Hello, Barry,
 
It's great to see WMF staff joining the mailing list.
 
SO far, I have managed to communicate/connect with some of the guys from ChapCom like Delphine, Bence and Jeromy.

Regarding local support, we are actually trying to get Google Kenya in the loop so that they can give us whatever support they night have. I guess it would be great if we'd also manage to connect with Omidyar. If you have been reading the previous mails too, you'll have realised that Oliver Stegen is also trying to connect us with some Mutlilingual folks. So hopefully, we'll also manage to garner their support too.
 
Regarding Omidyar, Erik is the one who suggested that I connect with Stephen King. I recently visited the ON website but unfortunately it didn't have contacts attached to the employee profiles so I haven't been able to email Stephen, of yet! [How I wish their website was Wikipedia so that I could edit it's flaws:-)]. I'd be really grateful if you'd give me his contacts, or any other Omidyar employee that might be able to assist us. Oh, and by the way, I managed to get Stephen King on twitter but I didn't think it would be a great idea to discuss such matters on a social networking site.
 
Thanks for the support.
 
Sincerely Yours,
Abbas

Image by FlamingText.com

Image by FlamingText.com



 


Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:30:30 -0700
From: bnewstead@wikimedia.org
To: wikimediake@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Kenya] Latest Updates

Thanks Abbas.  It is exciting to see the Kenyan community moving toward chapter formation.

A few suggestions/thoughts:
- Please do connect with members of ChapCom[1]; they can provide advice based on their experience working with other countries on chapter formation which might help you to avoid problems that other groups have faced in the past
- The South Africa experience was helped by the support of people at Africa Commons, who are an existing organization and have been able to provide support; it might be good to connect with a similar organization in Kenya
- If you need some funds to support the launch process (e.g., to fund legal work or to organize a workshop), I can provide a grant to help with these expenses; please follow up with me when you are ready
- If you are going to connect with the Omidyar Network, please keep me in the loop; I know them well and they are already supporting Wikimedia; it would be valuable to keep our communications open as multiple parts of the Wikimedia movement connect with them

Kind regards,
Barry

[1] See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter_committee

On 08/13/2010 02:44 AM, Oliver Stegen wrote:

Thanks, Abbas, for the update.

 

Knowing me, you will expect me to especially like points nos. 5 and 6 of the SA WMF chapter draft purposes:

·  To build/facilitate/disseminate/provide knowledge in all SAfrican languages

·  To contribute to the development of local languages (all South African languages)

Correspondingly, I’ve been looking at the Kikuyu wikipedia (http://ki.wikipedia.org) which could use some more support just like the Zulu one (http://zu.wikipedia.org) in SA.

 

Just to add one more development on our own chapter network:

We expect to meet with Dr. Martin Njoroge at Kenyatta University sometime between Sep 9 and 17 (date to be confirmed) in order to discuss collaboration and potential opportunities for mutual support (Dr. Njoroge is the Director of the Confucius Institute, organiser of last month’s international conference on multilingualism here in Nairobi, and a member of the Multilingual Education Network East Africa).

 

Wenu katika kujenga elimu,

Oliver (aka BT)

 

From: wikimediake-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediake-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Abbas Mahmoud
Sent: 13 August 2010 11:24
To: Wikimedia Kenya
Subject: [Wikimedia Kenya] Latest Updates

 

Hello folks,
 
It's been a while since I last communicated with you guys, but I have some updates regarding our chapter, the South African Chapter and Wikimedia in general.
 
WIKIMEDIA KENYA
I recently received intelligence from Wikimedia Foundation about Omidyar Network. Omidyar Network is an NGO that funds Wikimedia and also gives financial assistance to companies in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, etc. I was also told that there could be a high possibility that they could support our upcoming chapter get off the ground. I was given some connections and I have contacted one of them and I am yet to receive a reply.
 
Wimedia South Africa:
Also, Delphine was on holiday over the past couple of weeks so we weren't able to communicate regarding our chapter's progress. However, she recently went to a workshop held by the South African Chapter and came up with a report. Please see the report at the end of this email. I would also kindly urge you to subscribe to the South African mailing list so that we can receive up-to-date intel of what our counterparts are doing. Visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza to subscribe. Also see their meta page for more info: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_South_Africa.
 
On the news:
There has been an interesting saga where the FBI wants it's seal to be removed from Wikipedia. Read the full story on the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03fbi.html?_r=1. (This is a must-read article:-)).
 
It is also interesting to note that the Swahili Wikipedia, now having 18,000 articles is now the largest African-language Wikipedia beating the Africaans (South African) Wikipedia that has 15,000 articles!
 
That's all from me,
 
I am, yours,
Abbas Mahmoud.
 


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Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel: +1-415-839-6885 x. 634
Skype: barry.wikimedia
Twitter: @bazanews

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