topic. I no longer have the luxury or enthusiasm to spend the countless hours on collecting, investigating, expanding, comprehending and presenting these projects. While Nicole had to make the same decision, I found Deror Lin (with whom I presented together in 2012) prepared to continue the project in 2014.
I think it is fair to say that the effort has become a project in itself. I'm very glad Deror is taking the torch and I'm sure he can use all the help he can get. Please don't tell him, but to give you an impression of the work involved, we estimated that we easily spent hundreds of hours on preparing this presentation last year. So if you want to help Deror, please share your support. He will probably approach the affiliates in the coming months to share their cool projects, and I hope that you don't make him chase you too much :) Think about it already!
If you want to help out, or if you just want to show your support for the presentation, please leave a note on https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/The_coolest_projects_of....
Looking forward to an awesome presentation, but this time with me in the comfortable seats,
Lodewijk Gelauff