Our WikiChallenge competition teaches African students how to post online: unique stories which explain an aspect of their culture, their daily lives, their history... The winning schools are located in 3 out of the 9 African countries which took part. Organized in partnership with Wiki in Africa, this competition relies on the digital kits we previously supplied to schools which do not have textbooks or internet access. With our offline kit, they can access educational content on a daily basis, discovering digital technology and the world around them.
A competition to help children attending our Digital Schools
Our competition is aimed at pupils aged 9 to 13 years attending our Digital Schools. Separately from the competition, these school children - who do not have textbooks or the internet - have been connected to offline educational content (Khan Academy, Wikipedia, Nomad Education, Vikidia, etc.) with the Raspberry-Pi tablets and servers that we provide to primary schools in more than 1,000 establishments in 15 countries.
For this 3rd edition, 100 establishments in total took part in this writing competition, in 9 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal and Tunisia.
The children at Digital Schools can now learn how to post a little about their daily lives on Vikidia. It will enable the school pupils to discover digital technology, and to make progress in writing while sharing their local culture with the rest of the world.
Teamwork in the classroom
At school, with help from their teachers, the children created articles on themes which are important to their community. The students must use an encyclopedic writing style to post on , using software specially developed with our charity partner Wiki in Africa.
Vikidia is an encyclopedia for 8- to 13-year-olds. It works in the same way as Wikipedia with the particular feature that it invites children and teenagers to contribute with the adult participants. It has more than 27,000 articles in French in open source.
The pupils and teachers were supported and trained by educational mediators, the Orange Foundation and volunteer Vikidians.
€5,000 in supplies for the 3 winning schools
The Orange Foundation panel met on June 4 and chose the 3 overall winners (international winners) which will each receive €5,000 in school supplies. The prizes will be awarded at a ceremony organized as of the return to school in 2021 in each of the 9 participating countries.
The panel also appointed two winning schools in each country (national winners) which will respectively receive €1,000 and €2,000 of school supplies, including satchels, notebooks and computers, among other things.
1000 Digital Schools now supported by the Foundation
In total, since 2014 the Orange Foundation has supported 1,000 Digital Schools that teach more than 500,000 children in 15 African countries in 2021. This initiative is one of our leading digital inclusion activities to ensure equal opportunities to access knowledge.
