African KM4Dev Community Week

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The African KM4Dev Community Week is over! The African KM4Dev Community era is starting

The African KM4Dev Community Week (25-29 March 2013) involved about 30 KM4Dev members stemming from, focusing on or living in Africa. The week culminated in an online event on 28 March which brought together about 15 participants from ten different countries and based across five different locations. The objective of the week and of the synchronous event were to bring together the diversity of African KM4Dev networks, to unite, share and learn about each other’s dynamics, conversations and to help find a better place for African KM4Dev members in the global community, as well as pave the way for future focused conversations that matter for African or Africa-focused members of the community. The whole week and related events were hosted by the Addis Ababa/Ethiopia KM4Dev group [1]. The African KM4Dev Community was an awarded proposal from the KM4Dev innovation fund 2012 (http://wiki.km4dev.org/KM4Dev_Innovation_Fund_2012). See the original proposal here [2].


List of final outputs

The final outputs of the African KM4Dev Community Week entail:

List of African KM4Dev Community Week participants

All members in this list were invited to pair up (go through profiles of members & identify who they want to buddy with )and start the buddying and discuss on any of the topics mentioned below and beyond. Pairs of people were expected to do it anytime before the main online event (March 28).

Anyone in the KM4Dev community that was African, based in Africa or working in Africa was welcome to join the discussions and documentation efforts, e.g. members from:


Topics which might be relevant for the buddying could include:

  • What African KM4Dev members benefit currently and how can we make KM4Dev a more helpful community of practice? (this topic is the only one that has to be addressed by all buddying members)
  • Day-to-day KM challenges faced by African KM4Dev members
  • Possibilities to get involved in KM4Dev and finding better orientation
  • Organizing a KM4Dev event in Africa (who and how?)
  • Novel approaches in managing KM4Dev meetings and events
  • Practical examples on contribution of KM4Dev events in solving real problems
  • Development of simple & accessible knowledge sharing tools for better integration of KM4Dev community

But of course any topic that members think relevant can also be shared during the week. So the main event will be used as group platform to bringing together the experiences from the buddying conversations.

Documenting of key insights, suggestions or recommendations (in a word document or directly on the wiki) on the process and ideas that were shared was required.


Instructions given to get prepared for the African KM4Dev Community Week

What will take place on March 28?

It will be an online meeting and participants who has already indicated their interest will be soon provided with few instruction and a link from the service provider in order to enter in to the meeting room.You are kindly asked to follow the instruction and practice on the link any time before the meeting.

Agenda and timing of the synchronous meeting

  • (15’) Introduction: Who is who? & who is around? and introducing what will be covered?
  • (60’) Main insights along with interactive discussion from the buddying process (about the field of KM for development)
  • (45’) Main insights about recommendations for making KM4Dev a more useful community of practice
  • (30’) Commitments and actions: what could we do to contribute to making KM4Dev a more useful place and to build up on this African community week: Individually, Organizationally, as a network
  • (15’) Reflections about the experience: lessons learned and final reflections + next steps (including reflecting upon this in respective African networks).

This online meeting will be facilitated by Ewen Le Borgne (Assisted by Metadel and Elias) from Addis Ababa with possible back up (in case of Internet connectivity issues) by Marc Lepage (Senegal) and Davide Piga (Nairobi).

Timing

  • Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Kampala/Uganda - 1 - 4pm
  • Capetown/South Africa, Zambia & Zimbabwe - 12 - 3pm
  • Acra/Ghana, Dakar/Senegal & Burkina Faso - 10am - 1pm
  • D.R. of Congo; 11am - 2pm

How will it work?

  • Interested members will indicate their participation about the buddying process and/or the synchronous event on the KM4Dev for Africa group or by email (See contact address below): Prior to the main community meeting day KM4Dev members across the continent would go through short profiles of other African networks and vice versa. This would help members identify individuals who they can easily buddy up with, because they share something in common. This would also allow to know about each other’s network activities. They would have discussions via Skype, email, chat or any other channel they deem relevant but would document interesting insights from their conversation. They may do so also using video/audio recordings (e.g. Google Hangouts etc.); This will take place from March 25-29 2013 and of course members can probably buddy up before the week, that gives them even more opportunity to share information.
  • On the fore last day of the week (on March 28) - a three-hour synchronous event (using online video-conferencing facilities which will be leased) will be arranged to discuss what Africans can gain from KM4Dev and what kind of activities and discussions could help them benefit from the community even more. Members could also identify key development issues relevant to KM4Dev networks in Africa and think about using conversations around these issues as outputs to build simple and easily accessible knowledge tools (wikis/CoPs/webpages/document sharing etc) around the identified themes. Further points that members think relevant can also be shared.
  • Following the week, members that have taken part in these conversations could organize the conversations identified as relevant in the week. They could continue these conversations on the main KM4Dev mailing list or on the KM4Dev Africa Ning site (or any other platform deemed relevant).

Who to contact?

The coordinators will work on behalf of Ethiopia/Addis Ababa KM4Dev group to enhance member interactions and ensure all activities are well prepared and documented. If further information is needed about African community week please contact the lead coordinators email: Metadel Lemma Dessalegne(metilem[at]yahoo.com) or Elias Damtew (elodamtew[at]yahoo.com).