Wikiyetu's Purpose:

The aim of "Wikiyetu" (Kiswahili for "Our Wiki"), is to provide an offline wikipedia for those with simply no Internet access. This is especially so for schools in developing countries where school libraries are badly stocked (literally empty!). The project involves the conversion of the online wikipedia (that we all know and love so much!) into an offline wikipedia. The offline wikipedia will use the platform independent mozilla so that the DVD can boot on any platform; Linux, Windows, FreeBSD etc. This makes it even more pervasive (and definitely more knowledge-packed!) than Microsoft Encarta currently is. It will enable easy access to free educational content by marginalised schools.

Objectives:

  • 1. Make online wikipedia offline.
  • 2. Make offline wikipedia bootable from DVD.
  • 3. Make offline wikipedia easily available to schools and students. 
  • 4. Make offline wikipedia cheaply available to schools ie at the cost of only a DVD. Each DVD costs only Kshs 50 (~70 US cts.) .
  • 5. Make vast knowledge resources easily available to offline communities eg in Africa.

Task list:

  • 1. Python script to store the wikipedia XML dump inside an sqlite database.
  • 2. Library to execute SQL using javascript and display it using XUL and XHTML.
  • 3. Auto-boot up scripts for Linux and Windows.
  • 4. Installable XUL extension to be used for browsing wikipeda content.
  • 5. Wikiyetu mozilla skins to give wikiyetu the kind of look and feel that we want.
  • 6. Develop Windows and Linux installers for Wikiyetu.

Articles:

1. A Wikiyetu article can be found at http://www.opensource.or.ke/ (by Laban Mwangi)