Patricia Horrillo, an expert in communication, social media and Wikipedia, offers a critical and educational analysis of the major dilemmas we face in the digital age (from education and regulation to sovereignty, inclusion and digital rights) to reflect on how to design more humane, fair and conscious technologies.
This talk is based on experiences gathered throughout the European Digital Deal (EUDD) project, a three-year research project (2023-2025) co-funded by Creative Europe on how the accelerated and sometimes ill-considered adoption of new technologies can alter or undermine democratic processes.
Time: 6.30 p.m.
Patricia Horrillo Guerra (Madrid, 1977) is a journalist and philologist, an expert in communication, social media and Wikipedia. Renowned for her activism in the democratisation of online knowledge, her work focuses on promoting citizen participation in digital spaces and raising the profile of women in the collective construction of history.
After participating in covering demonstrations and citizen protests during the 15M Movement, she joined forces with other Wikipedians to create 15Mpedia.org, a collaborative platform for documenting the social events that took place in 2011 as an exercise in collective memory. In 2014, she was a researcher at the now defunct Medialab-Prado digital culture centre in Madrid, where she analysed the impact of digital technologies on communication and citizen organisation.
A year later, she founded Wikiesfera, a feminist community dedicated to reducing the gender gap on Wikipedia, the world’s largest free knowledge project. Since then, she has coordinated workshops, meetings and edit-a-thons that have involved thousands of people, mainly women, in the creation of biographies and content with a gender perspective. Wikiesfera has established itself as a space for collective, horizontal and replicable learning, with a presence in different parts of the country.
In addition, it develops training programmes in communication and digital activism for social organisations, promoting the conscious use of technological tools and the strengthening of participatory online communities. Its work has received international recognition, such as the 2024 Lovie Award, given to Wikiesfera for its contribution to a more just, diverse and equitable Wikipedia.
