AWW Voices Podcast Episode #5— Knowledge Integrity: Roles of the Individual Agency

Contributing to Wikimedia projects is one thing; grasping what knowledge integrity truly requires and why it matters for every contributor is another. In Episode 5 of the AWW Voices Podcast, host “Oluwapelumi Aina” sits down with Alicia Olago (Code for Africa Senior Product Manager at Sensors Africa ) to dig into what knowledge integrity looks like in practice, and why the responsibility rests on individual agencies as much as institutions. The conversation moves from big-picture principles to practical, on-the-ground steps that contributors and communities can take to strengthen the digital information ecosystem.

The episode opens by grounding knowledge integrity in three simple, interlocking concept: accuracy, consistency and reliability emphasising the need to treat them as daily responsibilities.

Artificial Intelligence: Both a Challenge and a Tool

Of course, the information landscape is changing fast. Alicia acknowledges that while artificial intelligence has contributed to the surge in manipulative content it can also power the very tools that expose those manipulations. In her voice “we either run with Al or it fights us”

Bringing the Conversation to the Ground

Building on, Alicia stresses the need to bring conversations down from high-level policy rooms to the people using phones and encountering misinformation in their communities. She points out that much of the current dialogue happens “at the top” while the real interactions of people scrolling, sharing, and responding to misinformation or disinformation happen on the ground. Partnerships with community networks and on-the-ground contributors, she insists, “are key to building real resilience against information manipulation.”

Strengthening open-knowledge ecosystems through collaboration and capacity building

To build long-term resilience, the episode connects those grassroots workflows to systems-building. Fact-checking networks, open-knowledge communities, and media organisations must work together. And to strengthen the ecosystem also means creating an inflow of learning, funding, and skill exchange especially at the grassroots level where open knowledge meets everyday users.

Leveraging Trusted Voices and Grassroots Engagement for Public Knowledge

The episode also emphasize that power lies with trusted voices. Local contributors, community leaders, educators, and digital storytellers who already have credibility among their peers are essential to building trust in verified information. If those voices are equipped with facts and the skills to navigate misinformation, they become bridges between online knowledge and offline reality.” Leveraging these voices, is how we humanise the global fight against falsehoods.

This episode is a call to action: if you care about open knowledge, you must treat knowledge integrity as part of your daily work. Within the ecosystem. Listen to the full conversation on YouTube, Spotify, or Pocket casts, and remember to like, follow, and share.