The Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections (WeDigBio) project provides resources for biodiversity research collections to effectively and creatively engage their local communities and global internet users in digitization of specimens and associated content, especially during two annual WeDigBio events, with an emphasis on increasing the science literacy of participants, growing the diversity of science contributors, and expanding the relevance of collections to solving humanity’s grand challenges. It leverages the easily understood, deeply historical biodiversity specimen collecting process, the visually compelling, data-laden specimens, the straightforward digitization activities, and the engaging stories of discovery enabled by the specimens and digital data to engage an ever-expanding group of public participants, collection professionals, educators, and others in activities that further biodiversity research, conservation, and management.

iDigInfo Director Austin Mast currently serves as Co-Chair of the WeDigBio Board and served as a founder of this collaboration that has included the Smithsonian Institution, the Australian Museum, the Paris National Museum of Natural History, and many other organizations. iDigInfo Application Developer Robert Bruhn maintains WeDigBio software, including the event dashboard. The first WeDigBio event was held in 2015.