Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge
*Welcome to Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge, sponsored by Google* We invite you to take part in this challenge to create Wikipedia articles in Kiswahili. We hope to make the online experience richer and more relevant for 100 million African users who speak Kiswahili. You've never created a Wikipedia article before? No problem. We will have training available at the start of the competition. The articles you create will be attributed to you, which will earn you instant and lasting online fame, and prizes will be given away to the winners who qualify. You could win a mobile phone, netbook or even a laptop. Other prizes include wireless Internet modems and wearable Google gear. All participants who meet the set criteria will receive a certificate of participation from Google for your efforts. *What is the Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge?* This is your opportunity to bring Africa's information online by creating Wikipedia articles in Kiswahili. You can participate by translating English Wikipedia articles into Kiswahili or by writing your own articles from scratch. You can choose your own topic to write about. Are you a pursuing a degree in Physics? Translate the entry for 'condensed matter' from English to Kiswahili. 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 some of the 100 million Kiswahili speakers worldwide. *Eligibility* The Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge is open to students enrolled in participating schools and individuals who are passionate about the Kiswahili language. *How it will work* As a participant, you will be either creating original Wikipedia articles in Kiswahili or translating existing Wikipedia articles from English to Kiswahili. If you're creating a new article, you will do so via Wikipedia.org’s entry tools. If you're translating articles from English to Kiswahili, you will use Google Translator Toolkit, which integrates with Wikipedia so that you can upload your new article from there. Once you register, you will receive information on the venue and time for a one-day training. The training will include how to create Wikipedia articles with the help of the Google Translator Toolkit as well as general overview of Wikipedia. All articles submitted will be reviewed by Kiswahili Wikipedia Jury members who will assess the quality of your article and assign a 'point' per article. *Winners and Prizes* Winners of the prizes will be determined by a point system taking into consideration the number of articles submitted and the quality of the articles. We will also award prizes to the second place participants and runners up. Prizes includes laptops, mobile phones, prepaid internet access modems, Google T-shirts, and more. Participants will also receive certificate of participation. Please contact *kiswahili-wiki@googlegroups.com*<kiswahili-wiki@googlegroups.com>if you have any questions. Sign up to make a difference, have fun, and win some cool prizes. *Register now!* <https://services.google.com/fb/forms/kiswahiliwiki/> -- Ngũgĩ Kĩmani Fundi wa Mitambo
thanx Ngungi for this info but seems like its late :-0 *Training Dates* November 21, 2009 Saturday November 22, 2009 Sunday *Contest Dates* November 25, 2009 - January 15, 2010 *Interim Prize Winners Announced* December 14, 2009 January 4, 2010 *Final Prize Winners Announced* January 29, 2010 Kind Regards, On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Ngũgĩ Kĩmani <ngugikimani@gmail.com> wrote:
*Welcome to Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge, sponsored by Google*
We invite you to take part in this challenge to create Wikipedia articles in Kiswahili. We hope to make the online experience richer and more relevant for 100 million African users who speak Kiswahili. You've never created a Wikipedia article before? No problem. We will have training available at the start of the competition. The articles you create will be attributed to you, which will earn you instant and lasting online fame, and prizes will be given away to the winners who qualify. You could win a mobile phone, netbook or even a laptop. Other prizes include wireless Internet modems and wearable Google gear. All participants who meet the set criteria will receive a certificate of participation from Google for your efforts.
*What is the Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge?*
This is your opportunity to bring Africa's information online by creating Wikipedia articles in Kiswahili. You can participate by translating English Wikipedia articles into Kiswahili or by writing your own articles from scratch. You can choose your own topic to write about. Are you a pursuing a degree in Physics? Translate the entry for 'condensed matter' from English to Kiswahili. 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 some of the 100 million Kiswahili speakers worldwide.
*Eligibility*
The Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge is open to students enrolled in participating schools and individuals who are passionate about the Kiswahili language.
*How it will work*
As a participant, you will be either creating original Wikipedia articles in Kiswahili or translating existing Wikipedia articles from English to Kiswahili. If you're creating a new article, you will do so via Wikipedia.org’s entry tools. If you're translating articles from English to Kiswahili, you will use Google Translator Toolkit, which integrates with Wikipedia so that you can upload your new article from there. Once you register, you will receive information on the venue and time for a one-day training. The training will include how to create Wikipedia articles with the help of the Google Translator Toolkit as well as general overview of Wikipedia. All articles submitted will be reviewed by Kiswahili Wikipedia Jury members who will assess the quality of your article and assign a 'point' per article.
*Winners and Prizes*
Winners of the prizes will be determined by a point system taking into consideration the number of articles submitted and the quality of the articles. We will also award prizes to the second place participants and runners up.
Prizes includes laptops, mobile phones, prepaid internet access modems, Google T-shirts, and more. Participants will also receive certificate of participation.
Please contact *kiswahili-wiki@googlegroups.com*<kiswahili-wiki@googlegroups.com>if you have any questions. Sign up to make a difference, have fun, and win some cool prizes. *Register now!* <https://services.google.com/fb/forms/kiswahiliwiki/>
-- Ngũgĩ Kĩmani Fundi wa Mitambo
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general
-- "It is time,Africans moved from a knowledge based society to a wise society" Dr. Nii Quaynor
Not that I wish to pour water on this initiative, but am I the only one with the following observations? 1. Most swahili internet users have a good grasp of English 2. Most people find english easier to read than Kiswahili. 3. most people who know kiswahili but not english can barely read and thus rarely use the internet by themselves. Nevertheless, I think the effort will be much appreciated in Tanzania.
On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 12:35 AM, Dennis Kioko <dmbuvi@gmail.com> wrote:
Not that I wish to pour water on this initiative, but am I the only one with the following observations?
1. Most swahili internet users have a good grasp of English 2. Most people find english easier to read than Kiswahili. 3. most people who know kiswahili but not english can barely read and thus rarely use the internet by themselves.
Nevertheless, I think the effort will be much appreciated in Tanzania.
I was about to say so, and further ask: How many people (running M$ Windows) are willing to use it with language set to Kiswahili? -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "If you have nothing good to say about someone, just shut up!." -- Lucky Dube
Google's core motive isn't to get people using Wikipedia in Kiswahili, rather it is to get a large body of Kiswahili text (corpus) for their "organizing information" mission. They need it for machine translation/spelling-correction/etc and soon after for speech synthesis/recognition as well. The good news is that Kiswahili, as a language, won't get left behind simply because it doesn't have a sizeable corpus freely available (there are some non-free ones available and they're also not that large).
From the public's perspective: it doesn't really matter if anyone uses it, the point is that it's there *if* anyone ever needs it. And from a research perspective: a huge Kiswahili corpus *freely availble* (for any use).
From this it's a short leap to having a functioning mobile-phone spellcheck (and complete locale) for Kiswahili. Nokia, as the runaway leader in mobile phones today (especially in the developing world), should be at the forefront of this.
But everyone stands to benefit anyway since Wikipedia will be the guardian of the data, not Google. With respect to Google, even though they have lots of content, I think I'd have to say: "Content is not king. Strategy is king." Saidi On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 2:21 AM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo@gmail.com>wrote:
On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 12:35 AM, Dennis Kioko <dmbuvi@gmail.com> wrote:
Not that I wish to pour water on this initiative, but am I the only one with the following observations?
1. Most swahili internet users have a good grasp of English 2. Most people find english easier to read than Kiswahili. 3. most people who know kiswahili but not english can barely read and thus rarely use the internet by themselves.
Nevertheless, I think the effort will be much appreciated in Tanzania.
I was about to say so, and further ask: How many people (running M$ Windows) are willing to use it with language set to Kiswahili?
-- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "If you have nothing good to say about someone, just shut up!." -- Lucky Dube
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general
participants (5)
-
Dennis Kioko -
Judy Okite -
Ngũgĩ Kĩmani -
Odhiambo Washington -
saidimu apale