2022 2023

IMPACT

REPORT

Introduction

Looking Ahead

A Year in Review

Message From Our ED

It Takes a Village

AfroCROWD in the News

AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022-2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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“Championing Communities of African Descent on and in Wikimedia and Improving the Relevance of Wikipedia and Open Technology to Communities of Color”

INTRODUCTION

AfroCrowd IImpact Report 2022-2023

Afro Free Culture Crowdsourcing Wikimedia (AfroCROWD) is an initiative and Wikimedia User Group that seeks to champion people of African descent on and in Wikimedia projects in content amplification and editorship training.

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AfroCROWD is leading one of the largest advocacy organizations promoting safely accessible resources for online communities of color globally. A non-profit initiative, AfroCROWD has operated throughout the United States and the Caribbean and, with partners worldwide, has developed programming in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. This position is an exciting leadership opportunity to expand AfroCROWDprogramming, message the Queer community, and influence future programs and staff development.

Since 2015, AfroCROWD has demonstrated rapid growth and compelling community traction, priming it for swift expansion offering training services in Wikipedia and Wikimedia project editing to galleries, libraries, galleries and museums, educational institutions and civil society, and international organizations around the world. Drawing insights helps organizations harness the power of open knowledge to advance knowledge about communities of African descent, address gender and diversity gaps in online information, and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). AfroCROWD offers partners improved knowledge of one of the world's most active one-of-a-kind global photo archives and leverages its leadership in the global Wikimedia movement to train participants to edit Wikipedia, Wiki Commons, and other Wikimedia projects.

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We are thrilled to begin 2023 continuing strong partnerships and creating spaces where all people of African descent can see themselves and their stories.

AFROCROWD

YOUR STORIES MATTER

This year has been an amazing year of reconnections and rebuilding. We’ve had many opportunities to connect in new ways. One area we would like to highlight here that is very promising is our work with Wiki Youth. We connected with Wiki Vibrance as well as a new project with a video-game developer focused on languages. We also connected with students in universities and has began our HBCU projects in Ernest and our work with QTBIPOC consultant to ensure awareness and connection to our queer AfroCROWD community. We've also grown in people and continue to develop new outreach and ideas while also firming up our goals for the year.

It's exciting to share some of the developments. Included in this is our work with the influencer community, podcast, and other innovative communications. As has been our aim, we are also expanding in the international communities and civil societies. Looking forward to what's next in this amazing year!

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- Sherry Antoine, Executive Director

AfroCrowd IImpact Report 2022-2023

A year to Reload

AFROCROWD

LOOKING BACK: IN REVIEW

While this year we focused on building into a more targeted approach to our campaigns, we are making good progress in comparison to our yearly goals. Take a look at some of our highlights in the chart above and list below.

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• Notice our editing goals are on track for success, slightly ahead of expectations.

AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022

7TH ANNIVERSARY OF AFROCROWD

February marked the 7th anniversary of AfroCROWD and one of the busiest parts of our year. We held an event with the Metropolitan Museum of Art focused on the AfroFuture exhibit and a lost community in New York. We held another with the National Science Foundation working with linguistics students focusing on the languages of the African diaspora. We connected with students and faculty at Oregon State University and at Howard University to work on editing about Black history and connecting each HBCU student with African Wikipedia and Wikidata editors.

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Then we launched Wiki Unseen, which not only increased interest in illustrations on Wikipedia but also served as a focal point to generate interest in undocumented and unseen figures in Black history. This resulted in the community locating usable photographs for the featured items and people, and increasing awareness of the need for the presence of BIPOC individuals on Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wiki Commons. We also collaborated with artists to bridge the knowledge gap for hard-to-locate individuals.

LULU

In August, we presented at Wikimania 2022 and hosted a mixer that served as an exposition of new ideas emerging in the Wiki community. One of the new groups that we celebrated during the event was Wiki Vibrance, which AfroCROWD worked with to create their logo. We also celebrated Lulu, a game app that focuses on African languages. We talked about Wiki Caribbean, which we have been a part of since the beginning, and we helped lead and presented our work in the community. The event was a great success, and we have continued to collaborate with these groups to this day.

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WIKIMANIA

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This year at Wikimania 2022, we organized an expo for African and Caribbean editors. We collaborate with Wiki Vibrance, an international project focused on youth and youth-related issues. In addition, we have presented at Wiki Loves Women and we are currently running a campaign with Wiki Caribbean to add more Caribbean leaders to Wiki Data.

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AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022-2023

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GENEVA BLACK LEADERS PROJECT

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In December, our HBCU ambassador traveled to Geneva for a conference focused on the African Diaspora. He connected with participants about the work of AfroCROWD and worked with partners to collect information for further work within the international diaspora. We look forward to working more towards this and collaborating with the World Bank partnership in the New Year.

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Building on knowledge gained from pioneering efforts: We partnered in "translatathons" and "recordathons" to take a deeper view of the African Diaspora in a global context. This 360-degree look at information enables greater availability and additional information that can be read, seen, heard, and discussed in a multicultural Wiki context. In 2022, we invested more resources in Wikipedia editing, Wikidata training, WikiCommons uploads and speakers for virtual symposiums, similar to the series we implemented during Black History Month and Women's History Month edit-a-thons in 202.

AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022-2023

VISIBLE WIKI WOMEN IN STEM

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In December, our HBCU ambassador traveled to Geneva for a conference on the African Diaspora. He connected with participants about the work of AfroCROWD and worked with partners to collect information for further work within the international diaspora. We look forward to working more towards this and collaborating with the World Bank partnership in the New Year.

TRANSLATATHONS / RECORDATHONS

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AFROCROWD AT OSU

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We also traveled to Portland, Oregon to reconnect with partners in Oregon for the first time since the pandemic and discovered new partners in the process. Our director presented the work of AfroCROWD to the faculty at Oregon State University. The event coincided with a talk about upcoming events for Black History Month. Later on, she was invited to speak for a podcast at the school.

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During this week, we separately connected with the Albina Arts Center, a space dedicated to the Black community in Portland and a historic landmark. We look forward to continuing to work with the canter on future campaigns focused on the history of the Black Community in Portland and the PNW.

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AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022-2023

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CULTURAL AND ETHICALLY DIVERSE KNOWLEDGE PROMOTION

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This year, we have several other projects in the works to continue promoting cultural and ethnic diversity. This includes our partnerships with the HBCU community and international organizations. We have recently hired an LGBTQ+ consultant to improve our programming, and we have also reached out to a program coordinator who focuses on Africa and HBCUs.

CELEBRATING WIKI YOUTH

In 2017, AfroCROWD began a first-of-its-kind Oral Knowledge Project with Columbia University Oral History Masters Program students to start exploring oral knowledge on Wikipedia via Wikimedia Commons. We continued the project with the Wiki Tongues program to record video capture of participants to upload to Wiki. This included oral knowledge captured from immigrants and even a participant in Ghana who had zoomed in to participate in his mother tongue. AfroCROWD is proud to continue participating in this space as a facilitator with Lulu and the Lulu African Oral Knowledge Partnership and the African Heritage project in Nigeria.

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We also presented in celebration of Wiki Indaba; we joined Wiki Vibrance and the African Knowledge Initiative's efforts to celebrate youth in the Black community.

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AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022-2023

AfroCROWD in Press and Media

AFROCROWD

Click here to see a sampling of AfroCROWD featured in Media and Press over the last year.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the global nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, announced the launch of Wiki Unseen, a collaboration with artists aimed at expanding the visual representation of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) in Wikimedia projects and advancing knowledge equity.

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Launched today, the first iteration of the project, a collaboration with artists from Africa, North America, and the Caribbean, will help to address the visual and written underrepresentation of several Black historical figures on Wikipedia and in media repository Wikimedia Commons. In addition to global artists, the Foundation is collaborating with AfroCROWD.org, a Wikipedia-volunteer led initiative to create and improve information about Black culture and history on Wikipedia, as well as Behance, a social media platform that showcases creative work on the initiative.

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Research shows that Wikipedia articles featuring illustrations increase audience engagement and views, creating an additional point of entry for visual learners and expanding understanding of the information presented. With this in mind, the Wikimedia Foundation and AfroCROWD.org worked together to select 20 Wikipedia articles of BIPOC historical figures without visual representation, further collaborating with Behance to source a list of artists from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean to create portraits of each. This year, the artists will create portraits for six of 20 total historical figures.

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Read more below

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AfroCrowd 2022

AMPLIFYING BLACK AND DIVERSE HISTORIES: THE FOCUS OF NEW WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION

COLLABORATION WITH AFRICAN ARTIST

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Author: Fresh Angle

October 02, 2022

https://freshangleng.com/17437/amplifying-black-and-diverse-histories--the-focus-of-new-wikimedia-foundation-collaboration-with-african-artist

AfroCROWD nominated for a Webby Award

with the team of the

UNSEEN Pilot Illustrations Project.

AFROCROWD

ANNOUNCEMENT!

LOOKING

AHEAD

AFROCROWD

2023

We have a lot more on the way this year for AfroCROWD!

Take a look at some of the projects we have in the works.

AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022-2023

AfroCROWD is looking forward to participating in Wikimania 2023! This year’s theme being This year’s theme is Diversity. Collaboration. Future. We feel like a round peg in a round hole as these themes are at the core of who we are and have been since our inception 8 years ago. This is an exciting time to reconnect with the global community in this way!involved and collaborating in an equitable way.

02 — Wikimania Planning 2023

We have more planned in the Spring and early Summer focusing on the topics of Earth Day, and the environment throughout the Diaspora, our annual Juneteenth celebration, QTBIPOC Pride, and more! Look out for speakers, activities, challenges and events then!

03 — Earth Day/ Juneteenth / Pride + more

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

AFROCROWD

CONNECT WITH US

Sign up for a coming event, we have held at least one a month since 2015, and now hold virtual events with partners all over the world. All are welcome and you don’t need to have any experience.

AfroCrowd — Impact Report 2022-2023