Blogger Posts: 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.