[Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native language (Milos Rancic)

[Neil Harris]

On 22/05/11 18:29, WereSpielChequers wrote:
>
> We are likely to reach each of the following on the way to our target,
> and it would be great to announce them when we reach them:
> 1 90% of literate people have a version of wikipedia available in a
> language that they understand
> 2 95% of literate people have a version of wikipedia available in a
> language that they understand
> 3 99% of literate people have a version of wikipedia available in a
> language that they understand
> 4 90% of literate people have a version of wikipedia available in
> their native language
> 5 95% of literate people have a version of wikipedia available in
> their native language
> 6 99% of literate people have a version of wikipedia available in
> their native language
>
> WereSpielChequers
>

This raises the interesting prospect of bringing Wikipedia to the 
billion or more people who are currently illiterate, as the cost of 
access to mobile phones and network connectivity continues to fall to 
the point where it is becoming available even to some of the poorest 
people in the world, regardless of literacy. (Consider, for example, the 
reported increases in literacy in some parts of Africa as people learn 
literacy skills simply to be able to SMS their friends and use Facebook.)

As part of the WMF's mission, I wonder if it could be worth considering 
providing a Web-based English (or other language) literacy course that 
could start with very simple video lessons to give an elementary 
vocabulary first, and then allow the user to slowly bootstrap their 
language sophistication from there? Although this would be a massive job 
to create, once the mission was put in place, many people might be 
willing to crowdsource the needed content.

-- Neil