ICT-BPO International Conference and Youth Engagement Summit Open in Balaclava

Mauritius, Balaclava

The ICT-BPO International Conference along with the Youth Engagement Summit were inaugurated by the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Mr Tassarajen Pillay Chedumbrum at the Intercontinental Hotel, in Balaclava.

The two three-day events were organised by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology in collaboration with the Board of Investment and Extensia Ltd.

Youth today expect quick responses to their activities on social and mobile media – which call for responsive infrastructure solutions, community engagement models, and new career paths. As digital infrastructure continues its rapid evolution, higher-level issues of Internet governance, security and the Millennium Development Goals also need to come into play for youth. It was through this conference that open movements e.g Wikimedia and Mozilla Foundation showed their presence as well to build networks with other ICT stakeholders, promote and share free knowledge initiatives, innovation and openness to technology towards the development of African countries.

Mozilla Rep - Workshop Outcomes

"We don’t just build products that make a better Web. Mozilla is an organization that is fundamentally about people, and we want everyone globally to make the Firefox experience their own" stated a Mozilla Rep when giving insights of the workshop.

The engagement between youth and ICT must be nurtured, encouraged and developed but for parents and teachers to feel confident in encouraging children to use ICT and for children to feel safe using it, we must create a safe and secure environment and that is why Mozilla avails the Web to people by creating opportunities and making it open to everyone. However Mozilla Foundation had a chance to share insights on projects which are mainly focused in community building and user engagement e.g Webmakers, L10n as way of recruting children to be fully nurtured through open movement to gain more skills to benefit the ICT sector.

In other words, youth will be truly empowered if they have affordable access to digital media, content generation tools, community support, incentives to contribute to the knowledge society, pro-active culture of collaboration, and capacity building for entrepreneurship.

Mozilla Webmakers Develops Non-Programmers

Web-makers Logo

Oh Snap, it’s been a month!? My, oh my how the time has been flying. I won’t make excuses for myself, I’ll just tell you what’s been going on in my world. There’s a lot of stuff, and there’s no way I can cover all of it in my scribble of reflections, so if you are looking for more information stay tuned.

"It’s also the idea at the heart of Mozilla’s Web-maker project: to inspire people to make the web through remixing and building upon the work of others. We want as many people as possible to become web-makers—and to learn how to build the web by mucking around with code in a playful and exploratory way" stated Mark Surman.

Firefox Student Ambassadors at Linkz

Through Mark's words on his blog Mozilla Botswana was motivated to take a step in hosting a Web-makers event to help people understand the concept of building the web. We are a community that practices learning by making and that is why we focused much in Hacking things and remixing.Back in  last year, we hosted an event on  a couple of train the trainer related things, basically focusing on Mozilla technologies that help people to remix and play around the Web "Thimble, Google X-ray & Popcorn Maker". This year we took yet another large step in the Intergration and development of Mozilla Products such as "Firefox OS & Firefox Browser". We hosted on an event "Programming for Non-Programmers" to sensitize the idea of building and developing applications on Firefox App Store.We believed that everyone should have as much Opportunity as possible to learn about the Web, Develop Openness to make it free for passionate people and lastly  others who care for the future of the Web.

Mozilla Stall at Linkz

Hackable Tool-kits are always a great way to go about in Developing great apps and that is why we encourage people to Meet, Make & Learn from each other.Well it’s no accident that we hosted yet another event along side other outreach programs we are trying to celebrate this with the entire world through Maker Party. Thousands around the world gathered to make amazing projects and share what they made with others.However we felt App development was necessary to bolster about during the Web-making period its is therefore that we closed up the whole chapter by making a step at Linkz ICT Challenge hosted by Botho University. Many students payed much attention to the Mozilla Stall that was fully painted with bright Red and White colors and some Mozilla logos.

"We’re not doing this alone — it’s a huge, distributed collaboration across many organizations and individuals. A “big tent”, as we like to call it. From kitchen tables and small code clubs to edgy museums and international bodies, we see this as a group effort where many players have a role" says Michelle Thorne

Michelle Thorne- Senior Manager Mozilla Webmakers Mentors

.

 Only passionate and driven  mentors who are core contributors to the Mozilla Community are able to facilitate the Web-makers project in various countries. A very enthusiastic and vibrant mentor in Botswana, Gaborone has been doing an amazing work to keep the mission of the foundation well distributed.

GET INVOLVED

• Tweet . The fastest and easiest way to get help and connect with other mentors.
• Join the Webmaker mailing list. Connect with others mentors, ask questions, and find out what other mentors are up to. Introduce yourself.
• Live chat. Pop into the #webmaker public chat room to say hello or ask questions.
• Share and build with us. Contribute back your own learning resources, remixes and more.

Setswana Wikipedia incentives local online content in Africa

Setswana Wikipedia Partcipants

‘Local content’ can be defined as the expression and communication of a community’s local ideas, knowledge and culture, often times in their own language. Global or non-local content tend to reflect language, values and lifestyles that are vastly different from those of the community "consuming" the content. As the use of the Internet and its resources spread, it is becoming increasingly clear that in order to promote greater access to information and to ensure Africa's active and inclusive participation in the development of information society, it is important to have more online content in local African languages. In addition, the global online community can benefit greatly from having access to Africa's rich cultural diversity and heritage.

"We should write our own history books to prove that we did have a past, and that it was a past that was just as worth writing and learning about as any other. We must do this for the simple reason that a nation without a past is a lost nation, and a people without a past is a people without a soul." Sir Seretse Khama, May 1970

Why get involved into Setswana Wikipedia 

This is your opportunity to bring Africa's information online by creating Wikipedia articles in Setswana. You can participate by translating English Wikipedia articles into Setswana or by writing your own articles from scratch. You can choose your own topic to write about. Are you  pursuing a degree in Physics? Translate the entry for 'condensed matter'. Studying literature? Write an entry on your favorite local author. Or translate an article about your favorite musician or sports team. Just think about what topics would be of interest to many Setswana speakers in Botswana and around the world.

Programme Manager;Google

Over the last 10 years, Google has been part of the Search journey for many growing regions and countries and Botswana was counted among the pre-dominating countries, helping to localise and provide access to information. "Today, we are excited to be sponsoring the Setswana Wikipedia Challenge to encourage the creation of locally relevant online content in Africa" says Program-me Manager at Google; Angela Muigai.  As many of you well know, Wikipedia is an online collaborative encyclopedia that has become often referenced source of online information. There are approximately 4-5 million Setswana speakers in Southern Africa and  who aren’t yet on the internet but will be down the road. We hope to enrich and enhance the quantity and quality of local content online through the efforts of the community members. Setswana Wikipedia Challenge was a step towards that effort that is why we call all people to actively participate in our Tswana Web Portal.

On March 14th, the  prize winners were announced. They are the top contributors among the 200 individuals who signed up to take part in the Setswana Wikipedia Challenge. This challenge has long ended in January 2012 and was open to anyone who is passionate about creating Wikipedia articles in Setswana  by translating via Google Translator Toolkit, existing Wikipedia articles or creating a new article from scratch. Grand Price winner had chance to to attend Wikimania 2012 in USA,Washington Dc and also walked away with great prices such as  netbooks and cellphones, etc. If you are interested in editing into Setswana Wikipedia page more information is found on our meta page here Wikimedia Botswana.

Congratulations to the winners and we invite you to join them in the effort to contribute local content in arenas such as Wikipedia, where information is shared and used towards empowerment across the globe.

Here is the list of Interim Prize winners:

Oarabile Mudongo from Botho University 

Candy Khohliwe from Botho University

Grand Prize Winner

Oarabile Mudongo, from Botho University

Grand Price Winner, Botho University

Second Runner Kendy Khotlhiwe, Botho University

Wikimedia Botswana Endorses Wiki Indaba

by Oarabile Mudongo




Wikimedia Botswana is a suggested name of Wikipedia User group  in Botswana  with the mission of developing online content  through outreach and active editing. It is through this mission that we endorse Wiki Indaba,Wiki Indaba is a proposed 3 days conference/gathering of African Wikimedians and mission aligned open knowledge volunteers to be held in Johannesburg (South Africa)   in February 2014. Through this conference we believe the Wikimedia saying of: 

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge" 




It was such a previlage particularly for Botswana to take part at Wikimania 2013 held in Hong Kong, Kwoloon, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This was a conference not to be missed by any single person from Africa after the great experience at Wikimania 2012, Washington DC but due to certain circumstances some African Wikimedians  could not turn up for this years event with only 5 countries represented from Africa.


The major problem faced by African Wikimedians is finding ways to increasing African content on wikipedia. Now what!!? the idea of  Wiki Indaba conference, with the aim of   facilitating  co-operation links amongst  African Wikimedia Chapters and thematic groups through dialogue. "This we hope will also assist in increasing Wikipedia coverage and foot print in Africa"  stated WikimediaZA president Dumisani Ndubane . However Isla-Haddow-Flood ; Project Manager at WikiAfrica Center continued to lament that this will be the first regional conference to be held in Africa and for African Chapters, the least Wikipedia covered region of the world.At the recent Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong there was an informal Africa meet-up attended by delegates from all African countries represented and Oarabile_Mudongo from Botswana happened to be part of the blazing meet-up and yet a representative.

In an interview with CNN journalists answering a question "How do you think Africa can be the driving force to stop Internet Censorship in China to allow free access to Wikipedia?" Oarabile Mudongo mentioned that "Knowledge has power to change people and therefore it is important to show interest in serving peoples needs and this interest comes by active participation and publicity".

Wikimania attracts Wikimedia project participants from around the world, including writers, editors, programmers, and photographers; Wikimedia Foundation staff; and members of the 30+ country-based Wikimedia chapters. Many independent researchers also attend and present. Attendance has ranged from 300 to 750+ people, with representation from more than 50 countries. 

'Extensive consultation with the wider wikimedia and editor communities across Africa should be conducted in the form of working groups to isolate exactly what the expectations of and goals for the conference are' says Isla Haddow-Flood who encouraged wikipedians interested in Africa to continue discussions about this conference by visiting its official page.

"You can have a cart before the horse. Things don't have to be linear to work. You don't need a landline to get a phone, now we know that. Wikipedia is the demonstration that things can work also in ways that do not follow step-by-step procedure ("we start by providing sanitation and than we move to the rest"). And this conference can and should be a Ferrari not even a cart" lamented Lolanda.

Mozilla Botswana First Webmakers Event

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and lead  open source projects. The Mozilla Foundation describes itself as "a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet. The Mozilla Foundation is guided by the Mozilla Manifesto, which lists 10 principles which Mozilla believes "are critical for the Internet to continue to benefit the public good as well as commercial aspects of life.  Mozilla's mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web. The Mozilla project is a global community of people who believe that openness, innovation, and opportunity are keys to the continued health of the Internet.

Background

The year 2012 Mozilla Botswana hosted its first Web-makers event under the theme "The Power behind Programming". This event was basically organised to crowd-source innovative and people with so much love for the future of the Web.However  the event was guided by the objectives below: 

1.   Integrating HTML &CSS on Web development.
2. Database Management Systems in Web Designing
3.   Programming for Curriculum Development
4. Application Development vs Emerging Technologies
5.   Networking Security in Coding

The event was a success through the support from Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla Botswana  hosted its first Hack Jam hack-a-thorn Session at  LIVING GUEST HOUSE on the 25th Novemeber 2012 .These session will involved live presentations from qualified Software Developers,System Analyst, Network Engineers.The scope of the event focused on Web Designing principles ,the main idea was to sensentize the congregation  about various programming/coding skills,benefits of contributing to open source (OS) platforms in general and lastly discuss ideas on how to improve Technology using the open source platforms.

Presentation on Mobile Technology 

Futhermore people where also be in a position to have the ability to showcase their skills of using Firefox products such as the Browser on the Internet.One  major idea that caught peoples attention was a presentaion on Mobile Technology and the ability to use Thimble and MozPad for collaborating online projects.At the end of the event everyone was able to understand and be able to use the ideas and knowledge gained for the benefit of developing technology in general.We also had a FQA session whwre attendants asked questions about the Mozilla Foundation.

For more details about the event have a look at our Event page .

MEDIA GALLERY 

Mozilla Attendees