Hello, everyone.
Following the success of the Google Kiswahili Wikipedia Challengehttp://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/[1] in 2009, the WMF has been in touch with Google's Nairobi office about a "Wikipedia Challenge" to be conducted in the languages Setswana, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, to be held from early August 2011 to early October 2011.
This is basically a writing competition (translations are allowed) of articles, with a proposed grand prize of a sponsored trip to Wikimania 2012 (in Washington D.C.), and several smaller prizes.
The competition is now at the planning phase, and we would very much like to involve some of you at WMZA on several fronts. The first and most pressing is finding volunteer judges for the articles that would be submitted. Google wants 35 judges per language, expecting each judge to need to put in 2-3 hours a week for the duration of the competition. Are you able to begin interesting your local communities in these languages and enlisting volunteers for this?
And generally, could you identify an appropriate contact person? (or one per language?)
This could be a very energizing program for your chapter to engage with. Google are doing most of the heavy lifting, funding-wise.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation