 Okay, we're live. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us on this enlightening journey as we kick off the Africa Conversation Initiative brought to you by the Africa Employee Resource Groups of the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm thrilled to be your host today and my name is Shergou Overu. I'm part of the leads of the Africa ERG group. So the Africa Conversation Initiative is an event designed by the Africa ERG as a platform to engage in profound discussions about our cherished hope continent, Africa, in relation to the Wikimedia movement. Our aim is to harness collective experiences, insights, and to foster ingenious solutions and innovations that we amplify the impact of the Wikimedia across the African continent. Through this initiative, we aspire to nurture a stronger, united Africa, poised for empowerment and progress. Our Africa Conversations Initiative is not a solitary event, but rather a series that will continue to unfold as time goes on. But for this Negro edition, our spotlight is on the theme Africa opportunities, true challenges. You agree with me that it is an enormous truth that Africa is pivotal to the growth of the movement, and this is evident in several projects that are ongoing on the continent by the foundation. Among some of these projects are like the Open the Knowledge Journalism Award, which is a project aimed at celebrating African journalists contributing to knowledge and information on the continent. We also have the Africa growth pilot project, which is a project aimed at driving editor growth in Africa. We also recently did some several research, the DEI research project, which is a research work designed to understand diversity perspective to usage of and contributions to Wikimedia in Africa, or Wikimedia projects in Africa. And lastly, we just touched on the African Knowledge Initiative, which is a Wikimedia African Union partnership designed to generate opportunities for Wikimedia communities in Africa in order to close Africa knowledge gap. So basically, these are a few of the projects that we are doing, the movements in Africa. But I'm sure you'd be curious, what does the Africa ERG mean and what's the significance. The Africa ERG stands as the one of the prominent employee resource groups at the Wikimedia Foundation, comprising staff members of African descent and those working for the foundation within Africa. This group was conceived with the purpose of unification and empowerment. And therefore, it's galvanized African employees within the Wikimedia Foundation, working collaboratively to invigorate the landscape of participation in the creation, consumption, and celebration of African knowledge across the entire movements. So today we are very honored to welcome a distinguished lineups of speakers, including our very own CEO, Marianna Eskander, and other esteemed voices from the movement and the foundation. So today, together, we will look at the core issues have passed by today's theme. Just want to set the expectation, we will to ensure efficient time management, we regret that we won't be able to accommodate live questions through the session. Nevertheless, we highly value your input and inquiries. So as a solution, we'll provide a document link in the chat where you can readily share your questions and insights. We are eagerly looking forward to engaging with you with your valuable contributions in there. So without much ado, let's comments by inviting each of our esteemed panelists, beginning with you, Bobby, to provide your introductions and briefly share your connections to our theme, which is Africa, opportunities and challenges. And then you can now pass it to the next person. Over to you, Bobby. Thank you so much for the invitation. And yeah, my name is Bobby and I am from Johannesburg in South Africa. And I'm a Wikipedia and that's very important to first acknowledge, and I edit on different Wikimedia projects, you know, especially small South African language Wikipedia's including wiki data and wiki commons. I'm the president of Wikimedia South Africa, which is currently the only chapter in the African continent. And I'm also the head and chair of the wiki in Dava steering committee, which is a committee that is responsible for making sure that the wiki in Dava conference happens So this theme really resonates deeply with me as an African Wikimedia because it emphasizes the potential that our African continent has, especially when it comes to, you know, all the challenges that we have. And, and if if as African African Wikimedians, we will be coming together and working together, but not together as communities, but also working together with claim institutions for an example, which are a very key component of how we execute our Wikimedia works. So it's very, very much important because it brings those aspects, you know, in the fall, as we give millions. And it also highlights the fact that we don't actually need to view challenges as challenges, but we also have to look at those challenges and see what kind of opportunities we can extrapolate from those challenges. So it's very, very much important topic for us to talk today, to talk about today. Thanks a lot to you. Thank you Bobby. Sandisa, would you like to introduce yourself and also share how the topic we're going to resonate with you too. Hello everyone. And thank you. And thank you to the people that invited me. My name is Sandisa Tay. I am the community relations specialist for community tech and trust and safety tools team at the Wikimedia Foundation. But I am also a volunteer at Wikimedia gonna use a group where I've been volunteering since 2012 2013. Now, the theme for me is optimistic. I mean, just like how we put it, I feel optimistic about it because opportunities and challenges can coexist. But I think that one needs to be intentional about seeking opportunities as one works through their challenges. Africa, except for some of the outlying countries we have been or Africa has been the laggard in internet adoption and internet participation for historical reasons and that is a challenge, right. But when you come to Wikimedia, for example, Africa is here and we are trying to catch up at a very fast pace through our campaigns, initiatives, affiliate building regional meetups and so on. It's very easy to get overwhelmed and lose sight of opportunities as we continue to participate and solve our or deal with our challenges. And so, next level things like AI, governance topics, movement governance, on wiki decision hotspots like RSCs, developer community building, heavy policy and advocacy work like freedom of panorama. A lot of times, we are missing in those conversations a bit. But it's just because we are paying attention to more basic things, more pending things. But I would say that we shouldn't be distracted. If we are not intentional, we might miss these buses too. And then the visual cycle continues. So for me, when I hear opportunities challenges, I think both are compatible, they can be in the same sentence together. But to bridge these two, we must be intentional. While we are dealing with our challenges, let's not lose sight of opportunities that can't be found within. Back to you, Shaven. Thank you for those great insights. I really like that you touched on the way technology faces and also how to turn these challenges into opportunities. Mariana, would you like to come in quickly? I'm very honored to be here with the other panelists who have had a chance to get to know. I am originally from the northern edge of the continent in Egypt, but today I think really reflecting on the journey that I've had living in South Africa so also today in Johannesburg, not with Bobby but set close by. And the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation so just delighted that so many of our staff are here and others and just again to say thank you to all of you for making the time. If I understood the title of the panel opportunities through challenges, it made me reflect on a proverb that actually does have a Wikipedia entry that necessity is the mother of invention. When I think about that phrase, what I have certainly seen in my prior work and in living on the continent is what I would describe as like the innovative pragmatic forward looking approach that I think a lot of the, not just leaders but you know citizens across the continent because that is a way of life and so you often come up frankly with more innovative solutions when they're born out of necessity and I think that there's something there that we can really reflect on when we think about the work of Wikimedia and think about knowledge equity and access to knowledge across the continent. Back to you, Shaco. Thank you, Mariana. And lastly, tochi, please introduce yourself and you'll share your thoughts quickly. Thank you, Shaco. Hi everyone, my name is tochi. I'm from Nigeria. I'm a founding member of the Evo Wikimedia and she's a group and I'm also a resident at the Monskin Foundation on Wikitones, as well as a board member with Wiki loves Africa. For me, the team of today's talk Africa opportunities through challenges actually resonated with me in a whole lot of ways. It's actually a reminder for me that Africa is a continent with great potentials, and that we have a bright future but it's also a continent that needs to work hard to overcome its challenges. And I'm actually confident that Africa will rise to the challenges and become a prosperous and peaceful continent in the years to come. Thank you, Shaco. Thank you, tochi, for that quick introduction. And now just to go quickly to the next question and just to preamble, you know, Africa has come a long way, especially with our history about colonialism and how that has shaped a whole lot of issues around the economic development and infrastructure development and even political development. And these are somehow affected the level of knowledge and, you know, knowledge equity across all our countries. So just to get a perspective, I would like to understand your perspective about what are the major challenges and barriers to knowledge equity in Africa. And maybe quickly, just a few points on how this barriers to knowledge equity could be addressed. And maybe, Sandisa, you can just start us off and then others can join me. Okay, I can think about five, but then I'll just take two so that others can get to also share. I think the first thing is that when it comes to knowledge equity, we're looking at access in order to contribute and also to use. These are the areas in which sometimes equity is touched upon. And the internet internet access is a key barrier, I think, and a lot of knowledge list on the internet currently so if you are not connected. I left out of the knowledge contribution and access as well. And then we also have general digital literacy sometimes people have internet but they, they just do not know how to use it to access information or do not know where to go to to contribute information. These are the two things I will just like, you know, quickly bring up. But then in terms of what we can do about these situations, because my next question will be looking at technology and digital platforms being leveraged to solve some of these problems, I think I will just give the platform to others to speak so that when my question is posed I can go deeper into that. Alright then and then Bobby, your thoughts, what are the challenges that you think facing barrier, if you've seen equity, knowledge equity in Africa and how can they be addressed? Yeah, I think I want to agree very much 100% with what Sanjay said, actually, but add on to that, you know, I think, I think also Sanjay mentioned some very valuable points there in her opening. You know, Africans, they are not complicated people, very, very simple people. We want to just edit Wikipedia. And we want to access knowledge and internet plays a very huge role. For us as Wikipedians, I think things like IP blocking currently is one of the major issues really, that is a stumbling block in order to reach out to more people to activate more Wikipedians in the African continent. And I think really in order to circumvent this or to solve this problem would be to, you know, make sure that there's no barriers in terms of IP blocking. I've seen that the Wikimedia Foundation recently has also introduced something like a registration form for people that wants to organize events. I think we can actually use that to circumvent the six limit IP block. And one of the things is that is a barrier. I think it's a language. We are speaking in many languages, but the dominant ones are French and English. But I notice that more of our projects and more of our engagements is leaning towards the English, especially when we want to apply for grants, when we want to interact with the foundation. We're more leaning towards English. So I think if we are more accommodative in the French and the Arabic and all the other languages, that really will unlock, you know, the opportunities for others to fully engage with all areas of funding, of support, of whatever it is that they want, especially when it comes to knowledge and equity. Maybe the last one, if I can mention, maybe before we'll pass to the next speaker, is working with GLEM institutions, very important to me. It's something that I've seen that has been an issue. I think, you know, it's very, very, very much important to establish the know-how of how to reach out to GLEM institutions and to partners. You know, I understand that we are different when it comes to partnerships. For example, in South Africa, we have a lot of partners, possible partners, but in other countries, you know, they don't have as much as we have here. So yeah, those are some of the things that I think are barriers to knowledge, equity in the African continent. Thanks so much. Thank you, Bobby. And I really like the point that you mentioned on excessive focus on English, because each of our countries have, you know, hundreds of languages. And I think it's important to understand not just the diversity, but also the richness of the language in Africa and use that to be able to reach the unreached and also the minorities within our countries. Toshi, do you want to touch on that question quickly on the challenges and barriers and how to address these barriers? Yeah, thank you again, Shegun. Actually, like the fact that Bobby mentioned language barriers, because I'm a language person and I know that language barriers is one of the issues that's prevented us from being, they've prevented Africa from the knowledge equity and all of that. Many Africans speaking indigenous languages that are not widely used in formal education in the workspace. So for example, in Nigeria alone, we speak up to 520 local languages, and it's not everyone that speaks English or speaks French, which is one of the two of the major languages that are kind of more significant on the continent. So this issue has made it difficult for more people to access knowledge and information that is available in other languages. And to be able to solve problems like this, I believe that organizations, let's say like the Wikimedia Foundation and other open knowledge institutions can as well help in developing indigenous languages so that they can be used in formal education. One can access articles in other languages. I'm glad about what other language communities are doing in relation to making knowledge accessible to people who on a normal day can speak English, French or Portuguese. So that kind of situation makes it easier for people to be able to access knowledge. And another thing is also the inequality in access to education. And we see that many Africans, especially those in the rural areas do not have access to quality education. So it also limits them from the ability to acquire knowledge and skills which can hinder their opportunities of employment or maybe being knowledgeable in different areas. So we're hopeful that the government and other institutions can also invest in education to make it much more available to people who are in inaccessible areas. I think I'll just stop there. Thank you. Thank you, Tochi. I think that's a great point, the point on education. It's, it resonates with me. I can remember when I was a teacher in one of the creeks in River State in Nigeria and understand the challenges of children across the river danger come into to learn and, you know, been taught about the passion to learn what the challenge of equality is also being able to access and infrastructure and some of those other factors limit people. So thank you for that. And I will go back to Sandisa now on technology because you know we understand that today. Okay, before I go to Sandisa, I would like to get Marianna's thoughts on that point on the challenges and then how these questions could be addressed. Sorry, Marianna. That's okay. I, I want to be additive because I think that the other panelists covered all the key points, which is that we have to remember that Africa is the world's youngest continent and the, you know, how to turn what people refer to as a demographic divide into a demographic dividend and sendisters point about how do you turn vicious cycles into virtuous cycles. And I think we have to ask hard questions about changes within the Wikimedia movement if we want to attract young people and think about the, you know, some of the foundations work looking at new audiences, because I think that that is a key trend and a key feature for Africa that can't be ignored. And this reminds me of the findings from our research within the foundation that young people, number one, are the future and those are the people that will drive, you know, engagement with some of our platforms and and even move the knowledge industry forward. So that's very on point. Thank you, Marianna. And like I said, Sandisa, I would like to get your points and maybe another person that I want to jump on this. It's like in what ways can technology and digital platform we leverage to bridge the knowledge gap in Africa and provide knowledge equity, this with the mind that hey, the level of infrastructure of digital of digital infrastructure internet and all that. As it is now, and the level of reach so how can this be used, based on, you know, continent level but also within the movement. Thank you. So information which eventually leads up to the coming knowledge, mainly lives online, in my opinion, these days and so you can see that digital media is already a tool in promoting knowledge equity. After 200 years, Britannica is no longer in print. We all know why there are newspapers and magazines that are migrating online in 2020 when we were stuck at home, e-companies so millions of ebooks. You can tell that internet is already in the business of just making sure that people have access to knowledge wherever it is that they are once of course they are plugged in. But to maximize this reality of knowledge equity in Africa. I think we must accept that movement wise long term solutions might probably lie outside our current scope of work as a movement. That's something I want to be honest to myself about. But of course the other things we can do in the short term as well and it lives on our weekies and the campaigns we do around our weekies so I'm not going to look too far when it comes to giving such examples. Now in linking this to the barriers that we mentioned in the long term. Now I just have questions because when I think of it and I'm like okay these things sound like we have to go outside our core jobs or our core work as a movement are we willing to do this. So I have questions which I can I'm just sharing for people to also think about. Now are we going to turn into an ISP. Okay internet service provider to deal with this internet barrier issue because if people are not on the internet. How are they contributing how are they accessing information. I mean their companies like Google and Facebook that very early started these projects like project noon project aquila free basics. They were flying drones and balloons in the air to send internet to remote regions in Africa. Is this what we also want to venture into now just to be sure that we remove the internet problem from there so that Africa can participate is what we want to do. When it comes to general digital literacy, are we going to leverage mucs or moocs or massive open online courses to teach digital literacy and I raise this point because as a volunteer that still recruits Wikipedians or Wikimedians. Sometimes you go to events. You are going to teach people how to edit Wikipedia right, but then you now realize that there are some people in the class that you now have to teach them how to use browsers effectively to then be able to contribute to Wikipedia, and then we can get into knowledge equity. So, now our workers as a movement do we we are focusing on our wikis, but then when it's time to recruit with millions we realize that there's a deficit so then are we going to start teaching people digital literacy. Are we going to start providing digital devices for people to access information and then contribute in terms of formats, right. And the barrier in formats, will we create more wikis or diversify the current wikis we have to be able to allow formats like audio to also take center stage. Are we willing to do all of these things anything can we do these things to ensure that there's knowledge equity in terms of access and contribution. Research wise, because if we're going to go into this space of leveraging tools, we need to know what we're doing we can't fly blind we need research, but then we also are not on that bandwagon of invasive data collection of our users that are contributors. So, of course we have yet to be known for this we don't do this currently. Are we willing to venture into into these waters just so we can we can let knowledge equity happen. Now, I people mentioned education and related matters like language. I know that even people who are able to contribute. I do say I me for example I am a can I speak tree, but on any given day I would rather we read Wikipedia in English, rather than read in tree or contribute in tree because I feel more competent in English so then in the space of localized content. We are not going to teach people what languages school them on how to use the Internet and how to access our project. And if we are not doing it ourselves are we partnering with organizations to do this or we are funding other organizations to prepare the grounds for this. For me, if we are really going to answer this question of leveraging and doing our best with the knowledge equity and knowledge gaps, we really might find ourselves doing things other than what currently currently in our annual plans in our bylaws in the books as we know ourselves to be so that's for the long term but in the short term, things that I think we can do we can leverage on is our own weekies that we already have the campaigns that we already doing there's so much potential and so much work left to be done. In your spare time you can Google woman right and you can Google the skin condition known as eczema. The search results that you see. I mean if you are an alien that just arrived you think that there are no dark skinned people who get eczema or there are very few dark skinned people on this planet. And it's just because now, if I want to see baby photos of dark skinned women, I have no women or dark skinned women I have to specify that I'm looking for dark skinned women. But why isn't searching for just the word woman enough to be able to see women of all colors just represented in Google search results. Right. So, there are technical reasons why platforms like Google distributes information this way, or these gaps in knowledge, but what we can do here as the movement is just look around. What tools do we already have let's take Wikimedia Commons. It's already a digital tech tool. We are leveraging on that. We have a vibrant community of moderators. Let's invest in it. Let's modernize it. Let's share it and invite Africans to participate. With all the Wikilabs campaigns that we have, I am sure Africans just being everyday people doing everyday things. We have all of that in photos and videos but who knows is there, right. So if there are other companies who are not working on knowledge gaps, I was saying being less safe here about it. I think this is the niche that we can fill. Fast forward, I mean from being a contributor now coming to the Wikimedia Foundation and joining the Knowledge Equity Fund Committee. I just wanted to find grantees who help make photos and videos on the internet more representative and diverse, I remember. And of course, license the content for free. But of course, you know, when it comes to these media models, people want to charge for their photographs and everything. So my search ended quickly. But I then thought, well, we can still do this for ourselves as a movement, you know, and Wikimedia, Wikimedia, we sit in a special place on the internet. And so I feel like if we can make an impact on equity, knowledge equity here, we contribute to the general internet of things, the general consciousness of the internet because we are plugged in somehow. So we don't need to look too far. We just, apart from the long term things I mentioned, which are complicated and there are questions I have, we can just look at our platforms right now like Wikimedia Commons and all these other Wikis, what can we do first on our own product to just make sure we are leveraging those products first and those campaigns just to foster knowledge equity and get rid of knowledge gaps. And those are top provoking questions. And, for example, I like that the fact that you touched on whether we want to, you know, have rich media, or even teach people how to use internet. These are, you know, different things. And it stresses one of the findings that we also found in research about the attention that is being taken away by platforms that have rich media. And this is like a pool, a pool for audiences, you know, that would have come to Wikimedia or Wikimedia project, but you know, going for social media and some other platforms. And this is also an idea of how best we need to think about using what we have currently to be able to draw more attention and grow knowledge equity. Anyone else want to jump on that question before we move on. I just want to agree 100% with what Sandesh actually said, but I also want to acknowledge that there's a movement we don't have all the answers. And we also learning. And in that learning space, I also want to go back to a project that I thought had very good potential actually with the PDA zero. And I see that project we've learned, you know, from that project, you know, it run for a couple of years, I think, and we've learned some couple of things. I think it can be improved upon. And I do think that really as a movement and as the Wikimedia foundation, if we can return back to that project and, you know, implement it across the African continent and reach out to network providers so that they can make Wikipedia free, you know. I think that can be a great start actually to providing free internet and free knowledge and to bridging the gap. Thanks a lot to you. Thank you Bobby. All right. Mariana you want to add a little? Okay. So now go to you to see, you know, you mentioned the issues of language and how that, you know, reflects an impact knowledge equity so the question will now be, how can traditional knowledge systems and indigenous knowledge be recognized, integrated into Wikimedia project and I'm saying this on the backdrop of the wide majority of stories of history behind Africa but also the knowledge and the language differences. So how can we use Wikipedia Wikimedia projects to trap to restore to to report and also, you know, have a repository of our history as Africans, you know, that others can access and learn from. All right. Thank you. So recognizing preserving as well as integrating traditional knowledge systems and indigenous knowledge into Wikimedia project actually requires a lot of collaborative and respectful approaches. And then there are few steps we can actually take to make this happen. This is engagement and collaboration and these steps are actually based on my work I do on wiki tongues in wiki tongues rather this engagement and collaboration first of all we need to engage directly with indigenous communities to build partnerships and this partnership should be based on mutual trust and respect and then you also need to involve them in decision making processes regarding the sharing of their knowledge. And that thing is informed consent needs to obtain informed consent from indigenous knowledge holders before we share their content on Wikimedia platforms. And then we also need to respect their rights to ownership and control of whatever knowledge they have. And we also need to be aware of cultural sensitivity. We need to understand that cultural context and nuances of the knowledge being shared. And then we also need to ensure that the representation is accurate, and it respects the cultural significance of the information. Another thing is oral traditions should acknowledge and adapt to the oral nature of many indigenous knowledge systems. We should work with communities to find the appropriate ways to document and share oral traditions while maintaining their authenticity and also we have to be collaborative in the content creation. We need to encourage these indigenous communities to contribute their own knowledge to Wikimedia projects. We need to involve them in maybe creating articles, adding references to already existing articles, sharing traditional stories, practices and beliefs. And then one very important thing is as we are doing all of these, we need to remember their local languages. We need to be able to share this knowledge in their local languages of the indigenous communities so that we can present the authenticity of the information. And also to ensure the accessibility of those who understand the language. We need to also do a lot of capacity building. We need to provide training and support to them. And we need to do a lot of licensing and attribution. I think in choosing open licenses, especially less for commons, we need to choose licenses that align with their indigenous values and permissions and also to provide clear attribution to the knowledge holders and communities. I think one example I have of this is Australian universities, they are actually very good at this. I was trying to search for some schools to run some programs and then I realized that at the end of their website, they always try to give to acknowledge or attribute the owners of the land in which their universities are being built. So this kind of situation can help in preserving all of our indigenous knowledge with the media platforms. And then we also need to remember that each indigenous community has its own protocols and preferences and cultures differ. So let's say from country A to country B, from state A to state B, we have different cultures. So we need to remember that they have their own protocols and references. So it's essential to allow the approach to their own specific needs and not just to whatever we feel like. So these are the different ways I feel that we can help in preserving and recognizing and also integrating traditional knowledge systems into media projects. Thank you. Those are like, you know, PhD testing in each of those points. Another point I want to draw and really, really, really interested in this. I remember when I was researching about this. I'm a person of story of history and I've been wondering if there is ways or structured ways where we keep media Wikipedia can help, you know, store or, you know, write the stories that either long forgotten. For example, I came across this project by Google where they were helping the think book to community in Mali to rewrite or document the manuscript, the old manuscript there. And I'm thinking, do you think Wikipedia or Wikimedia can do this where, because there are so many stories. Some of them are the ones that will listen to our grandmother and the moonlight in those days. Some of them are not online, some of them we can access and it to be so glad to see Wikipedia or generally all the project to be where people can go to read about this stories, this African stories. I was in a museum in Europe recently and it struck me that our stories are even more told in some of this museum, better and stored there than we even have in Africa. But even in online, it will be interesting to be able to find ways. Are there things like that? Maybe another person can touch that. Okay, so I'm aware of a couple of projects by different Wikimedia communities, although I'm not so sure of the ones done in Africa, but I know that the communities from India, Indonesia, they are doing a lot with Wikisauce and preserving all of these manuscripts. And I think in Nigeria here we have the oral histories documentation as well. And I think we can explore Wikisauce in documenting, let's say our manuscripts or histories that are probably going next things that no one has access to anymore. Or maybe it seems that we might not be able to access in the next 30 years or 20 years. So Wikisauce is one of the best ways we can do this. I've seen it happen and I'm hoping that we can follow in these steps, we can actually see what other communities are doing. And I think I attended one of the Wikihistories conference that Wikimedians in Australia organized. And I see how they are working collaboratively with their museums, their glam institutions to be able to document the histories of the Aboriginal people. And this is actually also like, these are things happening in the community actually. And these are also full steps we can follow as Africans and as Africans in the Wikimedia communities to be able to document on histories and oral stories or things there. But then one challenge we have is when we do all of these with all these other projects, when it comes to citing them on the English Wikipedia or maybe, for example, the English Wikipedia, I don't think that as of now, the English Wikipedia is open yet to oral histories citations. So I'm hopeful that subsequently this will improve because for us here, referencing it's kind of a problem and a challenge for us and we have a lot of our stories being told orally than in written format. So I'm hopeful that someday we'll be able to. Thank you very much. Mariana, do you have that thought or strategy on this here? Well, I just wanted to connect a few points that all three of the other panelists have made, I feel like Cindy started with some quite provocative questions like what is our role in the system like what is the thing that we need to take on and tackle and I think probably one of the most overused words in most organizations is partnerships like everybody throws it around like we must form partnerships. But if we think hard about what are we good at and what are other people good at and how do we find the right people to be good at things we probably will never be good at. And how to form those kinds of relationships authentically right and so when I hear touch it when I hear you talk about how do we reach communities. Who else has credibility who else already has authenticity in those spaces that we can build and leverage because I think that like how you approach how to build genuinely partnerships that are real that there's real benefit for both partners and and shared goals is the only way to tackle such big questions that I don't think, you know, all the money in the world is going to help us solve some of these things on our own. And I do think that the question like partnerships is it's not a team at the foundation it's a much more fundamental concept of what institutions on the ground already have credibility that can allow us to bring again our work and our assets in a way that can be achieved and that can be understood. And when I think about some of the work, even with the second round of grantees and the knowledge equity fund, you know, in some cases like in Indonesia it's finding other organizations that already have credibility in some of these spaces and finding ways and I think that that is a piece it's a piece and a strategy and a topic that I think applies to the African context in a big way and something that I think we should we should definitely spend more time reflecting on. Thank you, Mariana. Yeah, just to save time, I think we also want to move ahead, I will like, like to dissect that point on traditional knowledge system but, and also the point on partnerships would like to move ahead. So the next point is on gender. We understand in Africa that yes, the gender disparities is a thing, you know, from from education to access to knowledge to economic opportunities for for even women particularly it's an issue so and even on the topic of knowledge. And so this question is about what strategies can we implement to address gender disparities in access to and dissemination of free knowledge across the Wikimedia project, and maybe I was this time start with Bobby and then maybe someone else like touchy you could jump in here. Thanks for that question. I think this is a historical question really the gender, the gender question is really historic, and it's also cultural as well. And it then boils down or goes down to to the internet, you know, what we see what is happening on the internet is what we see physically in the in our world where we live in. So for us as a movement really, I think we really need to to be to to to to to do projects that I don't forget the way to be more focused on targeting. Just women, you know, to to be more focused on on on reaching out to institutions and to be targeted specifically when we are planning that okay this is what we want to do. To to increase the number of of of of, you know, women editors on Wikipedia. So we need to have a targeted approach and we need to be very much. I want to I want to use here but yeah we need to be just targeted, you know, we should not. Yeah, we should be intentional that's the way I don't know why English is running away my, my, I was reading a lot today. I wanted to use the word intentional yes, we really need to be intentional like literally intentional and to be more targeted when we're doing these kinds of projects I think that way. That's that will be the start for us. Thanks for watching. Thank you Bobby. And to see you want to touch on that too. Yes. So there are different strategies actually we can implement to address the gender disparities and access to and dissemination of free knowledge so one I like so much is the mentorship programs and support networks. So we can establish online communities because I know that's a community. We are dispersed where in different places or forums where women editors can share and connect and also share experiences and also support each other. And we can also do these mentorships by pairing female editors with more experienced editors who can provide guidance and supports to others. So this can help them to learn and also feel the ropes and feel more confident in their own contributions. So I'm a member of the wiki loves and women focus group and I know how much we women they have to say support group to each other. And we are women from different African countries and I know how much we get to support each other in our programs in trying to get more people on board and trying to share free knowledge and also be able to learn different things. So this wiki loves women focus group is actually like a very good example for me and it's this is also one of the things the proposal I submitted to the wiki women camp. I'm hoping it gets accepted but mentorship is one of the ways we can do that. Another thing is we also need to develop user friendly editing tools. There are some times that women might want to contribute or access knowledge and then they get to realize that it's so technical for them and they just decide to like, I don't want to problem like I know and then they just leave it and go. Another thing is for women in the community who are sharing knowledge of contributors, we can create more visibility of the women contributors and by this I mean we can highlight the contributions of women editors and true features, interviews, and then we can also create recognitions on the wiki platforms, maybe we can have something like, we can medium, should I say woman we can medium of the year if there's anything like that, but I'm just saying. So, these are the different ways and then we can also partner with women organizations, we need capacity building so partnership is actually very important in all of whatever it is that we're doing to promote diversity. More women. Thank you. Thank you. I like the idea of the woman committee of the year. Yeah, women love recognition, I think that is a good motivation and also the fact that, you know, to create user friendly editing truly understand when things are can be complex it's hard to unravel and that's a dissatisfaction or you know this motivation for them to be involved. So, thank you for that. For time I want to move on to the next question and this is to Bobby. And this is in fact of marginalized communities we know that, like we mentioned, there are a lot of languages in Africa, and this also pops up the question of marginalized communities. How can we empower marginalized communities such as rural populations to enhance access and benefit from knowledge resources and educational opportunities in Africa. Bobby. Thank you so much. So, you know, I'm coming from a rural area myself in Pumanana province, part of a, you know, very rural area in my province and I remember the library played a very, very important role. Every young person would go to that library and, you know, find any, you know, type of resource that they are looking for. Unfortunately, libraries in the rural areas lack resources, you know, we just survive with what is there. So, I believe that if we can work with the librarians that are here in the Witte Media movement, start supporting them, start seeing, seeking and looking at what is it that we can do, you know, in order to support them, to work with them, to support the libraries that they are working in. That will be the first start. Currently, I see that even government has implemented a program where they have put laptops and Internet in South African libraries. I don't know, you know, across the African continent. But I think that is also up to the empty, actually, is increase even the interest for rural, especially people and young people to go and access knowledge in the libraries there. So I believe that, as I said earlier on, you know, Africans are not complicated people. They're just simple. They want you to just put that resource in there and then they'll start using it. So I believe the first start, really, will be to work with the librarians that are here in the movement. And before we even go to the libraries themselves, I believe that the librarians that are here, you know, in the Witte Media movement, they know better of what needs to be done in order for us to, you know, upskill and uplift communities out of the rural areas over to you. I think I muted. Thank you, Bobby. Sorry. That's the popular language. I was saying I wanted to flip the question back to you. When you think about Wikipedia, Wikimedia Project, it's a question of not just content availability, but also usage and access. So now, if we will work and provide resources to ensure available content, how do you still do this and try to make sure that people use them and have access? I know you mentioned library. So but also, do you think there's something else we need to do to drive usage even more whilst you're trying to build content through the movement, especially for marginalized communities there? Yeah, I do think that it begins with, you know, working with the librarians that are here as part of our community, and then reaching out to the libraries, and then from there, we can then begin to run projects, you know, edit workshops where we are trying to, you know, edit content, and other projects, you know, like the one live one breath. But basically, I think really the start would be to simply just run edit workshops, but that can be done through the libraries themselves, but, you know, the engagement or the channel with which we can actually access those libraries and know how we can support them would be through the partnerships. I don't want to use that to it, but I'm forced to use it because we've studied a lot in this meeting. Yeah, with the libraries and especially communicating with the Wikipedia, so our real libraries and then they can tell us, you know, give us the whole list of which organizations that we can partner with and other to support them, because that's where real communities are. As we keep it ends, we don't have, you know, COVID amateurs, we keep it from joining us, but in order to reach out to people, I need to go to an institution to talk to the head, so that they can expose me to their community. So libraries play that role over to you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Any other thoughts on this point on empowering marginalized communities? Anyone there? I think it's just to mention that, but trust the point rather on what Bobby said about getting people there, like training local leaders, that's what I will call them. So in my community, we kind of have what we call hubs, fun clubs. So that simply means that in Wikimedia Foundation, we can create all of the content we want. As African Wikimedians, we can also create all of the content we want. But sometimes if the communities we want to reach out to do not see someone from them who they can identify with, that actually, should I say, pioneers that project or whatever it is, or that content we're talking about, they might not actually listen to you. So sometimes it's cool for us to train people in that locality who can help to create more awareness of what it is that we want to do, and in that way, they will be more receptive to it. So I noticed that organizations like USAID, WHO, and so many others, when they want to do all of these their vaccinations, they have something they call focal contact. So that focal contact is more like the local leader who goes to create awareness of whatever it is that they want to do for the people to be more receptive to it. And then, so this is just one of the things I just wanted to like buttress much more we need that kind of a situation so that we'll be able to get more in depth into the marginalized communities and then whatever it is we're doing will be more fruitful as well. Thank you to achieve those are great points. We are drawing close to the end and we have one final question and this is one of the one I really interested in and I looking forward to everybody on this panel to touch on this question. And I will start with Mariana, because it's more from a strategy or, you know, forward looking pizza. So the point is about, you know, the future so what innovative innovative approaches or initiatives have been successful in promoting knowledge equity in Africa but also maybe we could draw on lessons elsewhere. And how can we scale this up or replicated in other contexts. Well, I'm probably the least experienced person on the panel to answer that so I'll give it a shot and then others should weigh in. I feel like that's the question I've been asking since I arrived, you know roughly two years ago what are the things that have been working on the ground that can be scaled up what are the contexts across different regions of the world where we can learn from each other. And Shagun you mentioned some of those experiments when you open the panel, I think that the growth initiative to try to really develop a bottom up on the ground approach to increasing the number of editors in Africa is very important. I think that the journalism awards are an effort to try to bring stories and representation which I think is a big part of what we've been talking about in the past hour. I also think the points that touchy made there are things that are relevant in contexts in other regions that we should be learning from and we should be exchanging ideas around institutions and partnerships. So I think, optimistically, people are focused on the right things but as we all know, there are so many we comedians doing so many different things they might not all be visible to us and so. Again, I think in the three minutes we have left Shagun it would be good to also hear from the other panelists. Yes, please. So please, within one minute I would like to hear from Sandisa and the others. Sandisa, maybe you go. All right. Yeah, I think that because business is in, you know, given the sum of human knowledge bias shouldn't have a place right so everything that works against biases on within communities and on wiki that's something we don't want to we kick out so as we'll be used this time being intentional I think some of the campaigns that have been very intentional have been those directed towards gender and such that even gender bias on Wikipedia is so big it has its own Wikipedia article. And I think campaigns that have been very intentional from women in red wiki project women wiki project feminism arts and feminism I remember running campaigns like back to back for like what seven weeks. And women were really excited to just have their own space and do their own thing and then the results were clear. I don't have the dashboard link here would have shared it with people. So what I would just say is that for me, I like what folk are doing around gender. In fact, anything that just gets rid of bias because we're looking for a sum of human knowledge. Yeah. Thank you. 30 seconds, Bobby. So, I think really one of the things that I like to do is to go through the reports in the community and just read, you know, and I focus on the results and impact. And I noticed that a project, you know, we have a different in what works in South Africa might not work in Nigeria might not work in, you know, in Ghana and every places. So, I really would, you know, encourage everyone to just go there and read and whatever works in your think will work in your in your country just copy that and use it in your country over to you. Thank you, Bobby. So, do you want to do that in 10 seconds or less? Yeah, so for me, language is important. So I'm the local language Wikipedia's that keep going from Africa is kind of tremendous even though that it hasn't reached quarter of the languages we speak in Africa, but from 2019 when we had like 19 languages, I think it has 21 African language, sorry, 2021, when we had 19 African languages to 2023 when we now have 46. I think that has been a very good way and a major step forward in promoting knowledge equity and making it possible for people to access knowledge. And that thing is the mobile editing, the mobile editing now is making it easier for us because a lot of people do not have PCs and all that so we can edit on mobile. Thank you, Tochi. That was great. Thank you everyone for this wonderful panel. I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot. I appreciate it goes to everyone on the panel from Mariana to Sandisa, Tochi and Bobby. Thank you for your time. We like unto everyone on the on the call. We thank you for your time. I will look forward to your questions and contributions. All right then that marks the end of our first series. Look forward to the next one. All right, bye everyone. Bye. Bye.