Wiki Indaba/Steering Committee (WISCom)

There has been a great need to reduce the burden of work involved in the organisation of the WikiIndaba conference since its inception in 2014. In response to this, a process was announced at the 2018 Wiki Indaba held in Tunisia to establish a steering committee responsible for providing support to the Local Organising Committee(s) (LOC) of future Wiki Indaba's.

To Apply

If you would like to be considered for a volunteer role on the Wiki Indaba Steering Committee during our current recruitment cycle, please post your application on this page.

The due date for applications is 22 June 2018.

1. Your full name and Wikimedia username
2. Describe your relevant experience, skills, and motivation for joining the committee.
3. What do you think should be done in order to Improve WikiIndaba?
4. What do you see Wiki Indaba accomplishing in the next 5 years?

All African Wikimedians are invited to share endorsements and comments about candidates. Please avoid negative comments without evidence. We would like to maintain a friendly space for candidates to state their interest without fear of public ridicule.

PS: Kindly note that endorsements are not final decisions on who is selected to the committee but a way to instil trust and provide proof of work for candidates.

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Reda Kerbouche (talk · contribs)

1. As in the title of the section my name and username are Reda Kerbouche.
2. I have been part of the movement for over 8 years officially. My experience in projects, is very large, starting to organize regional competitions until the creation of MOOCs for the education of Wikipedia. I am currently the head of communication in Wikimedia Algeria. I want to join the group to bring my very long experience to those who need it, and also to take their experiences and share it. to advance projects in Africa.
3. what should be done in order to Improve WikiIndaba
   • The first thing is to facilitate communication between the different linguistic communities.
   • Make a big focus on the experience of African projects, so that he can share them with each other.
   • And invited active users from countries where there is no community for future created one. And found new users who can give new knowledge to the continent.
4. In 5 years wiki indaba will have a large and diverse communities, which will give its personal touch in the evolution of the movement in general

Comments & Endorsements

1.  Support Reda is a very active member through wikidz and other UGs in arabia and europe. He is very experienced in mediawiki and wikimedia commons, we work since 2013 to the organization of different competitions in algeria - during this year he was a key member of the WikiMAssak Wikimooc team in Arabic. which have been a huge success in the Arab community. I recommend reda he can give a better idea and a positive energy to the steering commity of wiki indaba. --Mohammed Bachounda (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
2.  Support Reda is an active and enthusiastic Wikimedian. Sami Mlouhi (talk) 03:25, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
3.  Support Reda is very experienced in editing projects. I worked with him several times in several projects, photos contests. He is a good person and I met him once to organize together a workshop in Algeria. I recommend.--Great11 (talk) 13:10, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Geugeor (talk · contribs)

1. My name : Georges Fodouop. My username Geugeor.
2. I am IT manager by profession. In 2013, I contributed to the Afripedia project in Cameroon and several African countries, as well as WikiMooc. I work to make known the Wikimedia projects in Cameroon and I regularly train to discover and contribute. Since 2016, I am a Wikipedian in residence in Cameroon for Wiki Loves Women project in Cameroon. I am co-founder of Cameroon User Group. At the same time, I coordinate these following projects in Cameroon : Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Women. I think I have an experience to share with young emerging communities
3. It is important to subdivide the African continent by region, by language for greater impact. Share the projects for their experimentation in other communities.
4. In five years, several communities will emerge and the impact of the movement will have increased. We will see conferences by type of regions and languages throughout Africa ...

Comments & Endorsements

 Support George F has been participating in Wiki Indaba since it's inception in South Africa and has played a vital role in helping Wikimedians in his country and supporting various projects to keep the Wikimedia fire burning in Africa. His views about different aspects of the community will enrich the committee in various directions. I support him to be a member of the committee. Thanks :) --Alangi Derick (talk) 22:47, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

 Support George is a very active Wikipedian and has a lot of experience in event organisation so I support him for this position r054l13 (talk) 20:53, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

 Support George is very active Wikipedian and Wikimedian, i contact him many time for project advisors in Africa. --Great11 (talk) 13:19, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Houssem Abida (talk · contribs)

1. My name and my username are the same Houssem Abida.
2. I am a 22 years old medical student from and living in Tunisia. I joined the Movement in 2015 thanks to one of Wikimedia Tunisie projects in partnership with Carthagina association (in which I am member now), MedinaPedia. There I started contributing on Wikipedia in arabic, french and english. In 2017, I implemented the same project in my hometown Sfax (MedinaPedia Sfax as its coordinator). Also, I coordinate the WikiLeaders project. I was a volunteer in the organization of WikiIndaba 2018 teams for communication and logistics. I want to join this committee because I loved my experience in WikiIndaba 2018, and I Believe I can have a big added value for the conference as I have a different perspective and approch for the movement and how things can be done because of my age, my academic background and my experience in other fields.
3. I think WikiIndaba should emphasize on the local communication and exchange with the other institutions and parts of the society (NGOs, public and private sector), not only working on free access to information but in other fields as well. Also, WikiIndaba should work on partnerships with institutions working on the African continent as one community strengthening it and empowering the exchange between its countries (like the African Union Youth Council, students'council, UNDP's regional hub for African countries, etc.). Last thing, I think the program of WikiIndaba's next editions should be structured by thematic workshops (Education, health, Human rights; etc.) but with keeping the technical workshops.
4. I believe WikiIndaba will have more sustainable and long term partnerships with regional and international institutions to give it more visibility not just as an event, but as a community. Also, WikiIndaba will set a more open strategy to ensure bigger presence for non Wikimedia projects in order to help establishing partnerships, exchanging expertise and promoting Wikimedia movement's achievements and values.

Comments & Endorsements

1.  Support Houssem is helpful, hardworking and good at what he does. He will be an asset to the WISCom. Sami Mlouhi (talk) 03:41, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Csisc (talk · contribs)

1. My full name is Houcemeddine Turki and my username is Csisc.

2. I am a 24 years old medical student from and living in Tunisia. I am officially wikimedian since 2009 (after two years of IP edits) and I was among the first members of Wikimedia Tunisie when created in May 2014. I am currently an active contributor to French and English Wikipedia and to Wikidata. I co-created several Start-class and C-Class articles in English and French Wikipedia and I was behind one DYK feature and two ITN features in the main page of English Wikipedia in 2016. I work as well since 2011 with the collaboration of Wikimedia Algeria and Wikimedia Morocco on ameliorating the coverage of Arabic Linguistics in Wikimedia projects (WikiLingua Maghreb) and I became a test wiki administrator in Wikimedia Incubator in 2016. I also work since 2011 on ameliorating the coverage of Tunisian scientists and researches on French Wikipedia (TunSci). This project is still ongoing and contributed to the creation of many articles on excellent Tunisian scientists. In 2017, I became GLAM and Education Coordinator of Wikimedia TN User Group and I was involved in MedinaPedia Sfax as a quality management coordinator. Further than my work as an active contributor to Wikimedia projects, I also co-developed several community management methods for the projects of Wikimedia TN User Group. One among these methods won the IdeaLab Inspire Challenge in 2016. I was a member in the Programme Committee of WikiIndaba 2018 conference and I want to join this committee because I loved my experience in WikiIndaba 2018 and because I am sure I can make a significant contribution to the amelioration of the quality and spread of the conference due to my experience with the Wikimedia movement.

3. There are many ways to improve WikiIndaba:

• Lessons learnt from WikiIndaba conference 2018: I think WikiIndaba should be open to participations from communities outside Africa. This will allow to African participants to develop their skills, to be involved in world-class high-scale Wikimedia-related projects, and to learn more about how to ameliorate the quality and reach of their projects. I also think that the selection of entries to the Program should only be merit-based and that reason behind the non-selection of every declined proposals should be provided to authors. This will give more trustworthiness to the conference and will encourage more participants to take part in the conference.
• Interaction with language communities: I propose that the results of the conference should be presented in WikiArabia and WikiConvention Francophone so that language communities can help applying them.
• Development of user groups: When I was a Programme Committee member of WikiIndaba 2018 and when I worked in several Wikimedia projects from Africa, I discovered that highly performant Wikimedia contributors from Africa are not members of African user groups. WISCom should invite them to be involved in African user groups so that the output of African Wikimedia-related projects can be ameliorated.

4. I believe WikiIndaba can be the third most important Wikimedia-related conference within a few years mainly because African Wikimedia community is currently growing.

Comments & Endorsements

1.  Support I totally support his vision for Indaba. Also, Csisc is a very committed person and experienced Wikimedian. I believe he is a great candidate. Sami Mlouhi (talk) 04:03, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

1.  Support he is able to work with teams and support many africain projets.--Great11 (talk) 13:25, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Kamal Osama (talk · contribs)

1. My Name is Kamal Osama Elgazzar, My username is Kamal Osama
2. I came to Wikipedia in 2011 with a passion to volunteer and make something to the Egyptian and Arabic communities. I started to edit on scientific articles, most related to architecture, engineering, astronomy, and environment. I became a member of Wikimedia Egypt (local Wikimedia chapter in w: Egypt) and started the Wikipedia Education Program in its first two editions. I also organized some contests that were really made a great impact on the Egyptians community. I believe that we are still can do many great things to the Wikimedia movement and the Egyptian chapter.
3. I see that we have different ways to improve "WikiIndaba";
   1. Building Capacities for Wikimedians: From my work in Wikimedia movement I figured out that not only getting more volunteers will help in expanding the encyclopedia but to get volunteers with high capacity to learn, share and improve the way to volunteer. The investment in learning more skills for the user groups is one way to enhance the encyclopedia, especially for the African edition as they will lead the folks to get more impacts.
   2. Building Relationships and Partnerships: among our communities of editors and Wikimedians. I see that we, as African Wikimedians, can create more opportunities and achievements if we started partnerships with interested organizations that can share its contents on free-license. that's to promote broader open access in publishing and research.
   3. Scalable and Sustainable Work: We can improve WikiIndaba by supporting ideas that can be improved to have higher impacts and can be sustainable by its volunteers. It's not to be applied once but usually or periodically.

4. I see that WikiIndaba can be the voice of the continent if we succeed to leave high impacts on our steps. the projects we do for sharing knowledge will have a higher value to the people of the continent. --Kamal Osama (talk) 15:58, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Comments & Endorsements

 Support Kamal is very active in Wikimedia Egypt User Group. Mohamed Ouda (talk) 20:09, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Alangi_Derick (talk · contribs)

1. My name is Derick Ndimnain Alangi and my wiki handle is Alangi_Derick
2. I joined the Wikimedia movement in September 2015 as a software developer and a community engagement person! My whole aim was to advocate for free knowledge in technology and help other grow in that direction. I'm a Cameroonian by birth and a software engineer by training. In July 2017, Wikimedians of Cameroon was founded and I'm one of the Co-founders and with this I believe in such a vision coming true in Cameroon in due time. I've been into Indaba 2 times (Ghana and Tunisia) and helped in Scholarship committee in 2018 organization. I'm inclined in helping making logical decisions that will benefit everyone (without discrimination) because I focus on how the problem can be solved (long term). More about me, see here: User:Alangi_Derick/List_of_Activites. I intend to join the committee to make WikiIndaba an Indaba where strategies will be adopted to bring in more Africans into the Wikimedia movement and give them guide to be fully committed long-term.
3. I think Wiki Indaba can be improved in a way that should span connecting Wikimedians across >= 70% of Africans, the more Africans and fresh & active Wikimedians get involved, the more it can be improved. At the conference, people's views should be taken into consideration (on-site) then analyzed later to make the conference a better one in the next year. Other decisions from analysis can be made from same data. The more solid the conference (in terms of program design and execution), the better impact it can make to participants.
4. Wiki Indaba is the foundation stone for connecting African Wikimedians and with this, a system can be built around it to further strengthen the collaboration of Africans in order to accomplish the Wikimedia movement. Indaba is the only conference that connects Africans on a global level, this should be taken advantage. So I see Wiki Indaba as a platform of empowerment to African Wikimedians at a global scale. :)

--At your service, Alangi Derick (talk) 11:11, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Comments & Endorsements

 Support is very active Wikimedian and he also can promote several projects for Africa --Great11 (talk) 13:29, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

 Support Very active Wikimedian who can also promote projects. Senegambianamestudy (talk) 05:01, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Eugene233 (talk · contribs)

1. I am Egbe Eugene Agbor, User name Eugene233
2. A volunteer software developer from Cameroon exposed through the AWMD program along with many developers in Africa. I also do a lot around Wikidata and and some of it's related tools. Being a member of [| WMCUG ] I participate in organization of events and empowering other interested Wikimedians. My sole motivation for joining the committee is seeing to it that attention be given to the developer community in Africa as there is not yet a means which the developers can meet to share ideas and experiences and why not work on a milestone. Also, to see that there is an organized platform for technical issues which other non-technical Wikimedians face can be handled by the right technical volunteers during the conference.
3. To improve WikiIndaba, we can do the following;

• Include developer workshops and hack-a-thons depending on the program of the conference.
• Be open to research and discovery sessions from African volunteers as most attendees will be awakened by this.

- In about 5 years from now, I see the African community growing 5 times in number of volunteers, contributions and also conference attendees.

BamLifa (talk · contribs)

1. Abel Lifaefi Mbula (BamLifa)
2. I am the team leader of wikimedians from the DRCongo. I’ve joined the movement in 2015 with one idea in mind : belonging to a community of people who are creating the biggest free knowladge database. Since then I’ve discovered and joined many projects. I organise workshops and training very often in my city. The latest one is Kiwix install party where I trained people to use offline wikipedia. I am member of AWMD group. My challange nowadays is to get official recognition of my user group from the Foundation.
3. WikiIndaba should be more active in the whole Africa. An annual meeting is not sufficient, for that reason there must be regular meetups, virtual meetings, etc. powered by WikiIndaba. And of course there must be at least one representative by country and a follow up of activities. There is also a real need of diversity within WikiIndaba because it is run by a few community members from some countries.
4. In the next coming 5 years I'd be happy if WikiInda accomplishes its aims, especialy the two last ones:

• Building capacity for African Wikimedians
• Fostering growth of the coverage and involvement of Africa in Wikimedia projects
• Connecting African Wikimedians both within the continent and in the diaspora

--BamLifa (talk) 19:02, 22 June 2018 (UTC)