Visit of Asaf Bartov from the Wikimedia Foundation

Asaf Bartov, Head of Global South Relationships and manager of the Wikimedia Grants program at the Wikimedia Foundation, will be visiting Kenya (from San Francisco, USA) around mid-August 2011.

Outline of schedule

• General meetup with as many Wikimedia Kenya members as possible (see below)
• Workshop for Wikimedia Kenya members on a topic of your choosing (see below)
• Public speaking in one or more appropriate venues (see below)
• Meeting potential partner organizations or government officials -- any meeting where Asaf can help WMKE make progress
• One day spent flying to Mombasa, having meetings, coming back.
• any other idea?

Check out the maps here:Places Asaf will visit

DATE/EVENT	PARTICIPANTS	REMARKS
15th: 9am -TSLG meeting (2nd floor, Sarakasi Dome, Ngara). Contact person: Arthur Olwal 2pm UoN, Journalism Hall	Abbas Alex Isaac	Alex, only UoN meetup
16th: 9:30am-12pm - OLPC Kenya, at Mbagathi (just before Strathmore gate) 12pm-2pm -Strathmore, Madaraka 2:30pm - 4pm - Chapter meeting, Strathmore, Madaraka 4:30pm (tentative) -- meeting with Principal of Humanities and Social Science college at UoN to pitch Global Education program	Oliver (BT) Alex	Oliver only from 12pm Oscar pulls out to unavoidable circumstances,
17th: 11pm-1pm Radio interview at Capital radio 3pm Google (Purshottum Place, Westlands) 6pm iHub (Bishop Magua Building; opposite Uchumi Ngong Hyper)	Grace David Alex Isaac	Alex, only iHub Oscar pulls out to unavoidable circumstances
18th: Mombasa. 9am -- Mombasa Polytechnic University College; 11.30am -- Kenya Institute of Management; 2pm -- Camara	Abbas

Partnerships

ITOCA Kenya

ITOCA focuses on making scholarly information available throughout Africa, including offline. They have several programs running, focusing on Agriculture, Health and Medicine, and educational resources for knowledge specialists, e.g. librarians. Asaf is looking to set up a meeting with them, in Nairobi.

Our ITOCA contact is out of Kenya during Asaf's visit. Asaf will connect WMKE and ITOCA after the visit. Ijon 13:51, 14 August 2011 (CEST)

OLPC Kenya

Asaf will be meeting with the Nairobi representatives of the OLPC project. Who wants to join? The contact person is technical, so it would be most productive if one of the technical members at WMKE would join.

I happen to be an OLPC volunteer:-),will love to came along with Asaf. Limoke oscar 20:37, 11 August 2011 (CEST)

Camara Kenya

Based in Mombasa, Camara refurbishes donated computers and bundles them with lots of free content for offline use, including Wikipedia. Asaf and Abbas will be meeting with them on the Mombasa day.

Meetup

Asaf would like to meet as many Wikimedia Kenya members (non-members also welcome!) as possible. If there's a lot of interest in Mombasa, he'll try to have a meetup and workshop there too. All we need for the meetup is a room large enough to contain all who would want to come, and reasonably quiet so we can hear ourselves talking. Wifi and a projector would be a plus, to be able to show things online, but definitely not a necessity.

Workshop

Asaf is very eager to share experience, advice, and contacts with WMKE. He was thinking of holding a workshop -- maybe 3-4 hours long -- on one or two topics.

Venue

• Nairobi:

I was at theAugust Memorial Park for some event and I liked there conferencing facilities.As much as they charge a small fee for holding conferences and meetings there,I think its a better alternative to the ihub.The hustles and bustles of getting to iHub just suck.I suggest we use this for our(WMKE) talk with Asaf.

Limoke oscar 21:59, 8 July 2011 (CEST)

• Mombasa: ?---I am not sure if the Mombasa visit is viable.Only one of the active members Abbas comes from Coast and am not quite sure if we have substantive interest and activity in Mombasa.I suggest we stick to Nairobi.Limoke oscar 21:46, 8 July 2011 (CEST)

Topics

Here are some possible topics he feels he can offer some insight on:

1. Motivating Volunteers: how to attract, care for, feed, and keep volunteers; how to handle crises
2. Public outreach: how to speak about Wikipedia and Wikimedia in public; how to adapt our message to academics, to government officials, to students, to youth, etc.
3. Programs, Grants, and project planning: how to plan and manage projects and money
4. International aspects of the Wikimedia movement: how to engage the international movement (chapters, the Foundation, international volunteers), beyond socializing
5. Relationship and communication within the Chapter and Wikimedia.
6. Benefits of volunteering in Africa which would include;

• Connect with people
• Adding experience to the CV and Resume
• Farther afield(If one likes travel and meeting new people then volunteering can take you places)Stephen wanjau 07:03, 19 July 2011 (CEST)

If you're interested in such a workshop and can host one (in either or both Nairobi and Mombasa), please sign below and indicate which of these topics you are most interested in.

Interested Attendees (Nairobi)

1. (your name) - (top workshop preference), (secondary workshop preference

Name	1st Workshop Preference	2nd Workshop Preference
Limoke oscar	Motivating Volunteers	Public outreach
Abbas	Editor trends	What the Head of Global South has done and what he plans to do in the next 5 years
Stephen	Programs,Grants and project management	Benefits of Volunteering in Africa
Alex Wafula	Programs,Grants and project management	Relationship and communication within the Chapter and Wikimedia
Oliver Stegen	Programs,Grants and project management	Motivating Volunteers
Grace Kariuki	How to make editing fun, and motivating people to edit.	How to work in big teams (like Wikimedia Kenya) and ways of sustaining them

Interested Attendees (Mombasa)

1. (your name) - (top workshop preference), (secondary workshop preference)

Public speaking

If there's any opportunity to have a small public outreach event, maybe on one (or more) campus(es), Asaf would be delighted to appear as guest speaker on behalf of the Foundation, and either give a general introduction to Wikipedia or (if one of you would like to give the Wikipedia intro) he might give a talk about Wikimedia as an international movement and share some of our inspiring work around the world.

If WMKE has the time and interest in beginning to organize such events, let's start planning -- time is short!

1. Strathmore University Xelawafs 13:09, 7 July 2011 (CEST) confirmed
2. Nairobi University Xelawafs 13:09, 7 July 2011 (CEST) confirmed
3. Nairobits College Xelawafs 13:11, 7 July 2011 (CEST) and Cliff
4. Egerton University Stephen wanjau 07:37, 19 July 2011 (CEST) Is it feasible? WMKE Advice on this before I go ahead to plan

STephen, I think it is, if they want us to go there. If there's the enthusiasm and willingness to listen to what we have to offer, I think it's worth a try. Abbasjnr 08:13, 19 July 2011 (CEST)

Abbas, Unfortunately,The guy that I could lias with as our contact person is on his long holidays,in fact the whole campus is on holidays.He however gave me contacts of another guy at town campus who are still in session, but am reluctant to go ahead since I am not sure whether he will attend to my request to organise a talk.Stephen wanjau 13:31, 19 July 2011 (CEST)

Meeting Third Parties

If WMKE thinks there is some door Asaf can help you open (e.g. in government, or with some international company), or some organization that can be brought into closer cooperation with WMKE (e.g. free software enthusiasts, educational non-profits, charities such as MSF) through a presentation or joint meeting with Asaf and WMKE members, he'd love to help. Again, let him know what opportunities you see, and we can go on planning.

Possibilities

1. Camara -- they are based in Mombasa, but perhaps, with prior notice, they'd be able to come to Nairobi? Worst case, a tele-conference can be arranged?
2. RACHEL -- doesn't look like they have representation in Kenya, but perhaps some online interaction can lead to some possible activity with their content, or representing it and WMKE together, vis-a-vis a third party?
3. Technical Support and Logistics Group - We previously had a meet-up and they in deed requested to have a meeting with a representative from the Foundation.Their head Office is located at Ngara 3km From the Nairobi CBD
4. Kenya ICT board?
5. Google Nairobi

Updates

Asaf is also checking with other contacts in Kenya beside WMKE if they know of any other opportunities to maximize the value of his visit, and he'll keep you posted about what he learns.

Public speaking opportunities

The ihub (www.co.ke) is a good open space for such a talk.Its the open space for techies and developers.Problem is such a talk would have to be scheduled between 1800hrs and upwards since you will be around on working days. Ting had a talk there too while he was around and its the main venue where we hold our meet-ups.

meetings I could have to open door for and help WMKEAs

At the moment,we are caught(my opinion) in a tough corner due to the legal aspects.Most organizations and even Government Bodies(ICT,TSLG,MoE) are keen to explore ties.We had a talk with Google EA while Ting was around and they were very interested in helpiing us get off the ground.They even told us to present "numbers and figures" and they would be glad and ready to support us.Problem is we are not a legal entity and as such we decided to push to sort with Chap-Com and then register as a legal entity.I believe once we are one,such a meetup would be most appropriate.(I hope we will be one at the Wikimania though...:-) )However I would suggest we visit Google Offices in Nairobi.This should show our interest and the Foundation Commitment and appreciation in extending ties between WMKE and Google EA.Since we would be still organizing the Wikipedia Takes Nairobi,a meeting with the ICT board could also foster our existing ties.From what Alex informed me,we are still in search for a sponsor for the same and we haven't yet found one.Perhaps this meeting could help proove how "serious" the foundation is attaching to the WTN and maybe a sponsor would come out..:-)We also visited KU (www.ku.ac.ke) with Ting and we had a great and fruitful discussions with the Top Management of the Universities about future areas of collaboration in advancing our aims.We were supposed to get back to them and deliver an Outreach sort of talk to there students about Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects.I would suggest we pay a visit to them too.This would be tow-fold:We would re-pay the "debt" we owe them and we would also explore and discuss on what and how WMKE and KU can collaborate to advance their agendas and the common objective of "making knowledge universally available"

preferred topic of workshop for WMKE members

I would personally Vouch for :Motivating Volunteers: how to attract, care for, feed, and keep volunteers; how to handle crises We have had our own fair share of crisis about volunteer management and this talk to all the WMKE would really come in handy...:-) Limoke oscar 21:46, 8 July 2011 (CEST)

Mombasa

Probably 2 days will be spent in Mombasa. We shall visit the Camara Mombasa hub, as well as give a talk at the following Coast campuses (all to be confirmed):

• Kenyatta University
• KEMU
• Pwani University College
• Moi University
• ...

Abbasjnr 16:42, 18 July 2011 (CEST)

He looks forward to meeting you soon!