Grants:TPS/Flixtey/SOTM Africa 17/Report

Event name

State of the Map (SOTM) Africa 17

Participant connections

I had a presentation during the main conference session on the need for cross collaboration across the Open Movement, with a focus on the Open Street Map Community and the Wikimedia Community. I showcased the use of geo locations from Open Street Maps on Wikipedia and encouraged the Open Street Maps community to continue their work by exporting most of their collected data onto related Wikipedia articles (geographical based articles) from Open Street Maps. I explained that by doing so, the Open Street Maps Community creates relevance for their work as it gets another venue to be seen which is the main cause of all open movements, to ensure free accessibility.

My presentation lead to many who walked to me and congratulated me on the presentation, however advised to share this on much bigger stages such as the upcoming FOSS4G Conference 2018 in Tanzania. I also through my training was able to gather some Ugandan Open Street Maps community members who were from time to time contributing to Wikipedia. Together with them and some other individual Wikimedia contributors had a meeting to start Planning Wikimedia Uganda User Group again, as the initial forming team dispersed and were inactive. Through this meeting we were able to finalise a partnership discussion with the Goethe Institute to support the activities of the forming user group.

Outcome

Option 3: New Creation: What was one useful outcome of the event for the Wikimedia movement?

Add a link to something new that was created as a result of your participation in this event (for example, you might link to a new tool that you and your co-participants made as a result of attending this event, or to a set of articles that the participants in your workshop created at the event).

Through my presentation I have had discussions with several open street map communities who do not yet have Wikimedia Communities and I am going to be working with them to start in their various countries. Also as a result of the training I connected with Ugandan prospective volunteers whom I will be working in the coming months to work towards a user group in their country. As a result I also helped with working on their planning user group page, which lead to the documentation of our meeting and the creation of a guide to look into for the next plans of activities.

Lastly we sealed a partnership deal with the Goethe Institute to support the groups activities with venue, library and books if need be.

Finances

Items	GHC	UGX	USD
Travel (round trip airfare from Ghana to Uganda)			720.20
Accomodation		300000	85.71
Feeding		169000	48.30
Transportation from home to airport	80		18.11
Transportation from airport to home	80		18.11
Transportation from airport to venue			30
Transportation from venue to airport			30
Transportation from hotel to Goethe Institute		7000	2
Transportation from Goethe Institute to Hotel		7000	2
Total			954.43

GHC - Ghana Cedis

UGX - Ugandan Shillings

USD - United States Dollars

Amount left over

N/A

Anything else

For me its amazing how just a strategy meeting with just a group of motivated contributors can start a community in their country. I understand the group will be meeting to have a larger styrategy session with all contributors on the 29th July, 2017. I truly am delighted for a step taken to bridge the under representation gap in Africa.