Reflecting on Wiki Indaba Conference 2024

Themed “!ke e: /xarra //ke,” which means “United in diversity” the 2024 Wiki Indaba Conference saw the inflow of diverse African Wikimedians from different African regions trooping into the O. R. Tambo International Airport on the wake of 1st and 2nd October 2024 and I was one of those African Wikimedians flying in from Nigeria thanks to the support and sponsorship of the Wiki Loves Monuments International Team. Though I embarked on this journey ‘solo’, before touching down in the beautiful city of Johannesburg, I was already among the many vibrant Wikimedians attending the Wiki Indaba 2024 – one cannot overlook our energetic demeanour even after long hours in the air.

Fast-forward to Arrival

Arriving and checking in at the conference venue – The Capital on the Park – first helped me recover and rejuvenate from the long hours of travel before convening for a mini welcome party with a dinner of finger food. The African spirit and our diversity was reawakened by this welcome party and dinner, giving us the opportunity to socialize, interact and spark up meaningful conversation that would sustain the tempo all through the conference days. During the welcoming party, I had the opportunity to network, interact and engage with fellow Wikimedians I have been working with online. It was a moment of reconnection and reintroduction, matching the online faces to the onsite faces. Our convergence was an avenue for cultural exchange and social events, enriching my experience, and highlighting the diversity and richness of African cultures as I got to taste lots of South African delicacies and chops – I teased my taste buds with variant delicacies.

Wiki Indaba Conference Proper

The conference commenced with a Welcome Ceremony facilitated by Bobby Shabangu and later featured a keynote address from Professor Langa Khumalo (SADiLaR) presenting on The importance of online Indigenous Language Preservation. As someone passionate about indigenous language advocacy, this sparked lots of interest and reactions within me, equipping me with lots of vital information and findings that are beneficial to my indigenous language advocacy goal. Also, the plenary session on Conversation: Information integrity and the role of the Media with Maryana Iskander (WMF) Anusha Alikhan (WMF), Ferial Haffejee (Daily Maverick) ushered in the various sessions of the conference of which I participated in both as a presenter, co-presenter, panelist and participants.

One Conference, Different Roles!

The Wiki Indaba conference program was fully robust with Lightning talks, Lectures, Workshops, Panels, Roundtables and even Hackathon sessions, all of them focused on bridging African content gaps, digital literacy initiatives, and policy advocacy for open access – demonstrating our strength even in our diversity. The two-time Wiki Indaba Participant me embraced each of these sessions with open mindedness, ensuring that I am engaged with the free knowledge knowledge shared.

Hacking at Wiki Indaba

Co-facilitating with Purity during the Language sessions at Wiki Indaba Hackathon | CC BY 4.0, PWaigi-WMF

My first session as a co-presenter was a Hackathon session with Purity. Before my Hackathon experience at Wiki Indaba 2024, I have always had this notion that hackathon has to do with coding and writing programming languages ONLY. Onboarding as a co-facilitator with Purity for Hackathon sessions on Translatewiki, Content translation and Section Translation helped me rewrite the wrong narrative and I was equipped with lots of knowledge and skills on these topics. During these hackathon sessions, we got to engage participants on the optimization of tools such as Translatewiki, content translation and section translation tools to carry out translation tasks on language Wikipedias. As someone passionate about indigenous language digitization, I was happy engaging and equipping participants with the technical know-how of these tools so to ensure proper optimization in their various translation projects within their language communities. Co-facilitating the Language sessions at Wiki Indaba Hackathon gave me this sense of fulfilment as I see it as a means through which I can continue my indigenous language advocacy goals.

Wiki Loves Monuments Lightening Talk

As a member of the International Wiki Loves Monument Team I had the opportunity to facilitate a Lightening Talk on the Dynamics of Organizing WLM in the African Region which I was meant to present with Ciell. During this 15-minutes session, I got to learn the challenges African Wikimedians face in participating in the Global WLM Campaign. Some of the problems mentioned were generic such as the issue of Freedom of Panorama, low organizing skills, lack of funding etc. while some were relative – internal management. Some were short-term challenges while some were long-term challenges. However, this session offered an incredible opportunity to learn about their difficulties and to plan for possible means of mitigating them to ensure their active participation for the Wiki Loves Monuments 2025.

A Panelist on the Afrika Agenda Session

I represented the Afrika Baraza Working Group Team, in the panel session on the discussion on The Afrika Agenda: Fostering Effective Collaboration & Inclusion for African Wikimedians where I took part in discussing some of the challenges the African Wikimedians face in the Wikimedia space. This session emphasizes the need for African Wikimedians to take a stance on the table where administrative and governance topics are being discussed to be able to their stories themselves.

De-Conferencing

The social activities are the elements that help ensure the attainment of the Wiki Indaba climaxing – I always look forward to it! Some social activities include embarking on a tour of the famous Soweto streets that once housed two great African figures – Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. We explored the street of Soweto and made a stop-over at Nelson Mandela’s house. It was also all fun cutting the Wiki Indaba 10th Anniversary cake. Wiki Indaba 2024 reinforced that even in our #Diversity, we are strongly #United! Wiki Indaba 2025 would usher in lots of possibilities – !ke e: /xarra //ke!