Partnership demo

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Who are we[edit]

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) Partnerships team leads WMF’s efforts to secure and maintain strategic partnerships with global institutions, leading technology companies, international organizations, governments, and members of the open source community in support of WMF’s five priority areas.

Through partnerships with these organizations and others, we support the movement to grow participation globally (i.e. increased readership and editors, particularly in emerging markets), and help WMF modernize its product experience.

This team historically started in 2012 when Wikipedia Zero was an active partnership program led by WMF. With its sunsetting in 2017, the team evolved into the "Partnerships and Global Reach team", and is now simply called the Partnerships Team.

Our team[edit]

<<INSERT TEAM PHOTO> Our diverse and global team operates as a single unit, coordinating two sub-categories of work:

  1. Strategic partnerships with global or multinational organizations (e.g., the UN, global technology companies, free knowledge projects), and
  2. Regional partnerships (e.g., with organizations focused on expanding access to free knowledge in a particular area of the world). We come from different parts of the world - Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South America, and the Middle East - bringing to the table unique and valuable perspectives to our work.

As a “partnerships as service” team, we work across all departments at the Foundation. Our team functions as a matrix of regional and technical specialists, supporting one another to ensure greater breadth and depth of impact for each partnership.

Strategic Partnerships[edit]

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Regional Partnerships[edit]

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Our Partners[edit]

Below are some of the partnerships we have worked on in the last year. This section will be updated regularly.

Google[edit]

WMF and Google both rely on a healthy and sustainable web content ecosystem that fosters the creation, dissemination and discoverability of highly relevant web content. While there are many areas in which our organizations differ in both perspective and approach, our missions share a commitment to making information more accessible to people around the world and ensuring that the information on the web reflects the diversity of its users. Our partnership is built on three main focus areas: supporting editor development and content creation, increasing content access and accuracy, and supporting the operational sustainability of WMF. For more detailed information, including a list of specific projects and initiatives undertaken within this partnership framework, see the WMF/Google Partnership Meta page, linked below.

Alignment with MTP Priorities: Thriving Movement, Platform Evolution

Google-WMF Partnership Page: Forthcoming

Mozilla[edit]

Ingrained in both WMF and Mozilla’s identity is a common commitment to ensure knowledge remains a global public resource and is accessible to all people regardless of their background, status, and demographics. To champion knowledge equity and to promote a healthier internet that is welcoming to all, Mozilla and WMF collaborate on a number of initiatives, including most recently integrating Wikipedia into Firefox Lite - a lightweight android based browser downloaded over 4 million times globally. Through this partnership, free knowledge is more easily accessible to greater numbers of people as Wikipedia is one of the handfuls of default sites for the Firefox Lite browser and one of the featured sites in the Firefox Lite travel section. This allows for greater openness and opportunity for people to become informed consumers and contributors to the internet and free knowledge ecosystem.  

Alignment with priorities: Worldwide Readership, Brand Awareness

Mozilla-WMF Partnership Page: Forthcoming

GSMA[edit]

WMF and the GSMA work closely to increase access to free knowledge and grow digital inclusion in traditionally underserved societies.  WMF partnered with the GSMA in 2018 to help close the mobile usage gap by developing the Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit (MISTT) - a training module which guides first-time internet users on how to safely use the internet and a variety of common apps, including Wikipedia. Mobile Network Operators use the MISTT curriculum to train sales agents to educate first time internet users on the value and functionality of the internet on smartphones. As a result, more than 250,000 customers were trained in Rwanda and 117,000 customers were trained in Bangladesh.

Alignment with priorities: Brand Awareness, Worldwide Readership

GSMA-WMF Partnership Page: Forthcoming


Announcements[edit]

Check this section for updated announcements and recent news!

Welcome our new additions to the team!

  • Edna Medina (LATAM regional consultant) based in Bogota, Colombia;
  • Rudolph Ampofo (Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Manager) based in Accra,Ghana;
  • Maryana Pinchuk (Senior Manager Tech & Product Partnerships) based in Kansas City, USA;
  • Nicolas Perry (Manager Tech & Product Partnerships) based in San Francisco, USA;
  • Adelle Tanuri (Strategic Partnerships Associate) based in Jakarta, Indonesia

“Wikimedia and UN Human Rights partner to expand Wikipedia’s knowledge” - (Blog, August 16th, 2019)

“Google and Wikimedia Foundation partner to increase knowledge equity online” - (Blog,  January 22nd, 2019)

“Wikimedia Foundation and Kiwix partner to grow offline access to Wikipedia” - (Blog, July 18th, 2018)

“Wikimedia Foundation partners with the GSMA to expand digital literacy in emerging countries.” - (Blog, June 21st, 2018)