Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific

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Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific (SKAP) was founded by community builder, leader and strategist Vanj Padilla. She has been a volunteer for Google and Wikimedia since 2012 doing events, projects and actively building communities and expanding its base from Pangasinan to Northern Luzon in the Philippines. Together with her team of volunteers and community organizers, they organized SKAP to be able to educate more people by sourcing and sharing bodies of knowledge and making it available and accessible online.

Prior to formally organizing as a non profit, members of Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific ( SKAP) are already volunteer leaders of two major tech organizations- Google in 2012 and Wikimedia since 2014.

As Wikimedians, we organize edit a-thons since 2014 ( although not continuously and regularly since Wikimedia Philippines was dissolved ), we build communities and right now we are focused on tapping our networks not only in our community but also in Northern Philippines and across Asia Pacific where small communities in need of missionary assistance, capacity development, sharing of best practices such as policy development, capacity development, membership management, strategy development and building strategic alliances are needed.

Objectives

1. The community will create and conduct projects relative to inclusive knowledge sharing in the Philippines and in other underrepresented territories in the Asia Pacific.

2. It will collaborate with other communities not only in the Philippines but also in other countries and territories in scaling, advancing and replicating relevant Wikimedia projects.

3. To form strategic alliances with knowledge sources, such as but not limited to government and public partners, academic institutions, civic organizations and private entities to advance and expand knowledge creation, sharing and distribution.

4. To conduct capacity-building, mentoring, training of women community members, senior citizens, youth members and upskilling so they can effectively contribute local knowledge to the global village.

5. To organize events, meetups, learning sessions and other activities to increase and diversify membership, sustain the community and expand across territories that have very little or no presence of a Wikimedia community in the region.

6. To support the goals and objectives of the ESEAP cooperative community in its projects, policies, advocacy outreach, activities and contribute to its success.

History

Trustees of SKAP have been community organizers and builders leading Google Business Group ( GBG) in Pangasinan, Dagupan, Isabela and Cagayan in Northern Philippines being the ones who established, built and capacitated its members in various states in Northern Luzon Philippines. One of its GBG Chapters, GBG Pangasinan has been recognized by Google Developer relations as one of the Top 8 Chapters globally and leads got invited to Google I/O in the USA three times over.

Another trustee led Google Student Ambassador ( GSA ) in Pangasinan and has also been invited by Google in various capacity-development activities. She eventually led the Womenwill community, a community of women entrepreneurs and women leaders inside the Google Business Group communities teaching technology, upskilling and mentoring women members.

The SKAP trustees are community builders, and have very strong strategic partnership capacities such that in all of Google related activities and events and even those Wikimedia related events, they all worked and developed their own partners in the public sector as well as private sectors.

Trustees are bloggers, influencers since 2011, doing remarkable digital footprints in their communities, organizing events, doing consultations with government officers and advisory projects with agencies and departments.

Contact information

Vanj Padilla, the founding chair, has been a Wikimedian since 2014. Elected as Board of Trustees Member and Vice Chairman of the defunct Wikimedia Philippines. She is both a Wikimedian and a Google volunteer for 11 years now and she was recognized globally for her efforts in community development, active leadership and expanding the group into 5 provinces or territories in the Philippines. She graduated Doctor of Laws.

She is known as a strategic partner builder working with governments, local and national, with private partners such as academe, business sector, international partners such as ASEAN communities being a mentor, facilitator,community media publisher, trainer and coordinator.

She has been an events designer and strategist since 2011 and has been a consultant to the government on digital strategy, digital marketing and online information management for 11 years.

As a Wikimedian, Vanj is not much of an editor but a community builder, an event organizer, a strategist and is a solid partnership builder . She was a member of Wikimania COT in 2021 and 2023 co-organizing the Wikiwomen Summit @ Wikimania with WMF BOT Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight. She has been benchmarking successful Wikimedia Communities in the ESEAP region since 2015 such as Wikimedia Indonesia, Wikimedia Taiwan, and Wikimedia Korea with Butch Bustria.

Visit our website or email us at sharedknowap@gmail.com