WikiData: a free knowledge base that can be read and edited by humans and machines alikeIn a joint talk with the Wikipedia Society, Dr Magnus Manske will speak on Wikidata: the free knowledge base that can be read and edited by humans and machines alike. It is for data what Wikimedia Commons is for media files: it centralizes access to and management of structured data, such as interwiki references and statistical information. It has been described as one of the most exciting innovations in encyclopedic history, since it enables us to structure data on Wikipedia and interlink concepts from different languages. Come along to learn more about all its functionality, how it works, and how it will change the future!

Magnus ManskeMagnus Manske, a biochemist by day, was the developer of one of the first versions of the MediaWiki software. Manske studied biochemistry at the University of Cologne and graduated in 2006 with a PhD; his dissertation was an open source tool for molecular biology called GENtle. As a student he was one of the first contributors to the Internet encyclopedia NuPedia, the precursor to Wikipedia, and later wrote one of the first versions of the MediaWiki software that Wikipedia runs on. Manske has worked in Cambridge with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute since April 2007, but remains active in the development of tools for Wikipedia.