Thanks so much Asaf you really inspired us.
Members I enjoyed Wikimania 2011 and I must say it was a big experience to
me. I want to thank Jessie Wild for her invaluable support and Guidance,
Abbas for being with us every step of the way, Ting Chen for his advice.
I met and held several meetings with editors from all over the world and the
most notable ones were as follows:
1. A meeting with Wikimedia UK members including the chair person Roger
Bamkin- who FYI paid for my ticket and accommodation expenses, I also met
with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rich_Farmbrough and together we
presented a project on the translation of HIV/AIDS information into local
languages in Sub Saharan Africa with Kenya as a Lead chapter.
2.Meeting with various members of the New york Chapter.
3. Meeting with Italian Chapter members-they are interested in supporting
Kenyan Chapter.
I also met the following people briefly- Sue Gardner-Wikimedia Ceo, Jimmy
Wales-Wikimedia Founder,Frank Schulenburg
Global Education Program Director, and almost all the Board members. Check
out the Photos in
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kipsizoo
Here is one of the mails I got as a follow up to one of the meetings I held.
I will be Presenting a Guest Talk at Harvard University in the USA in
September this year and I will have a meeting with John Kerry and so many
other People, Rest assured that I will
===================================================================================================
Hi Isaac,
Thanks a lot for our meeting yesterday. As promised, I'm sending you a short
summary of what we talked about.
The Kenyan Wikimedia chapter is planning a project to improve the Swahili
Wikipedia in the areas health (especially information about HIV), law and
agriculture. The project is expected to start in September 2011 and will
involve universities in Nairobi. Your plan is to encourage students to
translate a number of select high-quality articles from the English
Wikipedia into Swahili.
Based on the fact that the Wikimedia Foundation started a Global Education
Program this month and that we gathered substantial experiences in working
with universities over the last year, you are asking for the following
support:
1. Guidance, best practices and lessons learnt: information of what worked
and what didn't work in the past. Ideally, this would happen in form of a
face to face meeting with members of the chapters and the local community in
Nairobi.
2. Media exposure: some help with raising interest of local media in Kenya.
3. Sue Gardner being in Kenya: every second half of the year, Sue is
travelling to a number of countries to talk about Wikipedia and Wikimedia.
You thought it might be great to have her in Nairobi to talk to students and
teachers.
4. Professor outreach and recruitment: we've had the experience that
university professors are eager to talk to someone of the Wikimedia
Foundation. It proved to be beneficial to start university outreach with in
person meetings.
5. Fellowship: in India, we provided one of our US volunteers with a 3-month
fellowship so he could coordinate the program activities on the ground.
Currently, PJ Tabit, one of our Ambassadors from George Washington
university is in Pune and helps the local team to get the India Education
Program started. Alex Stinson told me yesterday that he is interested in
coming to Kenya next year to support you.
6. Exchange program: a volunteer from Kenya would come to the US or some
other country and learn more about the existing university program. Also,
professor who used Wikipedia in the classroom in the past would come to
Kenya to talk about his experiences and to encourage Kenyan teachers to
participate (we've done something similar in India: Bob Cummings, a
professor from the US travelled to Pune and talked to local professors --
this has been very successful in getting teachers in Pune interested in the
program.
I am copying Richard and Roger, as you indicated that Wikimedia UK would be
interested in being involved in the project.
Isaac and Alex: please let me know if I forgot something and if you have
more to add.
Thanks again for the meeting -- I really enjoyed it.
Frank
Frank Schulenburg
Global Education Program Director
Wikimedia Foundation
===================================================================================================
Lastly guys I think it would be important that we have a meet up so that we
share the expirience.
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 14:25, Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
I would like to commend WMKE's representatives,
Alex and Isaac, for their
excellent participation in Wikimania. They have both been active in and out
of the sessions, exchanging ideas and experience with their peers from
around the world, offering input during the sessions, and socializing and
creating contacts during the breaks and the parties.
That's the way you do it! :)
I look forward to seeing all of you very soon (next week!) in Nairobi.
Asaf
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:32 PM, Alex Wafula <xelawafs(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Just got back home and it's been great! I'll be catching up on campus
stuff the next day or two before getting back to the list.
Isaac's been a superstar back in Haifa, laying foundations for new
Wikimedia projects we can pursue in Kenya and Africa in general most notably
being this:
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule/Lightning_Talks#AIDS.2FHIV…
Other viable projects we've been involved in, collected contacts and hope
can be pursued locally are:
- Offline Wikipedia
- Campus Ambassadors program
- WikiAfrica (looking forward to assist us in local projects)
- Wikipedia Takes the City (Wikimedia France are willing to fund this.
Abbas got in touch and I eventually got to meet the chapter's president)
- Wiki loves Monuments
- Research on Oral Citation (presented by Achal, awesome guy!)
Well there's a lot to cover so we'll probably result to having different
threads for specific topics. Look out for the pics, coming up soon! Anyhu,
I'm off to take a nap.
Ps: Asaf's coming next week and he's really looking to his stay here.
cheers,
Alex
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--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation
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WikimediaKE mailing list
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--
Isaac K. Kosgei.
Bachelor of Agribusiness Management
Egerton University,
Njoro Kenya.
(+254727553981)
www.linkedin.com/in/kipsizoo
Skype:Kipsizoo
Twitter:@Kipsizoo
*"You Must be the Change you wish to see in the world"-Mahatma Ghandi
*