I am more than a month late to comment, but I will also definitely support an idea such as this. This was actually one of the ideas we discussed (briefly) at our workshop in August last year. I believe that we can also learn a lot from the people in Kenya (such as Abbas and Oscar) regarding how to approach such a project?

Kind regards
Lourie

From: Kerryn McKay <kerryn@africancommons.org>
To: David Richfield <davidrichfield@gmail.com>; Jessie Wild <jwild@wikimedia.org>
Cc: wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Mon, May 16, 2011 8:36:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Education opportunity in South Africa

Hi all

Coming into the thread slightly later as I've been offline most of the weekend.  This sounds interesting.  Jessie, can you give us an indication of why Sangari SA contacted you in particular?  Did they have a particular request or proposal that they were putting to you in this regard?

I agree with David that even if it's a for-profit this shouldn't make too much of a difference if we find that their mandate and objectives for this particular project are aligned with the Wikimedia ZA chapter's objectives.  Although I don't know much about Sangari SA, Hilton Theunissen is actually on the board of our organisation, The African Commons Project and he has always been a staunch open source guy.  But again, it might help to understand what Sangari's proposed involvement would be so that we can see where, how and if the Chapter could fit in with the initiative.

Also, the Chapter's involvement need not necessarily be on a volunteer basis should we wish to help with training and outreach, as I know that WMF have funds available and we could always put a small proposal together to help with this, should this be our focus.

Regards
Kerryn



* * * *
Kerryn McKay
The African Commons Project

082 334 6165
skype:  kerrynmac
twitter:  kerrynmckay






On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 10:35 PM, David Richfield <davidrichfield@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Kieran: this is a very interesting perspective on the situation, and one that I wasn't aware of.

I would be perfectly happy to work with a profit-making organisation to help them provide Wikipedia for Schools to a wider audience, as long as their aims are compatible with ours, but I would never knowingly support an organisation that is inimical towards software freedom, so I'll wait to hear a bit more before committing my time to this.

Kind regards,

David

On 13 May 2011 9:44 PM, "Jessie Wild" <jwild@wikimedia.org> wrote:

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