Dear all,

I am excited to introduce the African Wikimedia Developers Project (AWMD).[1] AWMD is a project that focuses on recruiting volunteer African Developers for the benefit of the WIkimedia Movement. This idea was inspired by a conversation with Quim Gil at Wikimania Esino Lario in 2016, and was followed through to Wiki Indaba where talks was concluded on how to further put this to work.

The project's main goal is to increase the number of volunteer developers who can solve related Wikimedia issues on the continent and in the movement at large. We intend to equip prospective volunteers through trainings and the creation of a community of developers. We will work closely with affiliate groups (user groups, chapters and thematic organisations) and other aligned developer groups (GDG, Linux user groups, mozilla groups, etc.) to push this agenda.

To ensure scalability of the program we intend to start our first training in Ghana where we are adequately equipped to closely monitor and create a useful learning pattern that may be applied to future events. We intend to have this event from the 23 - 24 June, 2017  and we’ll closely monitor for about 2 months before planning the next place of training. The next phase of the project will involve moving to different countries and trying to emulate the success of the project there. We encourage you to visit and endorse the grant proposal of our first training in Ghana here.[2]

All interested in developing and/or wish to share ideas on projects are invited to join the mailing list, our social media outfit (facebook and  twitter) or learn more via the MediaWiki page of the project.[3][4][5] We encourage all to share this within their communities and to others who may be interested.

Stay tuned for more updates soon!

Cheers,