A big warm hello to my fellow African Wiki Community Members!

It’s been almost a year since some of us met up at Wiki Indaba 2014.  We all left with a sense of purpose on how to expand Wikimedia in our community, and had great ideas on how to increase the number of editors on Wikipedia.  Some personal pledges were made, and there have been several initiatives from African countries over the last couple of months.

We are excited about the future of the Wikimedia movement in Africa, and will be working hard in the coming months to expand on the foundations laid at Wiki Indaba.  We will of course need your input and feedback and will be reaching out to you soon.

For those attending the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin this year, please feel free to join us at the African meetup where we will touch on what has transpired this year, and discuss initiatives for going forward.  We will share notes of this meeting via meta for those who cannot attend.

There have been several discussions lately regarding the frequency of Wiki Indaba gatherings.  Considering that the African community is relatively small, the suggestion at the 2014 conference was that such a gathering would take place every 3 years, with Tunisia being selected as the next host.  Wikimedia ZA has not applied for funding to host an Indaba within the upcoming financial year, but we will be happy to assist in applying for funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to host future events.

We will reach out again at the beginning of June to map the way forward.

Wiki Regards