Hello, Barry,
It's great to see WMF staff joining the mailing list.
SO far, I have managed to communicate/connect with some of the guys from ChapCom like
Delphine, Bence and Jeromy.
Regarding local support, we are actually trying to get Google Kenya in the loop so that
they can give us whatever support they night have. I guess it would be great if we'd
also manage to connect with Omidyar. If you have been reading the previous mails too,
you'll have realised that Oliver Stegen is also trying to connect us with some
Mutlilingual folks. So hopefully, we'll also manage to garner their support too.
Regarding Omidyar, Erik is the one who suggested that I connect with Stephen King. I
recently visited the ON website but unfortunately it didn't have contacts attached to
the employee profiles so I haven't been able to email Stephen, of yet! [How I wish
their website was Wikipedia so that I could edit it's flaws:-)]. I'd be really
grateful if you'd give me his contacts, or any other Omidyar employee that might be
able to assist us. Oh, and by the way, I managed to get Stephen King on twitter but I
didn't think it would be a great idea to discuss such matters on a social networking
site.
Thanks for the support.
Sincerely Yours,
Abbas
Image by
FlamingText.com
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:30:30 -0700
From: bnewstead(a)wikimedia.org
To: wikimediake(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Kenya] Latest Updates
Thanks Abbas. It is exciting to see the Kenyan community moving toward chapter formation.
A few suggestions/thoughts:
- Please do connect with members of ChapCom[1]; they can provide advice based on their
experience working with other countries on chapter formation which might help you to avoid
problems that other groups have faced in the past
- The South Africa experience was helped by the support of people at Africa Commons, who
are an existing organization and have been able to provide support; it might be good to
connect with a similar organization in Kenya
- If you need some funds to support the launch process (e.g., to fund legal work or to
organize a workshop), I can provide a grant to help with these expenses; please follow up
with me when you are ready
- If you are going to connect with the Omidyar Network, please keep me in the loop; I know
them well and they are already supporting Wikimedia; it would be valuable to keep our
communications open as multiple parts of the Wikimedia movement connect with them
Kind regards,
Barry
[1] See
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter_committee
On 08/13/2010 02:44 AM, Oliver Stegen wrote:
Thanks, Abbas, for the update.
Knowing me, you will expect me to especially like points nos. 5 and 6 of the SA WMF
chapter draft purposes:
· To build/facilitate/disseminate/provide knowledge in all SAfrican languages
· To contribute to the development of local languages (all South African languages)
Correspondingly, I’ve been looking at the Kikuyu wikipedia (
http://ki.wikipedia.org) which
could use some more support just like the Zulu one (
http://zu.wikipedia.org) in SA.
Just to add one more development on our own chapter network:
We expect to meet with Dr. Martin Njoroge at Kenyatta University sometime between Sep 9
and 17 (date to be confirmed) in order to discuss collaboration and potential
opportunities for mutual support (Dr. Njoroge is the Director of the Confucius Institute,
organiser of last month’s international conference on multilingualism here in Nairobi, and
a member of the Multilingual Education Network East Africa).
Wenu katika kujenga elimu,
Oliver (aka BT)
From: wikimediake-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediake-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Abbas Mahmoud
Sent: 13 August 2010 11:24
To: Wikimedia Kenya
Subject: [Wikimedia Kenya] Latest Updates
Hello folks,
It's been a while since I last communicated with you guys, but I have some updates
regarding our chapter, the South African Chapter and Wikimedia in general.
WIKIMEDIA KENYA
I recently received intelligence from Wikimedia Foundation about Omidyar Network. Omidyar
Network is an NGO that funds Wikimedia and also gives financial assistance to companies in
Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, etc. I was also told that there could be a high possibility that
they could support our upcoming chapter get off the ground. I was given some connections
and I have contacted one of them and I am yet to receive a reply.
Wimedia South Africa:
Also, Delphine was on holiday over the past couple of weeks so we weren't able to
communicate regarding our chapter's progress. However, she recently went to a workshop
held by the South African Chapter and came up with a report. Please see the report at the
end of this email. I would also kindly urge you to subscribe to the South African mailing
list so that we can receive up-to-date intel of what our counterparts are doing. Visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza to subscribe. Also see their meta
page for more info:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_South_Africa.
On the news:
There has been an interesting saga where the FBI wants it's seal to be removed from
Wikipedia. Read the full story on the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03fbi.html?_r=1. (This is a must-read article:-)).
It is also interesting to note that the Swahili Wikipedia, now having 18,000 articles is
now the largest African-language Wikipedia beating the Africaans (South African) Wikipedia
that has 15,000 articles!
That's all from me,
I am, yours,
Abbas Mahmoud.
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--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel: +1-415-839-6885 x. 634
Skype: barry.wikimedia
Twitter: @bazanews
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