Offline access is a nice idea, but the logistics of delivery seem daunting. Thankfully, a large number of refugees and migrants have smartphones.[1]
Probably the biggest ways we could help refugees are really to:
A) make Wikipedia super performant on mobile, particularly for low-end Android devices
B) make Wikipedia free via mobile programs like Zero or SMS gateways, so people who can't pay for data can access it
C) get more relevant, updated content in Arabic. Articles on relevant subjects are much shorter than in English, etc.[2]
1. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/world/europe/a-21st-century-migrants-ch... 2. https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A3%D8%B2%D9%85%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9...
On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 11:00 PM Neil P. Quinn nquinn@wikimedia.org wrote:
This reminds me of several conversations I had with Barbara Schack of Libraries Without Borders [1] at the Lyon hackathon (I've copied her on this email).
They've developed the Ideas Box [2], a portable media center intended for locations like refugee camps. It's similar to the Internet-in-a-Box, although it takes the concept further by including client devices, toys, and furniture as well as an offline content server (it's really quite cool). As you'd imagine, the Ideas Box includes read access to downloaded Wikipedia content; however, Barbara told me she wanted Ideas Box users to have the opportunity to contribute as well as simply read, and asked us what it would take to make that possible.
We talked about it a good deal and had a brainstorming workshop on the subject; I recorded many of the ideas in Phabricator [3]. The technical challenges are significant, so I don't think anybody has pursued the project since then. However, if anyone out there wants to work on bridging this aspect of the digital divide, I'm sure Barbara would be excited to work with you!
On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 3:36 PM, Comet styles cometstyles@gmail.com wrote
contrary to the name, it doesn't actually have 'internet access' ..they can read, but not contribute..
On 9/8/15, Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com wrote:
Good idea. I watched a report on TV where they said some refugees have
been
waiting for years for processing. It would be nice for them to be able
to
use and maybe contribute to Wikipedia while they are waiting. Maybe we should set up edit-a-thons and wikiclasses about life in Europe and the politics of the crisis, for the refugees and the Europeans both!
On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Leinonen Teemu <
teemu.leinonen@aalto.fi>
wrote:
Hello people,
Just an idea. Number of Syrian refugees is over 4,000,000 people,
mostly
residing in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.[1] Refugee camps are set
in
all in these countries.[2]
Internet-in-a-Box[3] is a a WiFI-device with "Wikipedia in 37
languages, a
library of 40,000 e-books, most of the world's open source software
and
source code, hundreds of hours of instructional videos, and world-wide mapping down to street level.”
Could we as a movement get the internet-in-a-box to the refugee camps?
- Teemu[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_refugee_camps [3] http://internet-in-a-box.org
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