Announcing AfroCROWD Intro to Wikimedia and How to Edit Wikipedia workshops at New York's Brooklyn Public Library. Please email me if you would like to discuss bringing one of these to your city. Please also excuse cross-posting to various lists as we try to network across the United States. WHEN: Saturday, February 7th 12:30 -3PM Sunday February 8th 1-3:30PM EVENTBRITE (better reading format): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/afrocrowd-intro-to-wikimedia-how-to-edit-wikip… If you plan to view via Livestream from a different city, please let me know of your interest at alice.backer(a)gmail.com. BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENT: http://bklynlib.org/15tFUph http://bklynlib.org/15tGPGd PROPOSAL: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/AFROcroWd_and_Interglider.ORG/Ou…) BACKGROUND: Against the backdrop of Black History Month, the workshops seek to further the International Decade for People of African Descent’s development and education goals and Wikimedia’s goal of increasing its reach. Technology companies Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo and Twitter have recently reported that their workforce is 2% Black, a figure non-proportionate to the 13% of Blacks living in the United States. The Black Twitter phenomenon shows that Afrodescendants have successfully taken to social media as an organizing tool. Exposing more Afrodescendants to Wikimedia has the potential to take this foray a step further and transfer skills that might deepen Afrodescendant exploration of online technology. But beyond it all, editing Wikipedia alone or as a group is a constructive and rewarding way to spend time online. The workshops will be the first in a series of activities by Afro Free Culture Crowdsourcing Wikimedia (AfroCROWD), a new initiative which seeks to increase the number of people of African Descent who actively partake in the Wikimedia and free knowledge, culture and software movements. The workshops are open to all Afrodescendants including but not limited to individuals who self-identify as African, African-American, Afro-Latino, Biracial, Black, Black-American, Caribbean, Garifuna, Haitian or West Indian. Although the February workshops will be held in English, they will take into account that many Afrodescendant groups in the United States might find that access to Wikipedia’s multilingual crowdsourcing platform can help them transfer free knowledge to populations of African descent outside of the United States that they are connected to through origin or direct familial bonds. Multilingual Afrodescendants may also want to use such platforms to develop and maintain online bodies of relevant knowledge in native languages such as Garifuna, Haitian Kreyòl, Igbo, Spanish, Twi or Yoruba, thereby contributing to the survival of and increasing their proficiency in those languages while also feeling more culturally grounded. WHERE: Brooklyn Public Library Main Branch 10 Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn. NY http://www.bklynlibrary.org/ (Subway: 2,3, 4 to Grand Army Plaza) FOUNDERS AfroCROWD founders are Alice Backer, founder of www.kiskeacity.com, www.haitianbloggers.com, and Global Voices Lingua, a Brooklyn-based lawyer, blogger and free knowledge and culture enthusiast who has been aggregating and disseminating Haitian online expression since 2005 and has launched citizen media campaigns in Haiti, the Caribbean, Africa and the United States and Milos Rancic, founder of Anarchopedia, veteran Wikimedian with over 10 years in the movement, Wikimedia Language Committee member and chair of Interglider.ORG. Milica Gudovic, Interglider.ORG's CEO, participant to the process of localization of Creative Commons Licenses for Serbia and experienced feminist activist of 20 years, has lended considerable time and expertise to our grant proposal and will help us with training in the coming months. STAY UPDATED VIA FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/afroCROWD A L I C E B A C K E R Haitian Blog Aggregator: http://haitianbloggers.com LOF1804 Podcast: http://www.kiskeacity.com Blog: http://www.kiskeacity.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/kiskeacity Newsletter: Kiskeácity Daily skype: alicebacker