Some brief notes about the MENA trip can be found here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Education_Program/MENATrip //Abbas.
> Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:39:14 -0800 > From: bnewst...@wikimedia.org > To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] MENA Education Program? > > Hi Katie, > Just to build on Moushira's response to tackle your questions a bit further. > > On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 5:26 AM, aude <aude.w...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Erik, Sue, Frank, et al, > > > > Can you please say more about the plans for a Middle East education > > program? (yes I have read notes from the recent trip on outreach wiki) > > > > What is the timeframe? Who is going to run it? Will you establish a > > "trust" there? Where will the office be? > > > > We are planning a pilot in Cairo, but have not yet firmed up the details. > Frank, Annie and Moushira will spend a week in Cairo in December to > investigate the opportunity further and see when it would make sense to run > a small pilot. We are hoping for February, but want to make sure the > conditions are right for success. > > > > > If the program is to be duplicated, I certainly hope there are not the > > same issues with quality, as has happened in Pune. What lessons have > > you learned and what will you do differently? > > > > We do not plan on duplicating the Pune experience. For one, we want to do a > much smaller pilot. We also want to dig into questions regarding copyright > and student writing ability in Arabic before we start the pilot. Nitika > has captured a series of lessons on the pilot [1] and we are doing further > detailed evaluation work to ensure we mine the pilot fully. > > > > > Knowing that there is quite a backlog, last time I checked, with > > pending changes on Arabic Wikipedia, I am very concerned for the > > ability of volunteers there to handle a massive influx of new content. > > > > This is a concern we share...and we discussed this with the community > members in Doha as Moushira mentioned. No easy solutions here and we'll > need to innovate. > > > > > I am also concerned if you setup a trust in, say Egypt, that will put > > a damper on any efforts to form a chapter, which I know has been > > discussed. > > > > We do plan on setting up a regional entity to support our program work in > the region. It is premature as to the actual structure. I really don't see > this as being a damper on the formation of a chapter, but we don't really > have any evidence either way. > > > > > If done carefully and well, I would be very delighted to see outreach > > programs be a success for Arabic Wikipedia, and hope that will be the > > case. > > > > This is exactly the intention of the work in Arabic and was the spirit we > all came out of our Doha convening with. We are all united in this > goal...recognizing that it will take a lot of effort by a lot of people to > truly reach the full potential of Arabic Wikipedia! > > > > > Cheers, > > Katie > > > > _______________________________________________ > > foundation-l mailing list > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > > > [1] > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program > > Best, > Barry > > -- > Barry Newstead > Chief Global Development Officer > Wikimedia Foundation > > Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in > the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! > > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
