Wikimania 2012 was an international conference covering online open information in general and the projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation in particular. It was held from July 10 to 15, 2012 on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, DC.
The conference included a parallel track for federal employees called "State@Tech." Speakers included Jimmy Wales, Co-founder of Wikipedia; Richard Boly, Director of the Office of eDiplomacy at the State Department; Beth Simone Noveck, former Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House; and David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. Boly read a letter of greeting from Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State.
Conference sponsors included the Library of Congress, Department of State, Google, Ask.com, MetroStar Systems, WikiHow, wikia, the Salyor Foundation, the Newseum, the Richard Loundsbery Foundation, and the Encyclopedia of Life.
The first plenary session included a talk by Mary Gardiner on "Fostering diversity: not a boring chore, a critical opportunity" which argued for making more of an effort to include more women and minority volunteers in Wikipedia. Other session were entitled, "Ten Things You Can Do Without Blacking Out Wikipedia," "A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf and Female Wikipedia Editing", and "Do Editors have a Right [to] Privacy?"