VivaCell-MTS supports organizing of Wiki Camp in Aghveran

On 7-11 January, Wikimedia Armenia Scientific-Educational NGO organized a Winter Wiki Camp in the “Voske Getak” holiday home in Aghveran for young people of 14-20. The leading telecommunications operator in Armenia VivaCell-MTS supported the organization of the camp by providing high-quality internet connection.

On January 10, the participants of Winter Wiki Camp boosted the Armenian Wikipedia from the 42nd to the 41st place in global ranking.

Wikipedia is a multilingual encyclopedia with free content that is created by the users of the Wikipedia website in free editing format. Wikipedia and its sister projects are among the top five of the websites which offer free content.

Millions of people around the world use Wikipedia every day; hundreds of thousands of people from every corner of the world are volunteer editors of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the best platform for creating free high-quality educational materials and presenting one’s country in all its diversity to the rest of the world. This is the reason why using and adding materials to Wikipedia has become an important tool for spreading the knowledge of our national identity and preserving our mother tongue.

Wikipedia and Wiki projects are a mandatory part of the school and university curriculum in a number of developed countries. As this attitude has not been formed in Armenia yet, Wikimedia Armenia Scientific-Educational NGO organizes various Wiki events which are aimed at spreading the culture of creating high-quality free content by widening the army of Wikipedia editors, teaching Wikipedia tools and enrooting the Wiki ideas among the schoolchildren.

In 2014 Wikipedia Armenia organized a Wiki camp in Vanadzor which surpassed all Wiki projects with its effectiveness and was recognized as the best Wikimedia project in the annual Wikimania conference held in London.

In 2015 Wikipedia Armenia plans to organize 4 Wiki camps, two of which in international format.

Participants of the Winter Wiki camp 2015 were schoolchildren of 14-20. The participation fee was provided by their parents and active Wikipedia editors. During the camp the young people added materials to the Wiktionary, Wikidata, Wikipedia, learned Armenian songs and took part in intellectual games.