European Open Source Award for Lydia Pintscher: Recognised for her contribution to Wikidata

Lydia Pintscher, Wikidata Portfolio Manager at Wikimedia Deutschland, was awarded today in Brussels. She received the European Open Source Award in the Advocacy and Awareness category for her significant contribution to the development of the open knowledge graph Wikidata.

Pintscher has been involved in the development of Wikidata at Wikimedia Deutschland since the project was launched in 2012. What began as a solution to facilitate the linking of different language versions of a Wikipedia article has now become a globally utilised data source with more than 115 million entries. The content can be read by both humans and machines, creating a valuable basis for software applications.

More than 12,000 volunteers are currently helping to contribute well-documented data to the platform and to further develop it technically. ‘Thanks to its multilingualism, Wikidata also makes it possible to integrate knowledge from underrepresented regions and groups and thus reflect the diversity of global perspectives. This gradually creates more knowledge equity,’ says Pintscher. ‘The Open Source Award is an important recognition of our work and, above all, that of the volunteers, without whom the project with its large amount of hand-picked, accurate data would not be possible.’

Wikimedia Deutschland is recently working on new approaches to establish Wikidata as a trustworthy source for open source AI applications. One example is a project launched in 2024 that gives developers in the field of generative AI easier access to Wikidata data.

‘With projects like Wikidata, we are creating an open, transparent data structure that makes reliable information accessible and thus counteracts disinformation. Through open source projects such as Wikidata, we can prevent knowledge monopolies and ensure that knowledge benefits everyone equally as a common good,’ explains Franziska Heine, Director of Wikimedia Deutschland.

Open source initiatives support democracy, innovation and digital independence. The European Open Source Award is being presented by the European Open Source Academy for the first time this year. From now on, it will honour outstanding personalities in technological innovation in Europe annually.

Wikimedia Deutschland is a non-profit organisation with over 111,000 members and 180 employees that is committed to promoting freely available knowledge in the digital space. As the largest country representative of the international Wikimedia movement, the organisation promotes the volunteer communities of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in Germany. Wikimedia Deutschland develops and maintains free software and the free Wikidata database. The organisation is involved in digital and educational policy to create a framework that enables free access to knowledge and data. We also cooperate with cultural institutions to make more cultural heritage freely accessible.

Zarah Ziadi
Communications Manager Movement
Zarah.ziadi@wikimedia.de

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