Wiki Mentor Africa Tamale Hackathon 2025: Building Technical Capacity for Open Knowledge

The Wiki Mentor Africa Tamale Hackathon 2025 was held over two days in Tamale, Ghana at the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group office, bringing together 35 participants from diverse backgrounds to learn, collaborate, and contribute to Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem. The hackathon was part of the broader Wiki Mentor Africa program, which aims to mentor African youth in open-source and open-knowledge technologies. It was facilitated by Mohammed Kamal-Deen Fuseini (User:Dnshitobu) and Joris Darlington Quarshie

Day 1: Foundations of Wikimedia Technology

The first day focused on introducing participants to the Wikimedia movement like its vision, values, and the role of open data and open-source contributions in advancing free knowledge.

Facilitators Mohammed Kamal-Deen Fuseini (User:Dnshitobu) and Joris Darlington Quarshie led participants through practical sessions on:

• User Scripts & Gadgets: Creating tools that enhance user experience on Wikimedia projects.
  
• Scripts from English Wikipedia for smaller wikis: Demonstrating how local wikis can adopt and adapt existing solutions.
  
• Documentation & Resources: Navigating technical documentation on MediaWiki, Meta and Phabricator.
  
• UI/UX Design with Figma Codex: Building Wikimedia-inspired user interfaces with Codex components.
  
• Translation & Localization: Using Translatewiki.net and ToolTranslate for multilingual projects.
  
• Bot Setup & Configuration: Installing and configuring Pywikibot, alongside practical exercises with available resources.
• Git & GitHub & Gitlab & Gerrit: Participants were taken through introductory courses on Git, GitHub, Gitlab and Gerrit for code collaboration
• Phabricator: Participants were also introduced to the Phabricator platform.
  

By the end of Day 1, participants gained foundational skills to begin contributing meaningfully to Wikimedia’s technical landscape.

Day 2: Collaboration and Project Development

On the second day, participants were divided into four groups Technical Writers, User Script Writers, Developers and Designers based on their interests. Each group worked collaboratively to produce prototypes, scripts, designs, and documentation.

User Script Team Highlights

• Kusaal Characters Keyboard: User:Knowledge_and_philosophy/copy-KusaalChar.js
  
• Wali Characters Keyboard: User:Knowledge_and_philosophy/copy-WaliChar.js
  
• Localized Wikidata Info for Dagbani: User:Dnshitobu/WikidataInfo.js
  
• Taskboard User Script: User:Dnshitobu/Taskboard.js
  
• Gurene Characters Keyboard: User:Dnshitobu/copy-GureneChar.js
  
• Dagaare Characters Keyboard: User:Jalilu_Nasinmong/copy-DagaareChar.js
  

Design Team Highlights

• Local Script Library: Figma design + GitHub repo
  
• Voice Article Creator App: Figma design
  
• Article Gap Finder Tool: GitHub repo
  
• Citation Reuse Finder: GitHub repo
  
• Offline WikiEditor: GitHub repo
  
• WikiCampaign Tracker Dashboard: GitHub repo
  

Tool Documentation Team Highlights

Participants documented and tested multiple Wikimedia tools and interfaces, contributing to better onboarding and localization for new users:

• PageCleanup – Documentation on Wikisource; Contributors: User:Ruky Wupini, Phasy Gh, Pagkpema
  
• CSV to Wikitable – Meta documentation; Contributors: User:Munkaila Sulemana, Osman Abdul-Rashid
  
• Translation Debugger – Meta documentation; Contributors: User:SIR SUCCESS (NAA JAHINFO), User:K.D.Nburidiba
  
• Picturesque – Meta documentation; Contributors: User:Ibn Dagara, User:Hafsatunash
  
• CatGraph – Tool page; Contributors: User:Asamansa, User:SIR SUCCESS (NAA JAHINFO)
  
• Toolforge Explorer – Tool page; Contributors: User:Pagkpema, User:Ruky Wupini
  
• WikiGPT Tool – Tool page; Contributors: User:Hafsatunash, User:Munkaila Sulemana
  

These documentations improved existing Wikimedia tools and provided hands-on learning for participants on how to contribute meaningfully to technical documentation across Wikimedia’s ecosystem.

Developer Team Highlight

• SourceWiki Tool: GitHub repo; Contributors: User:AlhassaFauwaz
  

Impact and Reflections

By the end of the hackathon, participants had developed over a dozen technical outputs ranging from localised input tools for underrepresented languages to innovative interfaces and documentation resources.

The event amplified the importance of technical capacity-building in Africa’s Wikimedia communities, showing how collaborative environments can empower newcomers to create tools that address local needs while contributing globally.

Feedback from participants 

The participant shared, 

“This is my first time writing a script for my language, now I can see how technology can bring our culture online through the creation of special characters for our language.” User: Knowledge and Philosophy 

“This Hackathon, being the first of its kind for me to fully participate in, was an eye opener for me in the technical dimension of the Wikimedia movement as I had deep insight into contributing technically to the movement.” – Abdulai Abdul-Rashid (User: Ibn Dagara)

“The true test came when we started documenting. Taking a complex tool like Translation Debugger and breaking it down into clear, simple instructions was challenging but impossible. When we finally completed our documentation, I realized the hackathon had given me more than just new skills, but it had given me a new way to contribute to the Wikimedia movement.“- User:SIR SUCCESS NAA JAHINFO

Looking Ahead

The success of the Wiki Mentor Africa Tamale Hackathon 2025 is only the beginning. Plans are underway to:

• Continue mentoring participants through follow-up online sessions.
  
• Integrate developed tools into Wikimedia projects where relevant.
  
• Expand similar hackathons to other regions in Ghana and Africa at large to build a stronger community of Wikimedia technical contributors.
• Participate in regional hackathons, such as the Wiki Indaba 2025 hackathon, and global ones, including the Wikimedia hackathons 2026.
  

This event demonstrated that when local communities are empowered with technical skills, they enrich Wikimedia projects and also preserve and promote their languages and cultures in the digital age.

For more information, please visit:
1. WMA Tamale Hackathon 2025

2. Commons links