Wikimania

Submissions/Using partnerships to increase access to Wikipedia on mobile

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This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2012.

Submission no. 686
Title of the submission

Using Partnerships to increase access to Wikipedia on Mobile

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation)

Presentation

Author of the submission

Amit Kapoor

Kul Takanao Wadhwa


E-mail address

akapoor@wikimedia.org

kwadhwa@wikimedia.org


Username

Kul

Country of origin

USA

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)

Wikimedia Foundation

Personal homepage or blog
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

One of the strategic priorities of the Wikimedia Foundation is to increase reach to 1 billion by 2015. The current reach is around 500 million, and it's believed that a significant percentage of the next 500 million will be readers from the developing world whose primary, and sometimes first, access to the internet (and hence Wikipedia) is via a mobile device. However, the mere proliferation of mobile devices doesn't create access alone. Variable cost of data fees can create a barrier to access, often to those who can benefit most from free knowledge. To address this barrier, the Wikimedia Foundation has embarked on a partnership program, whereby a mobile operator agrees to waive data fees when people access a version of Wikipedia on their network. As of March 2012, WMF has announced two of these partnerships, to Orange and Telenor, with a combined customer base of 205 million. We expect to have announced additional operators by the time of Wikimania as well. The presentation will explain the strategy and show data that supports it. Additionally, we will exhibit specific launch cases where the program has deployed and discuss impact, measurement, and learnings. Finally, we'll talk about the next phase of the program and discuss what can be done to maximize these partnerships in support of the mission.

Track

WikiCulture and Community; Research, Analysis, and Education; Technology and Infrastructure -->

Length of presentation/talk


Interested attendees

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  1. --Guaka (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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