If you’re fortunate enough to have access to a computer and the Internet, you can get the sum of the world’s knowledge for free thanks to Wikipedia. But if you’re like the majority of the world that isn’t online, how can you access this amazing resource?

Alex Wafula, Wikipedian from Kenya

What if someone brings it to you by hand?

Alex Wafula, a Wikipedia editor and 3rd year student at Strathmore University, in Nairobi, Kenya, has helped start the Wikimedia Project for Kenyan Schools, where he and a team of volunteers travel to remote parts of Kenya to share offline Wikipedia with students. Wafula and the team install offline versions of English Wikipedia from a disc or memory stick in schools that have computers, and they have provide both teachers and students with tutorials on how to operate the database.

“I’ve always been fascinated in discovering new things and knowing why things work the way they do, like why’s the sky blue and not red, what makes planes fly and boats float etc. Now what’s even more fascinating for me is sharing this,” said Wafula.

Organizers of the project began by procuring a list of schools with computer labs from the Kenyan Ministry of Education. From that list they divided the schools into 3 distinct regions: Kakamega Town (Western Kenya), Nyeri Town (Central Kenya) and Mombasa City (South Eastern Kenya) with 10 schools per region and a total of 30 schools.

Project members were mostly based in Nairobi and traveled 7 hours by bus to reach Kakamega and Mombasa City, and 4 hours to Nyeri. The teams typically stay 5 days in each region. To reach their goal of 2 schools per day, the team utilize an assortment of transportation including mini-buses, tuk-tuks and motorbikes to travel from school to school, which in some cases are considerable distances apart.

In Kenyan public schools that have computers, Wafula said, students take turns in time-allotted sessions in the computer lab and share a single computer with as many as three other classmates. Wafula noted that some of the computers he dealt with at these labs were too old and needed repair before they could install the offline Wikipedia.

“In high school, I spent many hours reading encyclopedias and from the knowledge gained, I found hope of making something out of my life,” said Wafula. “It’s my hope that students who get access to offline Wikipedia will find hope of a better future for themselves and their families as well from the knowledge they gain.”

In 2003, education in public schools in Kenya became free and universal. According to Wafula, however, the number of students enrolled in the public school system has exceeded the capacity of the system, with as many 60 students (or more) being taught by a single teacher. Schools in rural areas lack enough desks and chairs to facilitate all the students and in some cases students attend class in half-built classrooms or under trees. Textbooks are shared between 2-4 students and school supplies are treasured commodities.

In this context, gaining access to hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles is a marvel.

“There is so much promise in these kids, despite the adversities they face,” said Wafula. “In their world full of challenges and uncertainties, I’m happy that I got to deliver one of their solutions.”

Story and reporting by Jordan Hu, Communications Intern

Source: “Fuse-Project”; upload to OLPC-Wiki: OLPC user “Walter” (CC-BY-SA-2.5)

In the quest to get the information resource Wikipedia into the hands of the entire world, we are excited to note that the offline Wikipedia reader Kiwix has recently been extended to read offline Wikipedia files on the Sugar operating system!

Sugar is an open source desktop environment specifically customized for children. It runs on the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) XO computers, which are often distributed throughout areas of the world without access to the Internet. Now, the students who get one of these computers will have the ability to access information from the largest open educational resource in the world via a great interface!

Congratulations to developers reg and Kelson and to Wikimedia Switzerland for the execution and funding of this project. We hope to hear many inspiring stories about deployments and use cases! To help beta test, see the downloading options at sugarlabs (be sure to download Sugar first). See the Offline Projects page for a broad overview of Offline Wikipedia and information on how to get involved.

Jessie Wild
Special Projects Manager, Global Development

About Kiwix:

Kiwix is a full featured offline reader for Web content, specifically designed for the Offline Wikipedia projects. It stores the content in the ZIM file format, a highly compressed open format with additional metadata. The project is supported by a host of volunteers led by developers reg and Kelson. Kiwix is free software and offers localized options. For more information, see www.kiwix.org.

(For the Portuguese version, please see the Wikimedia Brazil site.)

It was during Wikimania 2011, in a small restaurant in Haifa, when the news was announced: the largest popular computer manufacturer in Brazil, Grupo Positivo, is interested in installing an offline Portuguese Wikipedia version in their products. All of us from Wikimedia Brazil who were present got excited because of the tremendous potential of such a distribution in spreading the free encyclopedia and its mission around Brazil. In other words, this meant the Portuguese Wikipedia for approximately 13% of the national market of personal computers and with a greater penetration in the lower-income strata.

Despite the good news, a race against time began. It was necessary to prepare the offline version of the Portuguese Wikipedia, with 5000 articles of good quality, within a very short time: March 2012. The challenge was huge and to overcome it we needed to step on the gas.

The list of 5000 articles which were critical to include in the offline version was created in only three months, with the great assistance of Wikimedia Brazil volunteers. But the volunteers found that the quality of these articles still was not high enough: they were in desperate need of improvement before being taken offline. It was then we had the idea of hosting our own “Grand Prix” – like the famous auto race. No cars and no laps, but with articles to be improved and many awards for the “pilots” who accept this challenge. Thus began the “I GP Wikimedia Brazil,” where each improved article is a completed lap.

The take-off will begin in January 2012, and it is very easy to attend! Just subscribe to one of the existing teams or join a new team. The registration will last until January 7. At the moment of publishing this blog, we have 51 subscribers divided into 15 teams, but the goal is to have at least 100 participants. After all, this is a Grand Prix where everyone wins!

Prizes will be distributed as teams improve the quality of the articles included in the list. There are buttons, stickers, notebooks and t-shirts with the brand of Wikipedia, as well as trophies and medals on the userpages of the participants. The rules of the award will be released soon after the formation of the teams, but we know that the biggest prize is the offline version of Wikipedia in Portuguese!

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment. Imagine, now, a Brazil where thousands of people – some of them even without access to Internet – will share a little sum of this knowledge. This is what we will do. Join a team and participate of this Grand Prix too!

(Written by the Wikimedia Brasil Community)