Growing Wikimedia in Developing Nations

This is a clearinghouse and portal for all materials related to The Working Group on Growing Wikimedia in Developing Nations.

The group's other communication organ is the devnations-l mailing list. Its archives are public, and you are welcome to subscribe.

About the Working Group

The Working Group on Growing Wikimedia in Developing Nations is an informal collection of individuals, Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians, who think more can be done to further the Wikimedia Vision in developing nations, and are willing to collaborate on ideas and projects to that end.

The working group is a special-interest group that would ideally serve as a sort of hatchery or incubator, where ideas and projects can slowly be generated and built up. When funds, staff attention, or contact with other entities become required, the group would turn to the Wikimedia Foundation (which has a primary representative in the group -- Barry Newstead) to facilitate this.

Projects

General projects

Chapter Development

The group considers fostering the creation of the following chapters (in descending order) key to making progress on the Wikimedia mission:

• Middle East: Egypt; Iran; Turkey
• Asia: Malaysia; Pakistan
  • bootstrap through India, Indonesia, & Philippines
• Latin America: Mexico; Venezuela; Brazil
• Africa: South Africa; Kenya; Nigeria; Morocco

Offline Wikipedia

The group considers the offline availability of content from Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks) crucial to disseminating free knowledge in developing nations.

Related projects:

• Kiwix
• OpenZIM
• OkaWix

Outreach and Education

Beyond Wikimedia Chapters, a lot of work can be done in developing nations through outreach to other organizations, in either long-term alliances with like-minded groups (e.g. Creative Commons chapters) or ad-hoc partnerships. Many organizations have "boots on the ground" in places where little Wikimedia reach has been achieved so far. Such organizations could welcome outreach by Wikimedians, to further both their mission and ours, through Wikimedia content.

Natural allies:

• Creative Commons
• Free Software (FOSS) groups, Linux User Groups (LUGs), Perl Mongers, etc.
• OLPC

Particular projects

• Wikimedia Israel collaborates with the "Africa Center" at Ben-Gurion University, equipping students on humanitarian missions to Africa with offline (static) Wikipedia to spread free knowledge in Africa. (Original press release). Updates to follow.
• Wikimedians in Kenya are planning a project of offline English Wikipedia distribution in schools across Kenya.

Material from the strategic planning

Current reach related strategic activity:

• Offline strategy
• Mobile strategy

A collection of material produced during the strategic planning proces:

• Recommendations from the local language task force
• Recomendations - Implementation possibilities
• Local language task force page
• Regional bandwidth anaylsis
• Local content
• Localization and internationalization
• Collection of additional material