About me

Hello there! My name is Alan (he/him). I am a Partner Manager at Wikimedia Deutschland and I use this account for activities related to my role. Apart from my full-time role at Wikimedia Germany, I am passionate about building up the Wiki community, Open Government projects and promoting the linked open data web across the world, especially Singapore.

Prior to joining Wikimedia Deutschland, I was the Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic (pro-bono) from 2019-2020.

As an enthusiast of continuous education and lifelong learning, I have achieved an MBA, M.A. (International Economics) and M.A. (International Business). Physically, I am currently pursuing interests in calisthenics, Aikido and Kenjutsu.

My work

As a partner manager within the Software Communication team in the software development department at Wikimedia Deutschland, I work on data partnerships related to Wikidata and Wikibase. The data partnerships team works with a range of institutions from the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums), science, research and government sectors. We talk to partners about setting up their own Wikibase instance or contributing to Wikidata. We are also the point of contact for commercial partners in their linked open data projects with Wikidata and Wikibase.

To learn more about the work of the data partnerships team at Wikimedia Deutschland, take a look at the Data Partnerships Model and our Joint Vision for Linked Open Data. To get in touch with us, email us at [email protected].

Disclaimer: This account is used for my work at Wikimedia Deutschland. Please reach out to me separately if you would like to learn more about my volunteer account.

Contact me

📨 [email protected]

User language

en-N	This user has a native understanding of English.

zh-5	这位用户的中文达到专业水平。

de-3	Dieser Benutzer beherrscht Deutsch auf hohem Niveau.

vi-3	Người dùng này biết tiếng Việt với trình độ tốt.

Current Engagements/ Projects

I am currently involved/ engaged in these projects (volunteer/ as WMDE):

GLAM Wiki Meta revamp
Wikimedia Deutschland Hardware Donation Program: Giving back to the Community! :)
WikidataCon 2025

Upcoming Events

Here are some of my upcoming events:

2025

10-12 Jan Art History Loves Wiki 2025
15-17 Jan WikiLibCon2025
18-27 Feb Wikidata Data Reuse Days 2025
5-6 June Wikidata and Research
Aug Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2025
Oct/ Nov WikidataCon 2025

See Past Events/ Engagements

2024

12-13 Dec Linked Data in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence – New Perspectives or Outdated Vision?
9-10 Dec Intro to Wikidata for the Community of Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific
25-27 Nov Semantic Web in Libraries (SWIB24)
25 Nov Indonesian-German Digital Dialogue 2024
21-22 Nov International Digital Dialogues Conference
14-16 Nov Wikidata Days (Portugal) 2024
11-15 Nov ISWC 2024
6 Nov PCC Linked Data Tactical Planning Meeting
15-17 October Smart Country Convention 2024
29 October Wikidata Birthday celebration!
7-11 October LD4 Conference 2024
1-3 October Wikidata Workshop (Latvia) 2024
3-4 August COSCUP 2024
3-5 July LIBER 2024
27 June Semic 2024
14 June TDM & AI Conference 2024
14 June Netzwerktreffen offene Kulturdaten 2024
5 June Workshop on Digital Citizenship Education and Building the Civic Tech Collaboration Models within the Community and Government
15 May Tokyo & Berlin Capital of Women Scientists- Celebrating the 30th Sister City Anniversary for Tokyo x Berlin Event. See presentation here
10-12 May ESEAP Conference 2024
19-21 April Wikimedia Summit 2024
12-14 April Wikidata Leveling Up Days #2
5-7 April Wikidata Leveling Up Days 2024 #1
22 February Tech from Below- see presentation here

Other Notable Events/ Groups/ Materials

These are some of the notable events/ groups/ materials that I was not involved in:

GLAM Wiki Conference 2023
13-14 January 2024 Provenance loves Wiki
11-13 December 2023 SMWCon Fall 2023
11-13 September 2023 SWIB23 session videos note: very useful for librarians
Wikimania 2023 SPARQL basics at Wikimania 2023 note: very useful for beginners
17 March 2023 Stochastic Parrots Day
23 February 2023 Wikidata Smithsonian use case: Describing Chinese Rare Books and Cultural Heritage Collections note: very useful for librarians
16 December 2022 LOD LOD才是未來 - 紐約數位藝術獨立機構 Rhizome 的 Wikibase 應用 note: Rhizome's Wikibase use case in Chinese
12 December 2022 LOD 做為數位人文時代下的思考方式-Wikidata/Wikibase 實踐初探
29 October 2022 Wikidata Cross Domain Forum 2022
30-31 July 2022 Wikidata Taiwan/COSCUP 2022
8-10 July 2022 Wikidata Data Quality Days 2022
14-24 March 2022 Wikidata Data Reuse Days 2022

Useful Content

This section will list out some subpages aim to provide useful and relevant content to new users and community members. These will continue to be updated over time.

How to: Wikidata Subpage for new users (individual/ institutional) to get onboard Wikidata.

How to: Wikibase Cloud Subpage for new users (individual/ institutional) to get onboard Wikibase Cloud.

Data Partnerships Subpage on data partnership & learnings with institutional partners.

Data Partnerships Playbook (upcoming) The definitive playbook for the Wikimedian who wishes to get into the data partnership role.

Other News & Topics

Wikidata Map on Github
Wikibase Cloud Status Update page
Wikibase Suite Deploy (2024) is a total overhaul of what used to be the Wikibase Suite “example” directory, transforming it into a complete deployment kit for Wikibase production environments.
Wikidata Development Plan- here you will find roadmap of the software development team (Wikimedia Deutschland) for Wikidata and Wikibase for 2024

Software Collaboration for Wikidata - the project aims to create a prototype of a collaboration with the purpose of enabling them to contribute to the software development of Wikidata and Wikibase in a sustainable and scalable way... creating a long term, sustainable environment for the lexicographical data part of Wikidata with local community groups that are connected to under-resourced and/or under-represented languages.

WDQS backend update/October 2023 scaling update very interesting news for folks who wish to know what's the situation on WDQS and also the topic of WDQS Blazegraph backend alternatives.
- The WDQS graph split (2024 update) is a temporary workaround for the Blazegraph backend issue for next 5 years. See this article for more information.
- How does the Wikidata graph split affect Scholia?
- SPARQL query service/WDQS backend update/Blazegraph failure playbook
- SPARQL query service/WDQS backend update/WDQS backend alternatives

Wikidata Identifier Landscape - keeps track of the Wikidata external identifier usage and the overlap of their usage across the Wikidata items.
Wikidata Property Proposal Overview- see here for different new properties & external identifiers being proposed.
Wikibase REST API- the new REST API, released in 2023, is tailored to the Wikibase data model that allows users to interact with, retrieve and edit Items and statements on Wikibase instances -- including of course Wikidata.
- Wikibase REST API client NPM package
Working with Catalogues: a Wikidata volunteer's Perspective- 2024 interview with Epidosis on his insights of working with library's catalogues on Wikidata.
Querying for audio on Wikidata

Linked Open Data and Cultural Heritage

What benefits Linked Open Data has for cultural heritage- Thanks to Linked Open Data (LOD), cultural institutions are opening up new opportunities to bring their collections into contact with the world. Wikidata, the free knowledge database from Wikimedia, represents this potential.