Enhancing Engagement in ICANN in East Africa

Made Possible by:

It is our pleasure to present to you a summary of ICANNWiki’s program to enhance local content and engagement in East Africa. This work was accomplished in a few short months and has grown rapidly. It was with Amazon's support that we were able to identify local needs, provide funding for general event expenses and develop a program that was educational, sustainable and scalable. Stakeholders in East Africa are now able to refine their connections to the Internet governance space and making it theirs. Without Amazon's support, this world we know as the Internet governance and policy space would be less rich, diverse and empowered. Thank you for your support of our project.

Background

After ICANN 55 in Marrakech, a number of stakeholders from ICANN’s Fellow and NextGen programs expressed a desire to replicate the Edit-a-thon in their home countries. Specifically, Bonface Witaba (ICANN Fellow, Kenya), Oyewole Oginni (NextGen, Cameroon) and Matogoro Jabhera (NextGen, Tanzania) approached our team to build home-grown events that would incorporate local ICTs as well as ICANN with an aim to broaden awareness of relevant topics within the Internet governance space.

Internet Governance Youth Community Workshop - University of Dodoma

Much like the ICANNWiki Edit-a-thon itself, the events unfolded in a granular fashion. Two small events were held in Nairobi, Kenya, where Bonface Witaba explained the project and its goals. These two events had relatively small participation, but set the stage for our event at the University of Dodoma which had a fantastic turn-out. Event details are as follows: