WikiConference India 2011/Submissions/wikipedia Takes Nairobi
- Timestamp
- 09:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Engaging Emerging Chapters through Entry Projects for newbies
Presentation
- Author of the submission
kipchogekosgei@gmail.com
- Country of your origin
Kenya
- Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)
- Personal homepage or blog
- Abstract
For a young Chapter recruiting and retaining newbies is a big challenge.There has to be some project or activity to keep them engaged and occupied, then and only then can the chapter stabilize in terms of membership and active participation. From my experience in the formation of Wikimedia Kenya I found that it is very important to have entry level projects that the newbies can get involved in. We have wiki- Saturdays where the college students meet over the weekend to write Wikipedia articles on areas they are familiar with. we do encourage students from all universities in Kenya to participate. Another project that we are involved in is "Wikipedia Takes Nairobi’ which is a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest organized by Wikimedia Kenya,where participants compete to take photographs of as many local sites as possible for Wikipedia articles (especially Kiswahili articles). New articles are also expected to come out of this project. We are doing these projects because we realized that African content is underrepresented on the World Wide Web. Kenya is no exception. Yet access to the internet is fast growing and the web is becoming an increasingly relevant tool for Kenyans. According to Communications commission of Kenya reports, over 10 million Kenyans now have access to the internet and over 50 institutions of higher learning have access to high speed broadband.Increasing the amount of locally relevant content on the web is vital to ensure Kenyans use the infrastructure and devices now available to them. Wikipedia Takes Nairobi aims to contribute to the push for more locally relevant content. This are some of the experiences I would like to come and share with Wikimedia India as we grow together
- Do you have a valid Indian VISA?
Yes I am working on getting a Visa now and it would not be a problem here. My only reason for is to attend the conference
- Slides or further information
I am also heading a project to translate HIV/AIDS information into local languages, the link can be found here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/HIV-AIDS_project