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categories, but will focus most of its energy in these areas. The principal reason is because these categories offer the greatest opportunities to find organisations around the
African continent that both have existing archival material that is readily accessible, and who are predisposed to promoting the content they have in an online medium. WikiAfrica creates networks, involves users, facilitates the participation and access to
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166:. WikiAfrica will not exclude anything that falls outside of these categories, but focuses most of its energy in these areas. At the same time, the WikiAfrica project expands the African content that is already available online and improves existing articles by combining sources and promoting the participation of experts. WikiAfrica contributes to the aims of Wikimedia projects online including regional
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art or any other information, or for present day activities, accomplishments, thoughts and news. The two billion people now using the
Internet as their primary source for research, information and knowledge cannot access a broad, deep, rich understanding of what Africa was, what it is today and what is possible in the future.
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Since 2001 Knowledge has emerged as the single most important online source of information freely accessible to anyone anywhere. Knowledge is the most popular online reference system, the most effective secondary source, the most edited and discussed encyclopaedia online and one of the first entries
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Knowledge is a free, online multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the nonprofit
Wikimedia Foundation. It has been created by thousands of everyday people. Since its launch in 2001, Knowledge has accumulated an archive of 30 million pages in around 287 languages. The English language version
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Unfortunately however, Africa remains the least visible continent on the
Internet. Comprehensive, current and eclectic information on Africa is conspicuous by its absence. This invisibility is apparent whether we look for events, people and places of global historic importance, literature, science,
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says “La
Palabre is precious, because in the afterlife there is none.” The proverb emphasizes the importance of dialogue, verbal exchange, socialization, and mediation. It is in this spirit that WikiAfrica wishes to operate, helping to expand and improve information available about Africa online.
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Over the last ten years, Africa’s users of the
Internet have increased nine times faster than European and twenty times faster than North American users. There are over 110 million people living in Africa today actively using the Internet on a regular basis, with an expected annual increase of 10
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The WikiAfrica
Archive intends to encourage and support the creation or expansion of 30,000 Knowledge articles over two years. During this period the focus will be on content related to literature, art, cinema and other cultural products. It will not exclude anything that falls outside of these
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that is designed to
Africanize Knowledge by generating and expanding 30 000 articles over two years. The project promotes a new method of acquiring and sharing knowledge that is fully-inclusive, mainstream, intercultural and relevant to contemporary and historic
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Produce and expand 30,000 Knowledge articles about Africa. Achieving this goal will make a meaningful and permanent contribution to the knowledge base available online that relates to the
African content;
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realities. This is done through networks, research, projects, publications, and events. WikiAfrica contributes to
Wikimedia projects online and also works externally with texts, quotes, images,
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Provide a catalyst for the online community both in Africa and beyond to actively participate in generating new articles and subjects relating to and relevant for contemporary Africa; and
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language versions. The project will promote a new method of acquiring and sharing knowledge that is fully-inclusive, mainstream, intercultural and relevant to contemporary and historic
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began. And yet it has the lowest and least informed profile of any region on the internet; moreover, what does appear is often selective, lacks context and reinforces outdated
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Expand the African content that is already available online and improve the existing articles by combining sources and promoting the participation of experts;
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Create partnerships with organisations that have existing archives that are readily accessible and that are predisposed to placing this content online;
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The following outlines the expected outcomes and deliverables for the WikiAfrica project for the first two years. WikiAfrica intends to:
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million new users per annum. Uniquely, much of this growth is happening via cell phone technology with Africa representing the highest
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Create training tools and establish the mentorships required to activate a new team of users and editors of Knowledge (wikipedians).
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Initially the project was called La Palabre, which is loosely translated to mean discuss, talk or share. A proverb from
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In addition to Knowledge, the non-profit Wikimedia foundation oversees several other open-content projects, including:
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license approach to content available on the Internet. Creative Commons provides a mechanism to maintain
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after China (1.3-billion) and India (1.1-billion), and is widely recognized as the last frontier for
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WikiAfrica is a collaborative and international project designed to make Africans contribute to the
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Motivate the adaptation of a copyleft or Creative Commons approach to intellectual property (click
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has over 4.3 million articles. Knowledge is one of the 5 most popular Web sites on the Internet.
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The project will be approached and achieve its goals via the following four activities:
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Activate new Knowledge users and editors in Africa through marketing and promotion; and
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A bubble map of the global distribution of English Knowledge edits on 10th May 2011
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for the latest news about the projects or follow our monthly updates on the
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on search engines. The project is a collaboration between lettera27 and
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WikiAfrica is an international collaborative project between
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WikiAfrica on the website of the lettera27 Foundation
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Wikibooks, a collection of free texts and other books
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Meta-Wiki, which coordinates all the other projects.
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Wikiversity, a collection of free learning materials
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These initial two years focus on content related to
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