Wikimania 2007/İstanbul

Wikimania 2007 candidate cities. Winner: Taipei
Other candidates: Alexandria | London | Torino

Hong Kong | Istanbul | Orlando | Singapore

Istanbul, Turkey - Candidate City of Wikimedia 2007

İstanbul

Location of Turkey

Location of Istanbul

Istanbul as seen from the ISS

In brief

Country: Turkey
City proposed: Istanbul (commons:Category:Istanbul for various images. wikitravel.org:Istanbul for a detailed explanation)
Proposed dates: 29 Jun - 01 Jul 2007 Friday to Sunday, with possibility of arriving on the Thursday night and leaving on Monday morning (if necesary, date can be altered to the needs of the majority)
Contact person(s): ~~User:White Cat~~

The city of Istanbul

Istanbul is Turkey's most populous city, and its cultural, and economic centre. It is located on the Bosphorus strait, and encompasses the natural harbor known as the Golden Horn, in the northwest of the country. Istanbul extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. As well due to its history beeing dominated by Christians (capital of the Byzantine Empire) and Muslims (third capital of the Ottoman Empire) for a long time Istanbul is the place where Orient meets Occident.

Much more details about this living city can be found at our pet project Wikipedia in your language of choice:

ar:إسطنبول • an:Istambul • az:İstanbul (şəhər) • bs:Istanbul • br:Kergustentin • bg:Истанбул • ca:Istanbul • cs:Istanbul • cy:Istanbul • da:Istanbul • de:Istanbul • en:Istanbul • et:İstanbul • el:Κωνσταντινούπολη • es:Estambul • eo:Istanbulo • eu:Istanbul • fa:استانبول • fr:İstanbul • ga:Iostanbúl • gd:Istanbul • gl:Istambul • ko:이스탄불 • hy:Ստամբուլ • hi:इस्तांबुल • hr:Istanbul • io:Konstantinopolo • id:Istanbul • ia:Istanbul • os:Стамбул • it:Istanbul • he:איסטנבול • jv:Istanbul • ka:სტამბოლი • ku:Stenbol • la:Constantinopolis • lb:Istanbul • lv:Stambula • lt:Stambulas • hu:Isztambul • mk:Истанбул • nl:Istanbul • ja:イスタンブール • no:Istanbul • nn:Istanbul • pl:Stambuł • pt:Istambul • ro:Istanbul • ru:Стамбул • scn:Istanbul • simple:Istanbul • sk:Istanbul • sl:Istanbul • sr:Истанбул • sh:Istanbul • fi:Istanbul • sv:Istanbul • th:อิสตันบูล • tr:İstanbul (şehir) • tk:Istanbul • uk:Стамбул • zh:伊斯坦堡

Conference venue

Unconfirmed: Bahçeşehir University

Detailed information will be avalible monday, 18 Sep 2006. I alread made contacts but the person that can give official authorisation is out of country and will be back on monday. I already arranged a meeting for monday. The unofficial contact said the venue would probably be avalible for free.

brief description of venue (room sizes, number of rooms etc.)

Main hall:
Seminar rooms:
Lounge facilities:
Other rooms (organisation, staff, speakers, interviews/press, storage):

contacts with conference venue (emails, price quotes etc.)

Technical facilities
- Existing technical installations
  (on site Audio-visual...)
- Wireless Network implementation

(existing? to be built? easiness of implementation?)

Bahcesehir University (front view)
main conferance hall
main conferance hall
main conferance hall
secondary conferance hall 1
secondary conferance hall 2

Transportation and visa information

Estimation of travel costs from all continents:

From		Flight to Istanbul	Flight from Istanbul	Price (USD)
North America	New York	Wed, Jun 27 - Thu, Jun 28	Mon, Jul 02	$1,176
North America	Los Angeles	Wed, Jun 27 - Thu, Jun 28	Mon, Jul 02	$1,513
South America	Buenos Aires	Tues, Jun 26 - Thu, Jun 28	Mon, Jul 02 - Tue, Jul 03	$1,292
Europe	Frankfurt	Thu, Jun 28	Mon, Jul 02	$309
Europe	London	Thu, Jun 28	Mon, Jul 02	$294
Asia	Tokyo
Asia	Beijing
Africa	Johannesburg
Australia	Sydney	Jun 27 - Thu, Jun 28	Mon, Jul 02	$1,801

Note 1: Better prices will be avalible as travel date aproaches. These prices should be considered as a "worse case scenario".

Note 2: All searches were done through travelocity

Distance from international airport(s)and how do we get to the location:
- Atatürk International Airport - 24 kilometers (15 miles) to city center
- Sabiha Gökçen International Airport - 45 kilometers (28 miles) to city center

Visa issues:

Citizens of the following countries can enter Turkey with a valid passport. A visa is not required:

Argentina, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, Fiji, Finland, France, Granada, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (only passports of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region), Iran, Iceland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Morocco, Norway, New Zeeland, Oman, Qatar, St. Lucia, San Marino, Switzerland, Seychelles, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, South Korea, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Uruguay, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Indonesia, Macedonia, Romania, The Republic of Croatia, The Republic of Slovenia, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Costa Rica, Kyrgyztan, El Salvador, The Republic of South Africa, Maldives.

Citizens of the following countries need a visa obtainable at borders of Turkey instantly:

United States, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Jordan, Moldavia, Uzbekistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Albania, Belarus (White Russia), Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Taiwan, Guatemala.

Citizens of all other countries need a visa, which can be obtained from the nearest Turkish embassy or consulate.

Note: For detailed coverage, see turkeytravelplanner.com

Accommodation

Istanbul provides a wide range of accomodation solutions, from top-end to low budget hotels and guest houses, B&B's, hostels etc..

One can choose to stay in a hostel, there tons of choices. Prices start from US$10 per night. Decent private rooms in mid-range hotels cost US$20 ~ US$40 per night, according to the location. For the top-end, there are places like Hilton, The Ritz-Carlton, Hyatt Regency, Conrad and many others with no upper limit. Online booking is possible, credit cards are accepted and you can pay in many currencies in almost all the places. (US Dollars and Euro is accepted by almost every shop you see.)

Note that free wireless internet connection is also provided by many hostels and most of the hotels.

Simple doner sandwich (popular Turkish fast food) with drink may cost as low as 3$. Restaurants cooking Turkish food are abundant and a meal would cost about 5-7$ in a typical modest one.

See yemeksepeti.com for hundreds of restaurants, dishes and current prices for istanbul. (A website where you can order food online, click the orange box on the right of the page to browse in English.)

Local sponsorship opportunities

Possibility of local sponsorships

Contacts

(no name needed, just "company X, 4000 USD or will provide 300 beds)

Turkey is a rapidly developing county, on the way for the EU. The universities and the Turkish government are greatly supporting international organizations. Istanbul recently held great organizations as Formula 1 and UEFA Cup finals, and is definitely capable for Wikimania, and it won't be hard to find sponsorships. Besides the large companies, great help expected from the universities, in terms of accomodation, services and donations.

Local team

(Who stands behind this bid, who will be able to help locally, names and what they can help with)

Wikimania 2007/İstanbul/Data Wikimania 2007/İstanbul/Data Wikimania 2007/İstanbul/Data Wikimania 2007/İstanbul/Data Wikimania 2007/İstanbul/Data

Miscellaneous

Foreign exchange rates for New Turkish Lira: [1]

Self-evaluation

Weaknesses of the proposed location ...and how to overcome those weaknesses

World's 15th most expensive city? -- tariqabjotu 12:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd like to point out that the listing had serious changes due to fluctiuations in exchange rates world-wide as explained on the same page. -- Cat ^chi? 18:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Solution 1:
Weakness 2
Solution 2

Strengths of the proposed location

Strength 1: City is easily accessible by plane, land, and even by sea. Major airport location.
Strength 2: Much cheaper compared to many other bidding cities/places.
Strength 3: In Europe, so better accessibility for Europeans

Original text to be salvaged

There are several reasons for having a Wikimania in Istanbul

Istanbul is easily accessible by plane and land and even by sea. Istanbul has a major international airport.
There are universities which are more than interested in hosting such an international event.
Istanbul is the only major city built on two continents (Europe and Asia). Not only geographically, but also culturally it is the meeting point of eastern and western civilisations. Therefore it is the perfect place for representing inter-cultural aspet of Wikipedia.

-- Cat ^chi? 21:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Those are good points. Another important points:
1. It may help relatively smaller Wikipedias (and more local ones) to get more attention. It may help Wikipedia community to focus more on relatively small but growing Wikipedias, as these Wikipedias are very important in a world where not everyone speaks English, German or French etc.
2. İstanbul is much cheaper compared to many other cities/places and I believe especially to people in Europe and surrounding, it would be both a nice Wikimania experience and a comfy & cheap stay. This would increase the attendance. - 70.81.176.14 02:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the sights of Istanbul
Bosporus
Golden horn seen from the "Pierre Loti café" at Eyüp
Mosques in Istanbul at dusk
Bosphorus
Golden Horn
Trams in Istanbul