Offline Projects/Reports/June 2024

Objectives of the UserGroup

There have been many efforts to distribute offline snapshots to places with little connectivity, via schoolservers, wikireaders, and pocket-sized servers that run on batteries.

In 2017, a retreat for offline-wiki developers, users, and deployers was organized by Martin Walker at Potsdam University. In addition, Kiwix has organized hackathons for their toolchain and related use cases for many years. This user group is a shared community for people developing any of these offline related initiatives!

This group was formed at the WMCON in 2018 to

+ Consolidate and support offline snapshots of wiki knowledge, and deployments of them in schools, clinics, and rural communities.

+ Update and maintain the offline projects portal on Meta.

+ Advocate for better distribution of and awareness of offline wikis, in all parts of the world where internet access is restricted, expensive, or unavailable: including schools, clinics, prisons, refugee camps, disaster areas.

Activities in FY 2023-2024

Kiwix

Hackathons

• Wikimedia-ZA organized a hackathon at WikiIndaba_conference_2023 seeking proof-of-concept of over-the-air updating of Kiwix libraries. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_2023/Submissions/OTA_Update_Hackathon

WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique

Poster at Wikimania

The WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique is a training and writing program designed for schools in French (initially) speaking Africa, using WikiFundi software. It is targeted at the education community towards using wikimedia tools to acquire and share knowledge to develop skills of the youth and of their teachers. Most of those schools are offline, having only access to Kiwix content. The articles produced are posted on Vikidia, and the pictures on Wikimedia Commons. The initiative successfully took place in 2023-2024 along similar lines than previous years : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Écoles_d%27Afrique with the addition of an English speaking country this year, Sierra Leone !

In 2023-24, the programme is implemented in 9 countries (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Conakry, Madagascar, Mali, RdC, Senegal, Tunisia and Sierra Leone). The 12 winning establishments were announced on June 18, 2024 in Rabat, Morocco, during SIEL. All together, 151 articles were submitted and published on Vikidia. 715 photos et vidéos have been submitted by the children to Commons.

The contest was also featured on a poster during Wikimania in Singapore.

To read more

• All articles and summary (in French) : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Écoles_d%27Afrique_2024/Bilan
• Initiative page on meta (in English) : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiChallenge_Ecoles_d%27Afrique/en
• Photos and documents on Commons: c:Category:WikiChallenge African Schools 2024
• Full jury document : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rapport_Jury_WikiChallenge_2023_-2024_V1.0.pdf

Contest is run by Wiki in Africa, in partnership with several usergroups (Cameroun, Tunisia, Maroc) and Fondation Orange

• 
  Communication visual
• 
  Another visual
• 
  Krio dress in Sierra Leone (winning article)
• 
  Winners announcement
• Video in a tunisian market
• 
  A few students
• 
  In the classroom
• 
  Students and art craft
• 
  International ceremony
• 
  Winning ceremony in Burkina Faso

Wiki Project Med

We have upgraded our IIABs to 256 Gb uSD cards and Raspberry Pi Zero W 2s. We have partnered with the Wikipedia Store regarding distribution and hope to see this officially launch in the next week or so.

Wikimedia related

MCDC @SJ

Communication

• Telegram group : https://t.me/+h9_1cf4uRYczZWZk
• mailing list: https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/offline-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

Membership in 2023-2024

• Sj (group contact)
• Anthere (group contact)
• Doc James
• rahuldeshmukh101
• Amqui
• Kiwix
• Legoktm
• Michaelgraaf
• Abhinav Srivastava
• Shani Evenstein
• Fawaz Tairou
• Islahaddow
• Mark A. Hershberger
• Daren Welsh
• bluerasberry
• GastelEtzwane
• Wilfredor
• Dang Brazal
• Adam Wight - also interested in offline editing.
• Maxwell Beganim
• Daniel Mietchen
• Rajeeb
• Stephen Dakyi
• Shanluan (talk)
• Martin Walker
• Kunokuno (talk) 05:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Joy Agyepong
• Ruby D-Brown
• Zblace
• Vahidmasrour (talk) 17:04, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
• CaliBen
• Gilbert Ndihokubwayo (talk) 20:09, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
• Gina Bennett
• Din-nani1 (talk) 18:07, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Ourysow92
• Seddon/Seddon (WMF)
• Omorodion1 (talk) 19:00, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
• 787IYO (talk) 21:33, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
• Bile René (talk) 09:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Administrative

Affiliation

This group was formed at the WMCON in 2018, by implementers in different countries who found one another and realized that we were not coordinating efforts as well as we might -- and did not know the current status of many important offline projects, as these were not gathered in a single place. The UG was subsequently approved Wikimedians for Offline Wikis

Contacts

Group contacts as of mid 2023

• user:Sj meta.sj <at> gmail.com
• user:Anthere fdevouard <at> anthere.org

See also

• Wikimedia Affiliates Data Portal
• Wikimedia Affiliates Data Portal/Reports
• Offline Projects/Reports/June 2023

Category:Annual affiliate report due August