On International Women’s day, Part W — an action group of industry professionals who campaign for gender equity across the built environment, led a workshop in which participants were enabled to add to and improve the digital profiles of women architects and designers, with a focus on those whose design achievements are missing or under-represented online. Across sectors, entries for women make up just 18.3% of Wikipedia’s online biographies. This workshop sought to raise awareness of this issue and make a positive change.
The workshop was a free event hosted by the Design Museum and delivered in sisterhood with the research-based advocacy organisations Parlour, in Sydney.
Our practice director and Founder of Part W, Zoë Berman opened the workshop alongside Professor Mel Dodd, Associate Dean for Knowledge Exchange at Central St Martin’s college. Zoë discussed Part W’s aims and actions; raising awareness of the significant contributions to design made by women through history.
An introduction to editing and adding articles was made by an expert wikimedian. Over the course of the day participants succeeded in adding over 1,500 additions, edits and changes to the site, to bolster the online visibility and recognition of female designers and architects.
Read more about the initiative in Zoë’s interview for the Design Museum
Wikipedia-edit-a-thon, The Design Museum