Throughout the voting period, staff were able to meet and organize during working hours without restriction, and Wikimedia Foundation leadership repeatedly affirmed staff’s right to decide for themselves whether union representation was right for them. The Foundation respects this outcome and is glad that all eligible staff had the opportunity to participate and make their voices heard.

The Foundation will now move forward with good-faith collective bargaining with the union. We will approach this next phase constructively, lawfully, and with care for the staff whose work makes it possible for us to serve people everywhere.

For 25 years, Wikipedia has established an unparalleled resource for reliable information with the mission to make knowledge accessible for everyone, everywhere. Achieving this mission depends on the combined contributions of staff, volunteers, donors, partners, and readers across the globe. We are grateful to all those who continue to support Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects and continue to strive toward a vision of a world in which everyone can share in the sum of all human knowledge.

At the Wikimedia Foundation, we value collaboration across differences, constant improvement, and curiosity. These values do not just define the projects we host; they are also our commitment to how our employees should be treated. A commitment to these values will be central to the Foundation’s approach in this next phase of the process.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.

The post Wikimedia Foundation Statement on US staff unionization appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

Rena brings more than 25 years of experience leading People and Culture teams across humanitarian, technology, finance, and media sectors. Most recently, Rena advised mission-driven organizations through RK People Strategy & Advisory, a management consultancy that specializes in human resources (HR) advising, organizational design, and talent strategy. Prior to this, Rena spent more than 13 years at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global nonprofit that supports people affected by conflict and disaster. There, she rose through the organization to lead People and Culture for its Global Headquarters of 2,000 employees across 27 countries as its Head of People and Culture. In earlier roles at the organization, she led HR across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, overseeing people strategy across challenging global conflict and displacement contexts.  

“At the Wikimedia Foundation, people are our greatest strength. For our next Chief People Officer, it was essential to find a leader who can recognize and invest in that strength, and I’m thrilled to say we’ve found it in Rena,” said Bernadette Meehan, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. “Rena has been a senior people and culture leader working across some of the most complex global environments, and I’m excited to bring her expertise and empathetic leadership to help steward this next chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation.” 

“I’ve spent my career supporting people to do their absolute best work, and I’ve seen the collective impact individuals can have when you equip them to succeed. I’ve long been an admirer of Wikipedia, and I’m eager to join an organization and mission that’s a shining example of the incredible power of what humans can achieve together,” said Rena. 

Prior to her time at IRC, Rena built the people function at FTEN, a financial technology company, working directly with its founders through the company’s acquisition by Nasdaq. Before this, Rena held HR roles at both Condé Nast and MeadWestvaco. She holds a Master of Science in Global Affairs from New York University and bachelor’s degrees in political science and sociology from Ithaca College. 

Rena succeeds Courtney Bass Sherizen, who announced in April 2026 that she was stepping down as Chief People Officer. 

As Chief People Officer, Rena will be responsible for cultivating the Wikimedia Foundation’s leadership culture, talent strategy, and employee experience, ensuring the organization’s nearly 700 staff around the world have the support, clarity, and opportunities they need to succeed. She will join the organization officially on 1 September 2026.  

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. 

The post Wikimedia Foundation welcomes Rena Kokalari as new Chief People Officer appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

Aug. 5, 2026 update — On July 28, 2026 the CWA filed for a union election with the NLRB. On August 4, 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation and the CWA reached an agreement on which staff are eligible to participate in the representation election. We agreed to include all of the staff CWA requested in our discussions about eligibility. The NLRB approved the agreement on August 5, 2026. Ballots will be mailed to these staff by the NLRB on August 11 and counted by the NLRB on September 3, based on the election agreement details. Foundation leadership remains committed to supporting a fair, lawful, and transparent process.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit organization guided by values centered on shared purpose, continuous improvement, welcoming participation, and open, curious dialogue. We aim to advance a more informed and inclusive world through our support of knowledge sharing and access, and recognize that this work begins with how we operate as an organization.

Recently, the Communication Workers of America (CWA), affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), asked the Wikimedia Foundation to voluntarily recognize it as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for eligible US-based staff. The Foundation is the primary employer of 342 US-based staff, including managers. The Foundation works with employers of record to support 309 staff in 38 other countries who are not included in CWA’s request. 

We understand the important role unions have played historically in advancing worker protections and representation. Two-thirds of the Wikimedia Foundation’s executive team come from union families or have been union members themselves. 

Foundation leadership respects the right of staff to unionize, if they choose to do so. That decision rests with them. The perspectives expressed by CWA organizers reflect principles, including collaboration, openness, and fairness, that we take seriously. These principles are also important to our volunteer communities and those who support us.

We also know from listening to staff who have reached out to us that they hold a wide range of views on unionization, and that any decision in this area has implications for our global workforce, including those not eligible to join a US union. Our goal as leadership is to find solutions that work for all staff, and provide, as far as possible, a balanced work experience, and support our mission. This is especially important at a time when there are intense challenges externally, including declining readership and contributors to Wikipedia, changes in the technology environment, threats to free expression, and the need for financial resources to support our movement and staff globally. 

As stated, the decision to unionize belongs to staff. The Foundation’s responsibility is to ensure that they can make their own choice freely. So that every eligible employee has an equal voice, we believe a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board is the appropriate path forward. This process protects individual choice and ensures that any outcome reflects the collective will of those eligible to participate.

As conversations continue, we are committed to the following:

• If an election is held, we will support a fair, lawful, and transparent process.
• We will continue to ensure information and perspectives can be shared openly, while fostering a respectful environment for dialogue.
• Participation in discussions or meetings related to this topic will remain voluntary.
• If a majority of eligible employees vote in favor of union representation, we will work with the union and engage in good-faith collective bargaining.

We also remain committed to listening and ensuring that all staff feel heard, supported, and able to contribute to our shared mission. Please see the FAQ below for more information about this issue.

Frequently asked questions

The post Wikimedia Foundation Statement on US unionization request appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

The conference comes at a historic moment for the website, as Wikipedia celebrated its 25th birthday in January, marking a quarter-century of free, trusted, and human-built knowledge for the world. Created in 2001, Wikipedia has grown into one of the most popular and trusted websites in the world, with more than 67 million articles across over 300 languages. Every month, nearly 250,000 volunteers contribute their time to create, improve, and curate information across Wikipedia. Through an open, transparent, and collaborative process, volunteers work to ensure that knowledge remains neutral, reliable, and accessible to everyone.

The theme of Wikimania 2026, “Liberté, Équité, Fiabilité” (Freedom, Equity, Reliability), will guide discussions on the future of free knowledge at a time when artificial intelligence, disinformation, online trust, and access to information are reshaping the digital landscape.

“As Wikipedia celebrates 25 years, we’re entering a new era for knowledge. Artificial intelligence is transforming how people discover and consume information, making human collaboration more essential than ever,” said Bernadette Meehan, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. “Wikimania is a venue to celebrate the human endeavor that makes Wikipedia possible: the thousands of volunteers who work together across borders to create, improve, and steward information the world can rely on.”

“Wikimedia France is pleased to host Wikimania 2026, the world’s largest gathering of contributors, researchers, and advocates of free knowledge,” said Rémy Gerbet, Executive Director of  Wikimedia France. “At a time when our information ecosystem is facing unprecedented challenges, this year’s conference will serve as a key forum for reaffirming the digital commons as an essential foundation for technological sovereignty and trustworthy information. We demonstrate that a decentralized movement fostering community autonomy is a guarantee of resilience and innovation; we have proven this over the past 25 years and will continue to do so in the future.”

Across five days, the Wikimania programme will include keynote sessions, workshops, community meet-ups, policy discussions, cultural events, and technical collaborations focused on the Wikimedia projects and the wider digital knowledge ecosystem.

Programme highlights include:

• Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary: Sessions reflecting on how Wikipedia has evolved from an experimental online encyclopedia into a global public resource, and what the next 25 years of free knowledge may look like.  
• Wikipedia in the age of AI: Discussions on how generative AI is changing the way people search for and consume information, and how Wikimedia projects can continue to support reliable, human-centred knowledge online.
• The Wikimedian of the Year Awards: Presented by Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, these awards recognise exceptional volunteer contributors from across the Wikimedia movement.
• Public policy and digital rights: Conversations on online safety, content reuse and attribution, privacy, open-source technology, and the role of digital public goods in democratic societies.
• The Wikimedia community in France: Sessions and activities highlighting the work of local volunteers, cultural institutions, and partners who contribute to the growth of free knowledge in France and beyond.
• Wikipedia Puzzle globe activation: As we continue to celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday year, volunteers will create a one-of-a-kind 100 m² puzzle made up of nearly 950 pieces, forming the iconic Wikipedia globe. This will be one of the largest puzzles to ever be built in France.
• UNESCO Keynote: Mariya Gabriel, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO, will deliver a keynote address at Wikimania 2026 about the value of open knowledge as a global public good.
• The Team Challenges Wikimania Hackathon: Professionals from all backgrounds will collaborate on ten key technical challenges that directly address the complex problems encountered daily on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. 

Wikimania 2026 will be offered in a hybrid format, offering an opportunity  for a global audience to engage in the rich discussions in-person and virtually. To ensure participation of people from various countries, the conference will be translated into multiple languages including Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.  The event will also be available to watch live on virtual streaming platforms. Follow the event on social media using #Wikimania2026. The full programme for Wikimania 2026 is available online.

For media inquiries, please contact press@wikimedia.org.

About Wikimania

Wikimania is the annual gathering that brings together the global community of volunteers who make Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects possible. It is a space for Wikimedians to connect, share ideas, learn from one another, and shape the future of free knowledge. The first Wikimania was held in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2005, and the event has since become the flagship international conference of the Wikimedia movement.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. Visit our website to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia.

About Wikimedia France

Wikimedia France is the non-profit organization that develops and promotes Wikimedia’s free knowledge projects, including Wikipedia, across France. Its mission is to enable everyone to freely access and contribute to the sum of all knowledge. To defend a collaborative, open, and alternative web, the association conducts national advocacy for digital commons. It builds cultural, scientific, and educational partnerships, while providing logistical, legal, and human support to its community of thousands of volunteers. Active for over 20 years, Wikimedia France works to make free knowledge an essential pillar of democracy.

About WikiFranca

WikiFranca is the Wikimedian association that brings together various French-speaking groups, both formal and informal, of the Wikimedia Movement. WikiFranca currently brings together 27 member groups from 3 continents. Its aim is to encourage activities in French on the various Wikimedia Projects, both online and in the field, and to promote collaboration and cooperation between French-speaking Wikimedians around the world, by offering support for their activities or organizing collaborative international projects.

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As the Wikimedia Foundation continues to take steady steps to protect its infrastructure, a big part of creating a sustainable solution for our knowledge mission is Wikimedia Enterprise, a commercial service and product we started working on five years ago.

Building Wikimedia Enterprise

Though it’s become a more significant concern in the AI era, commercial reuse of Wikimedia data taxing our servers has been a problem for some time. For over a decade already, Wikimedia content has been crawled to power commercial products like search engines, voice assistants, knowledge panels, and any other service that needs up-to-date information about the world.

But while our content is free, our infrastructure is not. The companies running these services weren’t the ones paying for the maintenance and upkeep of the servers they were accessing to get our content. Our individual donors were the ones footing the bill. The Foundation needed to find a way to get those commercial institutions profiting off the digital commons to help carry the burden of sustaining those commons.

Did we think this approach would be easy? Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to pay for something when you’re already giving it to them for free. Still, we made a bet that if Wikimedia Enterprise could provide a comprehensive product experience that catered to their business needs of scale and speed with new features and functionality they want, reusers would be more easily drawn to make the switch.

The Wikimedia Enterprise team talked to big tech companies and other commercial reusers to find out how they were using Wikimedia projects in their products. Then we set out to build a product geared towards their use cases: a set of APIs for high-volume, high-frequency access that integrated and normalized the Wikimedia projects’ many datasets into a unified offering with a well-structured, extensible data schema.

Wikimedia Enterprise’s commercial strategy isn’t licensing-based. It’s access-based. The content of Wikimedia projects will forever be free and open to anyone. But Wikimedia Enterprise shines when you need access to that data at the volumes that automated scrapers and commercial businesses need: it offers automated bulk and real-time access to Wikimedia’s vast and constantly updated store of knowledge, packaged in a product designed to seamlessly support a wide range of commercial use cases.

Five years since the launch of Wikimedia Enterprise, we can safely say: it’s working. Since its inception, Wikimedia Enterprise has fully repaid its initial investment and is now contributing back to the Wikimedia Foundation’s long-term sustainability. We did this by iterating the product offering and creating incentives for commercial organizations to switch to Wikimedia Enterprise’s infrastructure, all without sacrificing the broader goal of keeping the Wikimedia projects free for human users and mission-aligned partners and communities. Income from Wikimedia Enterprise is capped at 30% of the total Wikimedia Foundation annual revenue. This cap was established in order to ensure that the majority of funding continues to come from small donations from millions of readers – a key ingredient to ensuring Wikimedia’s ongoing independence. This has allowed the Wikimedia Foundation to continue serving its mission of preserving the open knowledge ecosystem, while forging meaningful partnerships with tech companies and other commercial businesses so that they can do their part to sustain and preserve the ecosystem as well. 

Establishing boundaries for commercial reuse

Building the infrastructure of Wikimedia Enterprise and creating incentives for commercial organizations to switch to it is not enough. Bad-faith actors continue to tax our public API infrastructure to crawl and scrape, spoofing their identities, using residential proxies, and more. This has put multiple kinds of increased pressure on the Wikimedia Foundation’s limited resources as a non-profit — and ultimately impacts the knowledge commons that the world relies on. 

To ensure commercial reusers know they need to switch to Wikimedia Enterprise, we have to use new tactics. We’re not switching off our existing public API access, now or ever, but we have begun rate-limiting large-scale reusers of the Wikimedia Foundation public APIs. If a company needs to access our data at a significant enough speed or volume, Wikimedia Enterprise is now the right place for them to go — a must-do rather than a nice-to-have. This rate-limiting is a difficult balancing act of protecting our infrastructure while fostering our community. It’s not easy, but we’re working on viable solutions that align with our community needs.

We’re also continuing to build out the Wikimedia Enterprise platform to make it more valuable to non-commercial reusers who aren’t profiting off Wikimedia data but still need access at scale. We’re actively forging partnerships with non-profits and startups that align with the Wikimedia Foundation’s goals or values to give them free access to the Wikimedia Enterprise APIs. Volunteers can get access to Wikimedia Enterprise through Wikimedia Cloud Services, and we introduced free access for smaller commercial reusers as well.

The Wikimedia Foundation operates within many systems that make the world function. Five years ago, we started Wikimedia Enterprise to translate between the non-profit system of the Wikimedia Foundation and the for-profit system of commercial businesses, so they have an easier pathway to reuse one of the largest high-quality, human-created knowledge resources on the internet. We told them that Wikimedia projects are so valuable that we made them free for the millions of humans who rely on them every day – but, as companies building products based on these vast knowledge commons, we need you to pay for the value you derive from them so we can keep them free forever. 

Lane Becker is President of Wikimedia Enterprise and Senior Director of Commercial Partnerships). Jolan Wuyts, Senior Technical Writer at Wikimedia Enterprise, also contributed to this post.

The post The cost of ‘free’: How Wikimedia Enterprise protects Wikipedia in the AI era appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

UPDATE — On 10 July 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation was notified by Ofcom that Wikipedia is not currently deemed a Category 1 service under the Online Safety Act (OSA). However, as part of that announcement, Ofcom informed the Foundation that Wikipedia will remain on a “watch list” of platforms that do not currently qualify as Category 1 services, but that could become Category 1 at any point in the future, should Ofcom choose to reassess its decision. 

While the Foundation is relieved by Ofcom’s agreement that Wikipedia is not a Category 1 service, future Category 1 designation remains an existential threat to Wikipedia, open knowledge, and the privacy and safety of the global community of volunteers who create the information on the site. Without any clear and sustainable limits to categorization, Wikipedia remains vulnerable should Ofcom choose to reassess its decision. The Foundation will continue to advocate for safeguarding public-interest spaces like Wikipedia, asking for a careful re-scoping of the OSA and its Categorization Regulations.

UPDATE — 12 September 2025, The Wikimedia Foundation will not appeal the UK High Court’s decision to dismiss our challenge to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) Categorisation Regulations. The Foundation will continue to monitor how the Court’s guidance is followed, and Wikipedia is protected as the OSA moves forward.

UPDATE — On Monday, 11 August, the High Court of Justice dismissed the Wikimedia Foundation’s challenge to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) Categorisation Regulations. While the decision does not provide the immediate legal protections for Wikipedia that we hoped for, the Court’s ruling emphasized the responsibility of Ofcom and the UK government to ensure Wikipedia is protected as the OSA is implemented. 

The judge recognized the “significant value” of Wikipedia, its safety for users, as well as the damages that wrongly-assigned OSA categorisations and duties could have on the human rights of Wikipedia’s volunteer contributors. The Court stressed that this ruling “does not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia’s operations”,  and indicated they could face legal repercussions if they fail to protect Wikipedia and the rights of its users. In order to achieve that outcome, he suggested that Ofcom may need to find a particularly flexible interpretation of the rules in question, or that the rules themselves may need amendment in Parliament.

If the ruling stands, the first categorisation decisions from Ofcom are expected this summer. The Foundation will continue to seek solutions to protect Wikipedia and the rights of its users as the OSA continues to be implemented.

The post Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon brings together volunteers to create and improve articles on specific topics on Wikipedia. At this event, dozens of volunteers from around the world gathered inside the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) chamber to edit Wikipedia pages about the UN and open source topics, including digital public goods, AI regulation, the Global Digital Compact, UN history, and more. The event happened alongside the UN Tech Over hack-a-thon and maintain-a-thon, annual collaborative events designed to tackle global challenges using open source technology.

With in-person support from Wikimedia NYC — an independent, Wikimedia affiliated organization — event attendees, many of whom were editing for the very first time, improved several Wikipedia articles using on-site UN archives, official reports, datasets, and credible news sources. Volunteers worked to expand access to free and open knowledge online by:

• Creating more than 60 new Wikipedia articles
• Making nearly 700 edits across 129 existing articles
• Adding 16,600 words to Wikipedia
• Adding 120 citations to reliable reference material

Tajh Taylor, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Special Advisor to the Chief Product and Technology Officer, closed out the edit-a-thon by sharing: 

 “Wikipedia became the largest reference work on the internet because millions of people contributed small, meaningful changes, each of which added a bit of knowledge or corrected a small issue.  The work of the volunteer editors and stewards today adds to that body of knowledge, paying dividends to the billions of curious people around the world in search of human knowledge.”

The edit-a-thon also kicked off a full week of panels and discussion that fostered collaboration, awareness, and engagement on the benefits of open source technology and the global digital governance challenges that are ahead in the age of AI. As Omar Mohsine, Open Source Coordinator at the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, put it: 

“Global gatherings like UN Open Source Week are critical spaces for Member States and stakeholders across the UN system to come together to learn, share ideas, and build a digital future that works for all of humanity. The open internet and open source technology are at a crossroads in the age of AI, and the conversations happening at UN Open Source Week are exactly the conversations we need to be having not in 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years, but now.”

The Wikimedia Foundation looks forward to continuing collaborations with Wikimedia NYC and the United Nations to continue championing the importance of digital public goods and open source technology on the global stage.

Stay informed on digital policy, Wikipedia, and the future of the internet: Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter 📩

About the Wikimedia Foundation 

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. Visit our website to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia. 

About Wikimedia New York City 

Wikimedia NYC is a 501c3 nonprofit and local Wikimedia chapter formally established in 2009 that is dedicated to building a brighter, broader, and better Wikimedia movement. We help promote free access to the world’s knowledge. We are committed to building a Wikipedia as democratic and diverse as the New York City subway and to partnering with libraries, museums, organizations, and educational institutions that share our vision in providing access to free knowledge. Visit our website to learn more about Wikimedia New York City.

About the United Nations Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies

UN ODET advances global technology cooperation to build a more inclusive, innovative, and sustainable future. As the UN’s Connector, Catalyst, and Convener, we bring together governments, the UN system, the private sector, academia, and civil society to strengthen collaboration, align expertise with Member States’ priorities, and maximize the impact of emerging technologies. Our mission is to help close the digital and AI divide by supporting countries in building the capacity to shape and benefit from technological innovation. Through inclusive partnerships and coordinated action, we work to ensure that digital transformation creates opportunities for everyone. Visit our website to learn more about ODET.

About the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology 

UN OICT enables a better, safer, more sustainable future through innovative technology. OICT is responsible for defining strategic direction for ICT in the Secretariat. It provides oversight of ICT programmes, systems, applications, and decision-making. The office is committed to ensuring colleagues all over the world have the necessary ICT tools to succeed in their respective mandates. Visit our website to learn more about OICT.

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WIPO is the UN specialized agency that discusses, negotiates, and approves international rules and frameworks for IP worldwide, which UN Member States use to draft and implement national laws that directly affect access to and content on open knowledge infrastructure such as Wikipedia and other digital public goods. 

Blocking the Wikimedia Foundation’s WIPO permanent observer status denies billions of Wikipedia users across over 300 languages a chance to be represented in decisions about how they work and what they can read online. Further, WIPO and its Member States are deprived of learnings from the Wikipedia community, including their 25 years of experience navigating modern and flexible copyrights and, more recently, one of the most pressing policy challenges: balancing creators’ rights with scalable public access to open knowledge in a time of artificial intelligence (AI). Excluding the Wikimedia Foundation from WIPO is especially concerning because Wikipedia is consistently used as one of the highest-quality datasets to train large language models (LLMs). 

In vetoing the Foundation’s membership, the representative for China misrepresented Wikipedia’s volunteer-driven policies and practices, all of which are rooted in accuracy and neutrality and help effectively counter misinformation and disinformation online. Concerningly, this sustained opposition seems to signal a broader trend in suppressing legitimate participation and debate of civil society organizations — as shown earlier this year by the cancellation of RightsCon, the world’s largest digital rights conference. 

“Despite many years of vetoes from China, we will continue to pursue accreditation at WIPO on behalf of Wikipedia’s global reader and volunteer contributor community, who deserve to have a voice in the policy discussions that directly impact the future of open source knowledge projects like Wikipedia,” said Stephen LaPorte, General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation. “The systematic exclusion of the Wikimedia Foundation from WIPO reflects the deeply troubling trend of civil society being pushed out of the rooms where policy is being made. Digital public goods like Wikipedia and Wikidata must be given a seat at the table to ensure the future of intellectual property policy continues to benefit the global common good.” 

Germany, acting as the coordinator of the WIPO group of industrialized countries (which includes Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Turkey, the Holy See, and many European Union Member States), supported the Foundation’s accreditation request.

Alongside Germany, individual Member States, including Canada, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, expressed strong public support for the Foundation’s application. The supporting countries highlighted that the Wikimedia Foundation would bring invaluable insights and practical experience to WIPO’s ongoing mission.  

We call on all WIPO Member States and leadership to help resolve this political impasse and ensure that WIPO’s work enables the technical and legal viability of a free, open, neutral, and collaborative internet, now and in our shared future. 

As a recognized observer at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and member of the Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Wikimedia Foundation will continue to advocate for free and open knowledge on the global stage, including in important conversations about AI governance and the future of knowledge in a digital age.

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed on digital policy, Wikipedia, and the future of the internet.

For media inquiries, please contact press@wikimedia.org.

About the Wikimedia Foundation 

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. Visit our website to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia.

The post China again blocks the Wikimedia Foundation as a permanent observer to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

The winning stories, covering migration, youth sports and maternal health, are being recognized for helping highlight meaningful stories in Africa. The Awards celebrate the essential role journalists play in creating well-researched articles that volunteer editors can use as source materials to develop content on Wikipedia. Wikipedia relies on evidence-based reporting to inform and expand its content, making journalists essential partners in building a more complete global knowledge base.

Earlier this year, African journalists living on the continent were invited to self-nominate articles they had written that help expand knowledge about Africa, with a specific focus on the areas of women and/or youth, and arts, culture, heritage, and sports. In total, 320 submissions were received from 40 African countries.

Recipients of the 2026 Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards:

• First place: Rakiya Muhammad, a freelance journalist from Nigeria, for the article  “West Africa’s Borderless Women: Inside the Yoruba Sisterhood Linking Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire.” Published in RM Times, it documents the decades-long migration pattern of women leaving Ejigbo in southwest Nigeria for Côte D’Ivoire. Women from Ejigbo, fueled by the promise of economic opportunity, have become a dominant force in Abidjan’s market and drivers of cultural ties between the two countries. According to Muhammad’s story, up to 80% of Ejigbo’s funding comes from its people in Côte d’Ivoire.

On receiving the news about her recognition, Rakiya Muhammad said; 
“Receiving this honour renews my passion for telling stories that place African women at the heart of the narrative as active agents of development, leadership and social change,” said Muhammad. “The recognition rekindles my commitment to documenting positive stories about Africa with authenticity and depth, while shedding light on the gendered dimensions often overlooked in broader discussions.”

• Second place: Abiodun Adewale, a Nigerian sports reporter for The Punch, for the piece “Breaking boundaries: How Nigeria’s U-19 women are rewriting cricket history.” The story chronicles how the Junior Female Yellow Greens, a Nigerian women’s cricket team, prepared for and performed at the 2025 International Youth Cricket World Cup. Sports coverage in Nigeria rarely focuses on cricket; Adewale’s story highlights the sport’s growing presence in the country. 

• Special mention: Angeline Ochieng, a Kenyan-based correspondent from Nation Media Group, for the story “The converts: How reformed midwives are ending maternal deaths.” Published in the Daily Nation, the article focuses on former traditional midwives in rural Kenya who have ended their practice to advocate for hospital deliveries, leading to fewer deaths and complications.

“Journalism and Wikipedia need each other,” said ICFJ President Sharon Moshavi. “Wikipedia’s volunteer editors rely on independent reporting to build a more complete knowledge resource, and journalists benefit from the global and multilingual reach that Wikipedia provides. These awards recognize that relationship and the African journalists who are making our digital information ecosystems stronger.”

Anusha Alikhan, Wikimedia Foundation’s Chief Communications Officer, said: “Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia ever assembled, but it is far from complete. Having stories written by Africans about the issues they care about is vital to ensuring the encyclopedia is representative of many experiences and perspectives. We celebrate the three journalists who have received the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards and thank them for making this kind of reporting possible.” 

Olaniyan Ishola Oulushola, Wikipedia editor, President of Wikimedia Nigeria, a group of Wikimedia volunteers in Nigeria, and Member of this year’s Awards selection committee, said: “The quality and relevance of the articles received and selected in this year’s awards is commendable. As a Wikipedia editor, I see in each of them an opportunity to improve information about Africa on Wikipedia. From documenting the history of women cross-border traders in West Africa to the achievements of female cricketers, each of these articles brings us a step closer to closing the knowledge gaps we are working on every day.” 

In January 2026, Wikipedia marked its 25th anniversary. Today, it is among the top-ten most-visited global websites, and it is the only one to be run by a nonprofit, the Wikimedia Foundation. Its 65 million articles in over 300 languages, created by nearly 250,000 volunteer editors from around the world, are viewed nearly 15 billion times every month. Yet, many topics about Africa remain missing or incomplete on the site. Currently, only 3.7% of the articles on the English Wikipedia are about Africa. This issue reflects knowledge gaps in the wider media ecosystem; new information can only be added to Wikipedia by volunteer editors if it is supported by a citation from a published, reliable source.

This year’s award recipients were decided upon by a committee composed of African civil society leaders, academics, ICFJ and Wikimedia Foundation staff, and members of the Wikipedia volunteer community. 

For more information, visit the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards webpage.

About the Wikimedia Foundation 

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. Visit our website to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia. 

About the International Center for Journalists

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) enables a global network of tens of thousands of journalists to provide the trustworthy news essential to free and strong societies. Through our new entity, Plus, we are partnering with tech powerhouse Code for Africa and systems builder PROTO to cultivate civic intelligence – information that helps people make sense of their world and act constructively to shape it. We collaborate with journalists, technologists, civil society, researchers and others to forge stronger, more effective news and information ecosystems. Learn more about our work at ICFJ.org.

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How does the Reading Challenge work?

The Reading Challenge is the perfect way to enhance what you know, explore new topics, or study up for your pub quiz team, all while keeping a tab on your progress with a widget of Baby Globe, the 25th birthday mascot. Jumpstart your streak by reading at least one article each day for 25 consecutive days. Missing a day or two at the beginning is okay, as long as you restart your streak and keep it going for 25 days. If you succeed, you will be rewarded… with a bigger brain, bragging rights, and a discount at the Wikipedia store.

What is the Wikipedia app?

The Wikipedia app is a fun and fast way to learn: be it the backstory of a famous building in your city, the lore behind your celebrity crush, if that historical event happened the way you learned about it in school, the name of every single dog breed and more.

It uses local data in order to personalize your experience, while maintaining your privacy. Take advantage of the Wikipedia app’s key capabilities that allow you, for example, to refer back to your reading history or use the Places feature to locate articles near you, especially when you are traveling. The Wikipedia app also helps you be more intentional about how you choose to spend your time online and on your phone.

Both the Wikipedia apps for iOS and Android are available in over 300 languages, and offer a more personalized Wikipedia experience than the web. They are also designed to load Wikipedia articles quickly without using a lot of extra data. Plus, you will never see any ads.

Download the Wikipedia app

Increase how much you read and broaden what you know

What can you do with the app’s features?

1. Love to travel and explore?

Use the Places feature to uncover nearby landmarks, cultural sites, and points of interest.

2. Have a long reading list?

Create lists of all the articles that you want to read, so you can get to them… eventually.

3. Like getting off the grid?

Save articles for reading whenever you go offline or you are in a service dead zone.

4. Want to track your learning?

Keep up with your stats, measure your progress, and see what you know each day.

5. Into games?

Play Which Came First?, a fun, daily trivia-style recess for your brain.

6. Eager to review what you learned?

Relive and revisit memorable articles with the Year in Review.

Download the Wikipedia app

Increase how much you read and broaden what you know

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