Afripedia Project
{{Short description|Project to increase coverage of Wikipedia in Francophone Africa}}
{{Infobox
| title = Afripedia Project
| image = 200px
| caption = Afripedia Logo
| start-date = 2012
| website = :fr:Projet:Afripédia
}}
File:Elle apprend lutilisation de wikipedia hors ligne à Koulikoro (8573649903).jpg, Mali]]
File:Carte localisation Afripédia hors-ligne.png was deployed as part of the Afripedia project]]
File:Afripedia hardware n02.jpg, yellow, a wireless router, and a USB drive carrying a fresh copy of the French Wikipedia) used in the Afripedia project]]
The Afripedia Project is a project to expand offline Wikipedia access in French-speaking Africa, and encourage Africans to contribute to Wikipedia.{{Cite web |last=Duchemin |first=Dorothée |date=2012-06-22 |title=Afripedia, Wikipédia pour l'Afrique |url=https://www.citazine.fr/article/afripedia-wikipedia-pour-afrique-francophone/ |access-date=2023-11-28 |website=Citazine |language=fr-FR}} The project installs local Kiwix-serve wireless and intranet servers and provides training and maintenance.[https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/afripedia-project-increasing-off-line-access-to-wikipedia-in-africa/ Afripedia project increasing off-line access to Wikipedia in Africa, Wikimedia article]
The project offers content besides Wikipedia, such as Wiktionary. Any content that is first packaged in a ZIM file can be relayed over the Afripedia network;[https://wiki.kiwix.org/Content_in_all_languages Kiwix list of available content] Project Gutenberg and Wikisource, for instance, are available in that format.Emmanuel Engelhart: 50.000 public domain books available to everybody, everywhere, offline. In: Wikisource-l-Mailinglist. 19. November 2014. Accessed on 26 November 2014.
History
{{update section|date=February 2016}}
The Afripedia Project launched in 2012. The founding partners were Wikimédia France, the Institut Français, and the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie.{{Cite web |date=2012-06-22 |title=Afripedia ou comment consulter Wikipedia sans Internet |url=http://www.slateafrique.com/89733/wikimedia-solution-contre-absence-dinternet |access-date=2023-11-28 |website=Slate Afrique |language=fr-FR}} French is spoken by an estimated 120 million (2010) people in Africa, spread across 24 francophone countries.{{in lang|fr}} [https://www.amazon.fr/dp/2098821778 La Francophonie dans le monde 2006–2007] published by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Nathan, Paris, 2007
Project preparation, partnership formation, Kiwix algorithm development took place in 2011.
In July 2012 the project and prototype was presented at the {{Interlanguage link|Forum mondial de la langue française|fr}} in Québec. In November 15 leaders from 12 East and Central African countries were trained and 15 offline access points were deployed.
Additional training session were held in 2013 and 2014.
Access to Wikipedia from USB flash drives was not new at the time, but the data they carry quickly became outdated. Afripedia by contrast is regularly updated.{{Cite web |url=http://www.afrik.com/article25968.html |title=Afripédia : un projet de promotion de Wikipédia en Afrique, news article in Afrik |access-date=2016-02-10 |archive-date=2017-09-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170905140046/http://www.afrik.com/article25968.html |url-status=dead }} Many of the partnering universities have low-bandwidth internet and a few lack any internet access.[http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.ch/2014/11/wikimedia-project-gutenberg-sum-of-all.html #Wikimedia & Project #Gutenberg – the sum of all knowledge on Words and what not blog]
The project encourages the formation of Afripedia clubs for local users.Afripedia project website
The project was described as a worthy stopgap measure, until such time as internet access can be developed throughout Africa.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category}}