Newnham College held a mass Wikipedia edit-a-thon on International Women’s Day to address the lack of online biographies available about eminent women.
Fellows, students, alumnae, and staff at the College were joined by members of the public – including local schoolchildren – at the six-hour long event on March 8.
Wikipedia is the seventh most visited website in the world – but only 15 per cent of Wikipedia editors are female and fewer than 17 per cent of notable profiles are of women.
The Wikipedia Women in Red project has spent two years addressing the lack of entries for women and Newnham joined forces with the world’s largest encyclopedia to help.
Dame Carol Black, Principal of Newnham, said: “We were delighted to welcome so many people to the edit-a-thon to help us create profiles of notable women to mark International Women’s Day. The feedback we have received has been hugely positive and it was very encouraging to see so much support in Cambridge for this initiative to highlight the varied achievements of women.”
The event took place from 12pm-6pm and more than 70 people took part, with others participating from their own offices and homes.
