Eases individual and organisation’s access to knowledge.
Enables content access by geographically diverse audiences.
Adds vital content to the world's most consulted encyclopaedic platform, Wikipedia.
Utilises free technology.
Easy to use, teach and train.
Creates a contemporary, non-geographically bound outlet for cultural heritage institutions.
Encourages and supports collaborative effort and contribution.
Supported by a large and active international volunteer community.
Fulfills a desperate online and mobile need for content about Africa.
Access a strong and supportive international GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) community.
Empowers, builds, trains and encourages local communities to contribute to a growing and flexible resource.
Produces open content which can be used, reused and modified.
Wikipedia Zero (free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones).
Wikipedia offline distribution.
Wikipedians on the continent work in isolation, are disparate and are not in great numbers (no large Wikipedian community in Africa).
No culture of contribution to the Internet by the general populace.
Partners under-resourced.
Partner authorisation processes are often bureaucratic.
Partners are often lacking in technical knowledge, and the ICT and human resources to fully collaborate.
Lack of capacity and resources within WikiAfrica team.
Technology often perceived as daunting and too technical.
Weak access to the Internet (weak online connectivity to actually edit Wikipedia).
National differences and expressions in the use of English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic make it difficult to contribute to Wikipedia in those languages in a manner acceptable to those editing communities.
Opportunities
Threats
Depth and breadth of information on Africa not widely covered on Internet, or Wikipedia.
500 million people under age of 18 looking for content that gives them a place in the global knowledge economy and truthfully reflects their history and daily reality.
Increasing numbers of young, technically savvy youth looking for career and community opportunities.
Increasing access to mobile technology opens up knowledge and content to larger audiences, previously isolated population groups.
Harnessing technology to create a solution that requires minimal cost for maximum impact.
Virtual, collaborative and crowd community allows for maximum content to be uploaded with greatest efficiency.
Diversity of projects related to Wikipedia allow for extension of and accessibility to the content in many different ways – photographically (Wikimedia commons), data (Wikidata), newsworthy content (WikiNews), etc.
Copyright and intellectual property issues.
Restrictive governmental policy around freedom of heritage or speech.
Lack of funding and resources.
Local chapter dissolution or disintegration.
Global technology failure.
Negative academic perception of Wikipedia.
Perceived conflicts of interest by Wikipedian community.
