Laurent Haug is opening the first main conference day.

550 attendees from 30 countries.

1st Speaker; Florence Devouard, Cahirman of the Board, Wikimedia Foundation.

– 727 Million internet users in the world
– Wikipedia is 6th with 155 M. Top 5 are Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, ebay, and Time.

Principles;
– collect local, collect global.
– Manipulate huge amounts of data
– Reactivity

Florence sees 4 global trends;
– virtually unlimited space
– nurturing a critical mind
– empowering people
– A priori trust – opening the gates rather than closing them.

That last point is harder fro Europeans.

2007 – 6 M articles in 250 languages. 600 servers by summer, and $5 M budget. Average donation – $20.

Finally vandalism not so much a problem. Larger issues are small date changes, politicians and individuals self promoting. Lacking content from Africa, and Asia. China blocks Wikipedia.