Wikipedia:Offline Internet Resources for Latin America

Offline Innovation - Bridging the Digital Divide in Latin America, a 5-minute documentary about this campaign's distribution of Wikipedia's medical content in Kiwix through the Internet in a Box.

Offline Internet Resources for Latin America is a campaign by researchers and students at School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University to provide access to Wikipedia, Wikimedia resources, and other open educational resources to people in Latin America. The campaign has been ongoing since 2013. Every cohort of students has a different interest, so in each different project of the campaign, the outreach and research has a different focus in research scope, content sharing, and region in Latin America. Some common elements among many projects include sharing health information on Wikipedia and distributing offline Wikipedia content through the Internet in a Box devices.

This project has tie-ins with multiple other stakeholder groups. Briefly, this project is of interest to Wikimedia communities in New York City, WikiProject Medicine, Spanish language outreach projects, Kiwix, and offline deployment teams.

Project coordinators

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Columbia School of International and Public Affairs

• Anne Nelson (user:Anelsona) - professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Has participated in Wikipedia:Education program regularly from 2011-2016.
• Kendall Stewart - program administrator at School of International and Public Affairs
• Mariela Machado Fantacchiotti (user:Marielavzla) - Technical advisor for ICT projects at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University - Program Manager at Engineering for Change
• Ramona Sunderwirth - physician and professor of emergency medicine at Mt. Sinai
• Lane Rasberry (User:Bluerasberry - Consumer Reports and Wikipedia
• the offline Wikipedia team, including meta:Internet-in-a-box which presents Kiwix
  • In 2017 they Kiwix has its own WMF-funded development project described at meta:Grants:Project/Stephane/Kiwix/Offline medical
  • WikiProject Medicine is curating an app
  • The idea is that Kiwix makes an app package, WikiProject Medicine fills the package with medical content, the app is loaded onto the Internet-in-a-box device, and this team deploys it in Latin America
• Wikimedia NYC, the Wikimedia chapter in NYC which is local to Columbia University

Media

• Lehman, Laura; Fantacchiotti, Mariela Machado; Sylvia, Emily; Bercu, Chiara; Verburg, Gary; Johnson, Tricia; Diaz, Ana Carolina (19 April 2016). "The Cuban Internet". Foreign Affairs.
• Frías, Gabriela; Machado, Mariela (22 December 2016). "El ejemplo cubano para solucionar la brecha digital en el mundo". CNNEspañol.com (in European Spanish).
• Nelson, Katherine; Gonzales, Lucia del Pilar Haro; Millán, Maria González; Suito, Jorge Salem; Nelson, Katherine; Gonzales, Lucia del Pilar Haro; Millán, Maria González; Suito, Jorge Salem (8 June 2017). "Information for the Unconnected". Foreign Affairs.
• Earth Institute; Nelson, Katherine; Gonzales, Lucia Haro; Millan, Maria Gonzalez; Suito, Jorge Salem (13 June 2017). "Internet-in-a-Box: Connectivity for the Rest of the World". Earth Institute.
• Nelson, Katherine; Gonzales, Lucia Haro; Millan, Maria Gonzalez; Suito, Jorge Salem (14 June 2017). "Internet-in-a-box—connectivity for the rest of the world". Phys.org.
• Nelson, Anne (2 August 2017). "Learning to Teach ICT4D: 10 Principles from 20 years in the Classroom". Engineering For Change.
• bluerasberry (5 August 2017). "Sharing Wikipedia offline medical information in the Dominican Republic". The Signpost.
• bluerasberry (23 October 2017). "Offline Wikipedia developed at OFF.NETWORK Content Hackathon". The Signpost.

Class events

• New Media and Development at Columbia University, a pilot class at the 2011 founding of the Wikipedia Education Program
• SIPA meetup April 2017
• SIPA meetup January 2017
• SIPA meetup May 2017

Regional programs

• Cuba
• Dominican Republic
• Peru

Presentations

• Opportunities and Challenges for Wikipedia in the Arab World
• Nelson, Anne (23 February 2013), "Using Wikipedia in a Multilingual Classroom", Wikipedia Day 2013 NYC, New York City: Internet Society New York Chapter
• Nelson, Anne (8 October 2016), "Wikipedia Cuba: Challenges and Opportunities", WikiConference North America 2016 San Diego, New York City: United States Wikimedians
• Astrakhan, Yuri; Dutt, Avik; Nelson, Anne; Backer, Alice (15 January 2017), "Multinational Panel", Wikipedia Day 2016 NYC, New York City: Internet Society New York Chapter

Wikimedia Foundation grant requests

• Wikipedia Project for Offline Education in Medicine (POEM) March 2017
• Offline Wikipedia in Greece September 2017 (not Latin America, but one of the team physicians was using the software, hardware, and deployment process)
• Offline Internet Resources for Rural Schools in Peru November 2017

Contact

For local Wikipedia support contact user:bluerasberry, lrasberryconsumer.org.