File:Jimmy Wales at Wikimania 2012 Opening - Kazakhstan clip (MP3).mp3

Jimmy Wales speaking at the opening session of Wikimania 2012 in Washington, DC. Wales momentarily spoke about the 2011 winner of the Wikipedian of the Year Award, Rauan Kenzhekhanuly.

--------***BEGIN TRANSCRIPT***--------
So, now it's time for Jimbo's Awards. Yay!
<applause>
Um, so I started this, uh, last year, and I hope to make it an ongoing, uh, tradition.
Uh, and, uh, last year, uh, for the first time I gave, uh, the Wikipedian of the Award -- of the Year Award, uh, to, uh, Rauan, who is here somewhere. Can he stand up? Here?
<applause>
From Kazakh Wikipedia. Uh, and um, I also, uh, a donation to the Kazakh Wikipedia community, and to visit, uh, Kazakhstan. Neither of those things have actually happened yet.
<mild laughter>
Um, but the offer still stands, and actually I met with the, uh, ambassador from Kazakhstan this morning. And, uh, we're planning a trip there as soon as possible so that I can, uh, give him an award in the presence of the President or Prime Minister, whoever we can wrangle to come to that.
Um, and so now, uh, for this year, uh, I'm gonna do again, uh...
--------***END TRANSCRIPT***--------

However, later in December 2015, Jimmy Wales would publicly declare: "I have never met nor spoken nor even heard of Yerlan Idrissov. I have never accepted any official invitation to Kazakstan. I have never spoken to anyone at the Kazakh embassy in the US. I have never spoken to Kazakh TV. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:38, 24 December 2015 (UTC)"

When he was promptly reminded of what he said at Wikimania 2012, Wales then responded: "I have no recollection of it, and I can say I certainly didn't have any sort of formal sit down meeting. In a line up of dignitaries, it is of course possible. As I have said before, I misspoke if I said in 2011 that I had talked to the Kazakh Prime Minister at that time. I had talked to his office, an Australian guy named Catallus. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:55, 25 December 2015 (UTC)"