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WikiFundi

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Download WikiFundi software

  • English : http://bit.ly/WikiFundiEN2021 (15 GB)
  • French : http://bit.ly/WikiFundiFR2021 (15 GB)
  • Spanish : http://bit.ly/WikiFundiES2021 (15 GB)

About WikiFundi

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WikiFundi in brief

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WikiFundi video demo

WikiFundi is an open source software that provides an off-line editing environment that mimics the Wikipedia on-line environment. It allows for teaching and content creation when technology fails, access does not exist or is too expensive, and electricity is unreliable. With WikiFundi, individuals, groups and communities can learn how to create and improve articles on a wiki, and can work collaboratively to build articles and other content. To work WikiFundi needs a small portable local server (such as a Raspberry Pi) that provides a local wifi network, which editors can then connect to and work on their articles.
Once the articles are finished, the end result can be transferred to an online wiki page on Wikipedia or Wikimedia project or Vikidia.

WikiFundi is a Wiki in Africa project created to support the WikiAfrica movement. The platform is designed by Florence Devouard (Anthere) and Isla Haddow-Flood, and developed by Florence Devouard, Emmanuel Engelhard (User:Kelson), Florent Kaisser, Renaud Gaudin, and other members of the Wikimedia community. It is funded by the Orange Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia CH. The WikiFundi software and its documentation is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How WikiFundi can help you ?

WikiFundi has been designed to facilitate three distinct sectors:

  • Education : as an easy-to-use teaching tool for schools and education programmes to teach how to read and analyse Wikipedia or Vikidia articles, or to teach how to create and contribute, transferring digital and academic skills. There are resources in the pack to assist students and teachers.
  • Outreach: as a tool that facilitates usergroups and volunteers when building the Wikimedia movement by providing a way to collectively edit in offline situations. There are resources are included in the package to assist Wikimedia leads.
  • Entrepreneurship : as a simple wiki platform used by individuals or small groups of digitally skilled entrepreneurs in poorly connected areas to create CVs, business plans, take meeting notes, produce reports etc..
WikiFundi received the Open Infrastructure Award from OE Global in 2021

More info

Choice of Software name

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Wiki – self explanatory...

Fundi (/ˌfʊndɪ/, not /ˌfʌndɪ/)[1] – in Bantu languages from South Africa to Tanzania (Swahili) and Congo (Lingala) fundi means a learned person. Depending on environment this could be a teacher, an expert in general, a skilled artisan or master craftsperson, an expert in a particular area. The term has crossed over also into other languages like Zimbabwean and South African English.

Motivation for WikiFundi as the project name:
School children in southern Africa refer to each other as being a “fundi” - as in “can you help me with my homework, you’re such a maths fundi”. Wikipedia is associated with being clever, it imparts knowledge. The use of the term Fundi is a play on words – Wiki Fundi teaches you a skill, and it also gives you access to knowledge. It is a clever programme that teaches you how to teach others by writing articles about things that you are passionate about.
The software will be called WikiFundi – as it makes those who engage with the software into experts at editing Wikipedia, and ultimately experts in their subject by contributing to Wikipedia.

First release (2017)

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The first release of the software took place in January 2017. The WikiFundi software is intended to support the WikiAfrica movement and Wikimedia volunteers across Africa thanks to Florence Devouard (Anthere) and Isla Haddow-Flood at Wiki in Africa association. It has been realized in collaboration with Wikimedia CH and Kiwix. It is set up by Anthere, Emmanuel Engelhard (Kelson), Florent Kaisser, Renaud Gaudin and other members of the community. The development of this software is made possible thanks to the Wikimedia Foundation and the Orange Foundation. The WikiFundi software and its documentation are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Second release (2018)

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A second release occured in Fall 2018. It features bugs fixing, improvement of user experience, and better software-size optimisation. This second version is financially supported by a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation and is hosted by Wiki In Africa Association.

Third release (2021)

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A third release occurred in 2021. It included content updates and general refresh for the English and French version and the development of a Spanish version. See WikiFundi/2021 for more details. This release is supported by Wikimedia CH.

How can WikiFundi make a difference : UseCase

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The WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique (WikiChallenge African Schools) is a multi-national writing contest that creates a fun way for students (9-13) to learn how knowledge is built by contributing to Vikidia, the little sister of Wikipedia dedicated to children aged 8-15 years. It operated during the school year in 2017–2018, 2018–2019 and 2019–2021.

What is really specific about the contest ? All of the participating schools are in French speaking Africa and most of them are... offline ! To be fair, some even have issues with electricity access. Many of those kids have never heard of Wikipedia, if only because they have never been online [1].

The contest challenges schools to compete by writing Vikidia articles about something of importance in their area. Due to their poor or missing internet connectivity, they can use the WikiFundi plateform to... read the story here

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You have two options.

Option 1
You want the WikiFundi software alone with no additional content. Just the software.
If so Download WikiFundi software

  • in English: http://bit.ly/WikiFundiEN2021 (15 GB)
  • in French: http://bit.ly/WikiFundiFR2021 (15 GB)
  • in Spanish: http://bit.ly/WikiFundiES2021 (15 GB)

Option 2
You want several languages (English and/or French and/or Spanish) together and/or you want some of the free content proposed by Kiwix at the same time for a fuller experience.
Such additional content can be Wikipedia offline in English, Vikidia offline in French, Wiktionary in Arabic, WikiMed, the WikiMooc proposed by Wikimedia France etc.)... if this is the case, please contact Florence for a specific package. You can find all available packages in all languages on the Kiwix Wiki, as well as a sortable Google sheet here. We can pretty easily prepare a specific package for you using https://cardshop.hotspot.kiwix.org, so feel free to ask and we will hel (in most cases, the size of the content will be the limit).

Tech ReadMe and bug report

UserGuide and support

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Videos / set-up

UserGuides V2.1 (2021)

Flyers V2.1 (2021)

Other contents

Activities

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News

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Certificate of Open Infrastructure Award from OEG 2021

Tech road map

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Github : https://github.com/kiwix/wikifundi

  • Working page for the 2021 version : WikiFundi/2021 (user:Anthere, user:Tonygarfume)
  • Nov 2018: release of V2
  • 14 mai 2018 : First fonctionnal Docker Image to install and configure MediaFundi with an unique container
  • 21 mai : Script using Pywikibot to synchronize articles and templates (without medias) from a config file (for FR/EN)
  • 28 mai : Script using Pywikibot to synchronize medias related to synchronized articles. Check if all data appears in the synchronized articles.
  • 4 juin : Publication of the Docker image on Docker hub. Using a continuous integration solution
  • 11 juin : Fixe display issues for main browsers on multiple OS : Ubuntu, MacOS, Windows 7+, Android.
  • 18 juin : Publication of a online version. Script to export MediaFundi as a tarball.
  • 25 juin : Kiwix integration.
  • 1 juillet 2018 : Collects of issues after online publication

See also

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Content

About first release

People working on async issues

Notes and references

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  1. Thank you Ingo for the clarification