WikiAfrica Hour #42: Offline Wikis, the need and the available options.

In WikiAfrica Hour‘s 42nd Episode, the first one in 2025, aired live on 29th January 2025, guest host Nichole Saad discusses with guests, who have had experience working on offline projects and initiatives, their methods, digital divide, ways of housing and distributing static content, and what support is offered to guarantee connectivity for people equally. 

The WikiAfrica Hour In Focus segment is an inspiring open interview with Nichole Saad to highlight her journey in “open” spaces, especially education. 

“I remember that in 2017, Ethiopia cut off the internet during the national university entrance exam to prevent cheating.. (..) Because of this, an entire country ended up cut off from the internet while a small minority were doing their exams. This is a clear case where offline access was needed.” __ Stephane Coillet-Matillon

“Solutions like Kiwix came in to really help, because we went in there to actually put Kiwix out there to train teachers. So it was a multi kind of thing that we were doing. We wanted to train them in digital literacy, to first understand the concept of digital literacy, and then provided the solution of Kiwix  where they were able to model what ordinarily they would have gotten on the internet, but this time without internet, and it became great resource, because the teachers really appreciated the content that we had, and most of the teachers even accepted and they rather called for training them first before we train the students on it. So it became very interesting.” __ Maxwell Beganim

This WikiAfrica Hour episode’s guest host is Nichole Saad , Former Senior Program Manager, Education. Through founding the Open Learning Collective, she helps organisations around the world develop innovative education programs, empower teachers with effective training, and navigate complex education policies.

Our guests include:

• Stephane Coillet-Matillon partnered with Emmanuel Engelhart to grow Kiwix, a neat software making internet content accessible to people without permanent connectivity.
• Tim Moody spends most of his time trying to make Internet in a Box useful to children and adults who lack a connection to the World Wide Web. He dreams of a day when the Library of Alexandria and the House of Wisdom are in everyone’s hands.
• Maxwell Beganim, an Open enthusiast ,educator and a sustainability leader. He pioneered the implementation of Kiwix and digital literacy in Senior high schools in Ghana. He is currently the Africa (Anglophone) Coordinator for Open Knowledge Foundation Network. A Cofounder of the Ghanaian Languages Wikimedia
• Michael Graaf, Michael is a Wiki evangelist with more emphasis on promoting access than engagement with editing. For example, making offline (Kiwix) installations available to people without the internet. He is a lifelong activist, now for the democratic South Africa to live up to its potential, first in terms of environmental justice and now also, informational justice. (Michael joined us but due to technical issues he could not open his mic and share his inputs unfortunately)

This WikiAfrica Hour episode aired live: check out our Website or the WikiAfrica Hour meta page to watch this or previous episodes.  All WikiAfrica Hour episodes are available on YouTube.

Notes and links:

• Expression of interest: Open Movement Global: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Expressions_of_Interests/2029/Global_Open_Movement
• Report Outlines New Framework for Defining Meaningful Internet Connectivity on Offline Internet Consortium:  https://www.offlineinternet.org/closing-the-digital-gap/
• The Power of Offline Internet report by Offline Internet Consortium: https://www.offlineinternet.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Power-of-Offline-Internet.pdf
• Wikimedians for offline wikis on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_for_offline_wikis
• WikiChallenge African Schools on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiChallenge_Ecoles_d%27Afrique/en
• OfflinePedia on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedistas_de_Ecuador/OfflinePedia
• WikiFundi on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiFundi