 coolest african projects Be inspired after this you'll have the coolest chapters project and be inspired more the reason why we decided to have both tracks running is because there's a lot of things happening around the world and Usually not enough time to shine the spotlight on what's happening in a specific continent So seeing that you're in Africa it makes sense to see what really is happening in this content in this continent Which faces unfortunately a triple threat? Which is poverty inequality and unemployment? Which makes it very difficult for editors to do any sort of volunteer work but will be amazed at the amount of volunteer work that happens in this continent and We look forward to sharing what some of those work is so I'll I'm Dumisan in Dubai I work for the Wikimedia Foundation. I started last year before that. I have been a volunteer and celebrated 10 years last Tuesday and It has not been easy to volunteer even in South Africa I Also work closely with affiliates Supporting affiliations committee. So this is the map I would like to draw for you in terms of the affiliates that we have in South Africa in in Africa But before we go there while you're looking at the numbers. I want to introduce Emna Who is from Tunisia who is doing amazing work as well as a volunteer as a volunteer in the affiliations committee? amongst many things that Emna does in the continent and also Felix who is doing amazing work in Ghana and He's still currently the Wikipedia of the year until it is not until we are now the next Wikipedia of the year So those are my Core presenters cool core presenters. Okay, so what we have as affiliates in the in Africa We have a total of 15 affiliates in Africa. We have one chapter. We have 14 user groups and You will see in areas where the green is Deeper that is more than one Affiliate in that country. So in Nigeria, we have more than one affiliate. We have two user groups in Ghana, we have two user groups and the newest Affiliates we have in the continent comes from Tanzania, which also has a greener Shading because we have two user groups from Tanzania And the coolest thing about the two user groups about Tanzania is one of the things you will see in the slide So we looked at what's happened on the African continent since 2014 in 2014 we have only had seven Affiliates from the African continent fast forward to today. We have 15. So that's a 50% increase in the number of affiliates that we've had in the in the continent for this presentation Okay, so for this presentation We received 39 submissions across the continent And that represented about 82 percent of the affiliates that we have in the continent. So this is quite Representative of what we have So I'll start with the first one that we have as a coolest project from the continent We've got a wiki fan club from Nigeria now the coolest thing about this project is the whole idea of having a fan club is not usual for Wikipedia or the wiki media movement So what they do is to have fan clubs in universities register as a student body Recognize but that that university and then get students to subscribe to that fan club The effect of that is that you get student being engaged on Wikipedia on wiki media movement and Solving some of the things that they wanted to change there, which is the narrative about Wikipedia being a search engine which is unfortunately still true in most cases and Also trying to convince Nigerian students that they can edit Wikipedia So up to so far they have established four wiki clubs across four different universities in Nigeria And they're working on two more wiki clubs from two more different universities in Nigeria the total pool of students that they currently have of the existing four wiki clubs is 300 members 300 membership of Students who are potential editors to Wikipedia. So that's really really awesome Well, I'm here to present The Africa wiki media developers project funny enough, I happen to be part of this project and I don't know why do we give me this project but So the African wiki media developers project was started in 2017 mostly to Support technical issues on the continent. So before 2016 there was no developer from the African continent The only person that existed was in 2017 and by name Derek Alangi And so 2017 at wiki in Daba, which is the African wiki media conference We met with Derek and explained to him what we wanted to do Since then we've been training Africans around the continent. We've been to three different countries Ghana, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire However, we have participation spending six countries on the continent and we just wanted five active Developers, but now we have 20 active developers who have solved or Submitted over 94 patches to the wiki media call and Two of them have been recruited by the foundation as contractors. And so this is a cool project and we're excited about it Hello again, it's Emna. I'm from Tunisia, but I'm Algerian by blood So I think that's why I'm presenting the wiki maser the wiki MOOC so for the 17th anniversary of Wikipedia The Arabic community gathered and it was an initiative of the Algerian community actually to do a wiki MOOC So they started following the steps of the French MOOC and to develop it to to make like to bridge that gap between the Like the very well-known languages as and the very used languages like English or French and to do such a tool for the Arabic community So most of you they must know The Arabic speakers in the world. They are like 300 million or something However, in terms of editors and contributors in Wikipedia, they're not that many. So having a wiki MOOC running for like almost a year is something very beneficial for them Wikipedia movement for wiki media movement and for wiki pedia and also for the Arabic community So we had like The Algerian user group we had the Levant user group both working together on this and it was a very success project because when you see on social media people they were Interacted and they were waiting for every single episode to go online that was like Show casing that showcased really the thrive of people to learn how to edit wiki pedia. So I really like this project So I'm here again to present Classes Wikipedia from Cote d'Ivoire. So what is unique about this project is? As we all know, it's very critical that volunteers Make our way possible, right and in Cote d'Ivoire, they realized that they could organize simple classes For people who were interested in wiki pedia and people who could contribute to wiki pedia so what it did was that they partnered with the University and got a free venue and They advertised classes for wiki pedia, which ordinarily I would I wouldn't have talked about right? and they were able to organize 18 sessions every for a duration of two hours and They devoted over a hundred hours of volunteer work to this project and this project actually yielded a lot of resource for their community I think this is one of the reasons why the wiki media community in Cote d'Ivoire has a lot of volunteers And I think it's a cool project that we can learn from Okay, so The next one is the neighborhoods of Yaounde in wiki pedia That's being run in Cameroon What is cool about this is that this will be the third wiki town project in the continent following Job pedia and then Medina pedia in Tunisia and This one is focusing on the wiki town concept, but using The editors in the neighborhood to go and identify interesting places in the neighborhood Find sources about Those areas that makes it makes them notable and then put them on to wiki pedia and in doing so this Followed up on the very good successes that we saw in Johannesburg on on job Apedia and then the learnings that are being taken from also a very successful project in Tunisia so in terms of Scalable projects, this is one of those that's showing that if a project is done very well and People get chance to share ideas you get projects coming back in different areas So that's a very good project cool project as well So by now you all know that I'm Algerian by blood Tunisian by nationality and I'll be Tanzanian by adoption so This project goes along with this at the theme of wiki mania this year So the theme is bridging the gap and we have a gap on women so this project wiki women 2018 wiki gap in Tanzania is Typically responding to the gap the gender gap on wiki pedia and the cool thing about it is that 60% of the people who attended the series of editathons and workshops were women and it was like a project dedicated for new participants not only like Established editors or people who know wiki pedia very well. So and I think it's like It's worth to be a successful project Voted for today and it's worth to be named cool project because it gathered like a Vibrant community and created a big community in Tanzania. That's why we see it like thriving more and more Okay, so those are not the only projects that we have There were more projects cool projects that we couldn't fit into this presentation So this slide is going to be available is already available on our on and linked to our wiki mania page you can follow the Links to some of those projects very very cool projects that are happening Medina pedia We already talked about or mentioned as one of the only three wiki town projects in Africa and wiki gap in Mali followed under the same Channel as what's happening in Tanzania. It happened in Mozambique. It happened in Burundi It happened in Nigeria. It happened in South Africa. So that was a very cool Project to run in the continent So, yeah Look at the links visit them. See what's happening in other places So I'm going to ask Emna now a question What what what are the problems that we have in the continent? What are these user groups worried about? So if you ask I think most of the user groups one of the issues is gathering volunteers or You can have volunteers like Henders of volunteers showing up in one of the fancy events that you would organize However, how to maintain the relationship with those volunteers? So it would be great if you Have the expertise to exchange with those user groups and tell them how to build a relationship and how to maintain the volunteers Spirit within their communities. Also, there is a huge issue Although we have a big amount of activities in Africa, but there's a huge issue with resources it's like we're lacking of like Like struggling to find venues for our activities struggling to find money to sustain at the work that affiliates are doing And usually they are like That is like I would say an organization or a foundation next door that would afford them a Venue, however, they do not have the skills to negotiate or to knock on the doors and Ask for the venues for free for example or ask for partnerships to grow their work so these are few of the issues that were mentioned by the affiliates who applied for the coolest project and Again, it's like a matter of Access to knowledge access to resources and access to Again shared knowledge between like expertise exchange of best practices within the continent and the broader movement Yeah, so Felix, what are the hopes of these groups? What would they like to do? So one of the things I like about this particular Infographic is stuff. I Think we all agree that equity we don't have equity in the sharing of resources in a movement. I always ask my question Why can there be Hundreds of stuff in Europe or probably let's say Germany, but we can't have even just one in Accra or Lagos This is a problem Most often people want to do more But they need to make a living and so they put Wikipedia in the back And then they focus on other things if we can get these resources available for these communities I think they can do even more Chapter ship. This is the cry of most of the Africans who applied for the coolest project well People might say it's not a priority, but we think it is because in the movement that we are in roles and Responsibilities are really crucial and if you're a user group you don't get the same respect like those chapters do And so we think it's important that we look that and we are taking care of in this dimension One other thing that I'd like to mention is meeting people want to see people physically. We think it's more Effective if we meet our colleagues discuss our problems and share our needs and so if we can be In The English is gone If we can be Supported in this direction it would it would mean a lot to us and then the skill to report because often we People would send in their reports. They have issues of Not being able to report. Well, if we can be trained in this dimension I think it would be good as well and volunteers Which are the most critical people in our movement? So thank you very much for paying attention Hope you were inspired you enjoyed the projects you will go to the links You'll see what else is happening and to apologize to Dihor. We might have taken a few minutes But that was Africa. Let's see what's happening around the world. I think you missed us to the point that we're back Do you have any question for us? Yes, hi, thank you so much for the Presentation and learning more about the work that's going on across the African communities my question was about You know, you all spoke Pretty often of bringing in new people to the movement and new volunteers and I'm wondering if there are any Common themes or things that you hear from people on their misunderstanding of Wikipedia or just not knowing Things about how it works or some things that you Go over pretty often with new volunteers that seems to come up pretty often Can you say it again? Yeah, so I was just wondering when you bring new volunteers into the movement from your experience if there are any common And maybe they're not but common misunderstandings of Wikipedia or things that come up often that are not necessarily True about how our movement works and if you might have any insights there So if I understood like correctly usually when people they show up in our events Either in Tunisia or elsewhere. They're always asking. Okay. We use Wikipedia. We do not rely on Wikipedia It's a biased source or whatever and we try to take out these Stereotypes from their minds. So they the first hit would be or this first click would be through Wikipedia And then through the onboarding we try to present to them the aspect the other aspects of the Wikimedia movement, so Usually people they are like Introduced to the movement through Wikipedia or Wikimedia comments and then they get the spirit of the work and they get Interested in other projects. So for example many people they started with us in the project Medina Pedia Tunis They started with us write an article on Wikipedia, then they They became like Glam coordinators Users of comments things like that they they change they go around the movement. It's like it's the first hit and that's it Any other question just quickly I Saw a list of what you guys need But is there something that the average user in this room can do directly to help any of their projects exactly so We started this conversation in Wikimdaba Tunis And we had it today in the African meetup the end of a meetup There is a like a big room for exchange and collaboration between the African in the continent and the diaspora and I do believe that we Together can do a lot of work. I think through those projects like them then Tanzania project for wiki gap There is a room to talk about like how the diaspora could help in Getting the word know about the Tanzanian women If I take the the example of Côte d'Ivoire, how can we make this amazing work Show cased in the world. It's through the diaspora that we will be able to do that So there is a huge Like way of like communicating and working together. I I also think the common team that arises from Afro projects is Digitary repatriation, right? So if we could work with those in the diaspora to bring things that are of African descent that have been sent away in A form of maybe digital content would be very useful. So we could explore those areas Yes, and allies we need a lot of allies and This room we've got members who are editing Wikipedia and they might be members of chapters in different areas We found especially in South Africa when we started job of pedia about four or five years ago That it was difficult to do simple things like cure coding and the technology. They know how Trials and so on so we partnered with wiki media UK to do that project and it was very successful and so there is a big opportunity for chapters outside of the continent to partner with Organizations with affiliates in the continent who are doing amazing work and also to share those those experiences how those projects similar projects are done elsewhere and Get that knowledge transfer and sharing happening because it's a big movement and it should be Small enough for us to be talking more often, but it doesn't seem like it's happening So we'd like to see a lot of that allyship happening So sorry, but I just want to add one small thing and that thing is just common translations, right? So we experienced this when we work with the National Archives in Ghana. They had content in Danish Swedish and a few other Colonial language, right, but they didn't know what to do with them So when you ask them for meta meta data, they don't understand anything, right? A simple partnership could be with between Local countries and those affiliates to just get those contents translated for us by their glam institutions And then we could have them back in our country So it's don't always think about something big could just be something small as just translating colonial language Okay, I see but but this one Yes, so I actually want to know like are those projects mostly focused on big languages like English Wikipedia French Wikipedia Or are they also focused on African language, Wikipedia's? I'll quickly answer especially on the Tanzanian Wikipedia. We saw for the first time in a long time Where a project that was directly Influenced or intended to be done in a specific language in this case in English Got a chance to be Also translated or engaged with in the local language, which was the Swahili So although that is not very common to see That was quite refreshing to see that In South Africa, for example, we've made it a point that for all the projects that we do We include a an element of a local language in terms of translation there. I know this is also true for Medina Pedia and for the MOOC So for the MOOC it was in standard Arabic For Medina Pedia, we had like we were talking about allies We had different people from all over the world translating into different languages So there was no specific language for the project The whole thing was about translating as much as possible to all the languages that we can translate into So it's like it's different from a case to another But other than those projects that we presented today in the African continent, there is a lot of projects Like cool projects, but they did not really apply for this They do a lot of work in small languages wikipedia's and I code for example the Sherry wikipedia or the Kabil wikipedia from Morocco and Algeria, so they are doing a lot of work. They're getting And even the Algerian delger the Algerian dialect or language They're doing a lot of work with it in universities to make the Algerian Wikipedia grow Rapidly from like few articles to more than a thousand articles in the dialect So it's like there is a lot of efforts going on with the small languages or the indigenous languages and small wikipedia's that we did not have like the luxury of time or Conditions to showcase today, but we got the really the top of the top in terms of engagement in terms of Participants and audiences and reach out of their own communities so I just want to go back to this slide and Show you one of the things that we excited about in terms of the distribution of affiliates For a long long time. We really didn't have anyone on the east Africa and section so that is something that We discussed as a group especially in conference and meetings like wiki and daba to say that situation can't continue but Again, this is a lot a big chunk of the continent is still gray as in we don't have Affiliates recognized affiliates there, but there is hope the yellow Shows the areas where we are having groups that we know are already planning to affiliate We having a group that's really doing some amazing work in Libya in terms of trying to affiliate And you will know the situation in Libya at the moment even having person face-to-face meetings is a big challenge for them and yet They doing amazing work and we are assisting them in terms of how to get to the point where they can affiliate With the Mickey wiki media movement in Mali. Mali is also doing some amazing work in terms of The projects that they are running there wiki loves Africa, which isla and florans Doing I don't know if any of them are here Flora Has been really Awesome in terms of organizing across the continent. It hasn't been support It hasn't been submitted as a coolest project. It's too big to think of it as one project It really is a movement happening across the continent and in Mali. They did wonderful things with the organized with a local Volunteers there on the schools project that they worked on and then on the wiki loves Women which were which seemed to really have galvanized a lot of communities You're talking of Côte d'Ivoire Nigeria really comes from this Movement, so thanks for him for the wonderful work that you guys have been doing So we we still need a lot of So we still need a lot of work to happen I didn't yellow them out because they haven't Organized themselves yet, but we know there's work To get something happening in Chad Which is one of the poorest countries in the continent. There is a user that came to Wikindaba in Tunisia, and we were so excited that there's something happening there. I also didn't Yellow it out, but there's also work that's coming through from Benin with Users starting to organize doing edits and talking about how do they get affiliated? I was quite privileged also to go to Mozambique which is also one of the poorest countries and we did a wiki gap workshop there with the Swedish Embassy and We really are looking forward to seeing something coming out of those areas So if we're saying 2014 to 2018 was a 50% increase What is going to happen in the next five years in terms of the African continent? So that's really one of the areas that proves that what we have been saying as the next million Users in the internet will be coming from this continent and we in this movement have got a chance To shape what they will be seeing what they will find when they do come online So the work that you do as a as a volunteer really is starting to pay up with the Projects and activities that we've seen around the continent. So thank you very much for One more question. Okay, so maybe one more question Just one more. No, I'm just saying that they are quite interesting and inspiring project, but Where do you begin? What is the spark? for more so in areas where you know there could be an area of interest in terms of Interfacing engaging and learning but people don't have access to internet But also just how do I inspire people? I mean, I do this thing just on an informal private Private capacity it has taken me to come here to realize as there's a whole new world of Wikipedia Wikimedia as a whole epistemologist that I could learn and engage with but now when I go home How do I inspire people to be involved? Thank you Thank you very much for asking that question Thank you for asking that question and The answer lies in one of the things that we've had during our meeting The issue of awareness is still very low around the continent. So in Nigeria, for example, we've had beautiful projects in terms of raising the public awareness About what is Wikipedia? Because that's where we have to start most people don't know that Wikipedia exists and if they do they don't know that they can edit So we have a lot of work to do in terms of raising that awareness So we're going again to need your support as allies to say What ideas can we do to increase the level of awareness? We're currently talking about readership Maybe we should be looking at how do we promote readership in the continent before we even ask Editors to edit Wikipedia Those are some of the things that are coming through Maybe one of the things that you could bring back home to inspire others is that those people who are working on Who we showcase they work in the coolest project There are people who are dedicating their time. They're not paid for that work They're given like hundreds of hours if you go back to Tanzania or To Côte d'Ivoire class we see how many hours they dedicated for that work without being paid and sometimes it's like They're given from their personal hours personal space and personal life to promote Wikipedia and to inspire other people and to recruit other people to the movement So this is very important if we see how they are dedicated how much they love the movement and how much they are Contributing and the human knowledge. We must be very inspired by their work and their dedication And this is something that we all have to be proud of and we all have to bring back home It's like we're not alone You're not alone if you're working to inspire others or to recruit others to become Wikipedia's and to contribute To the knowledge and to the like the promotion of the heritage and culture of your own country So or to bridge the gap whether gender or culture gap Still there is a huge amount of effort that is being done here. And yeah, while he's connecting Well, he's connecting. I think we have to like to To say like congratulations to every single person who spent hours of his own or her own time To prepare for editor turns and workshops and to move from a city to another and sometimes I know a lot of people around this continent. They did not even ask for grants or scholarships They did it themselves. And I think we have one of those cases somebody attended Wikimedia on his own Capacities and tried to finance his own attendance to get to know What is this movement and how he could contribute more and what kind of Experiences he can get back to his home. These are the inspired stories that we have to take back home So to those who wondered what they can do and they are new in this conference Come talk to us after this talk during tea lunch break. Let's have a conversation Most of the people that we showcased in this In these coolest projects are also here in this conference when you see them have a chat with them say, thank you And promise you will help them and do follow up with that