WikiAfrica Hour #47: Voices of the Future: Youth Rising in the Wikimedia Movement

What does youth empowerment really look like in the Wikimedia movement?

In this powerful episode of WikiAfrica Hour, we chat with young Wikimedians who are leading campaigns, building communities, and shaping the future of Open knowledge. Our guests share their journeys, proudest achievements, and what it takes to thrive as young leaders in the movement. We dive into the challenges they face, how they’re using Wikimedia to build skills, and what true youth inclusion should look like by 2030. Watch, share, and be inspired.

This WikiAfrica Hour episode’s guest host is Shahen, is a Beirut-born, Yerevan-based Wikipedia editor for 10 years now. On Wiki, he’s an admin on Western Armenian Wiki, a member of different Wiki groups, and has participated in a number of conferences and camps since 2015. Outside of Wiki, he works for the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies’ headquarters. TUMO is a free-of-charge, after school program for youth who learn 14 different creative and tech skills all around the world.

“The data from the Wikimedia Foundation shows that youth from my region (Northern and Western Europe) tends to rely less and less on Wikipedia. And they tend to prefer more immediate, simple and different forms of knowledge that they feel closer to them, like videos, as you were saying, Tiktok, like AI answers. So we need to find ways to stay and although we will end like the paper encyclopaedias, basically, we can’t let the free knowledge that we every day work for and defend. Because we can’t let that disappear. So we need to find ways to stay relevant.” – Ferdinando Traversa 

“So for example, one of our common collaborators is the University of Malaya, which is one of the oldest universities in Malaysia, and we’ve been working with the faculty of languages law, and also with my university, which is International Islamic University in Malaysia. So when we work together with these institutions, which you know, where the youth are the main stakeholders, this is where we are able to get a lot of youth engagement. Sometimes it’s a bit hard to sustain. You know, once the programme ends, then they leave the movement. They don’t really stick around. But at the same time, I think this is also where we get a lot of our, you know, members who really retain their activities” – Ahmad Ali Karim

Our guests include

• Ferdinando Traversa President of Wikimedia Italy.
• Ndahiro Derrick Alter a Rwandan advocate for peace, open knowledge, gender equality, and youth engagement in governance. He is the founder of Open Source Knowledge Rwanda (Wikimedia Rwanda).
• Ahmad Ali Karim: External Relations Ambassador, Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia

In Focus Section: Highlights from Wikimedia Youth Conference 2025 

We recorded some interviews while attending the Wikimedia Youth Conference in Prague. I asked some of the attendees about their experience during the conference, challenges they face as youth generally and within the wikimedia community and their plans for the future after meeting youth from all over the world. 

Credits to all interviewees:

• AbdulRahim Ziblim – Ghana
• Ahmad Ali Karim – Malaysia 
• Areen Abu-Rumman – Jordan
• Ndahiro Derrick Alter – Rwanda
• Nicaela Phuyu – Bolivia
• Paula – Chile