African KM4Dev Community Week

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Get prepared for the African KM4Dev Community Week! It's started!

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

Specific times that the sessions will start respect to your country can be found here

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

Process / focus of the 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 from Addis Ababa with possible back up (in case of Internet connectivity issues) by Marc Lepage (Senegal) and Davide Piga (Nairobi).

The event will be documented on: [1]

List of members who are ready for the buddying process!

All members in this list are 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 below and beyond. pairs are expected to do it anytime from now before the main online event (March 28).

You are kindly asked to inform Elias [elodamtew@yahoo.com] or Metadel [metilem@yahoo.com] when you start the buddying so that we will be able to keep track of who is already on the buddying and who is not.

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.

Documentation is very required!

Documenting of key insights on the process and ideas you shared is a very important task so that could be shared on the main online event. You can make documentation of insights, suggestions or recommendations in a word document or directly document them on the wiki.


What is it all about?

African KM4Dev Community Week brings together the diversity of African KM4Dev networks under the auspices of the Ethiopia group (http://www.km4dev.org/group/km4dev-addis-ababa-ethiopia) 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. This week would help connect African KM4Dev members with one another and gain from each other's lessons as well as develop ideas for activities that could benefit them in the future in the global community.

The African KM4Dev Community is an awarded proposal from the KM4Dev innovation fund 2012 (http://wiki.km4dev.org/KM4Dev_Innovation_Fund_2012). See the original proposal here [2].

Who is invited to participate?

Anyone in the KM4Dev community that is African, based in Africa or working in Africa would be welcome to join the discussions and documentation efforts. This week encourages sharing and learning from each other’s experiences. We particularly hope to see members of the following KM4Dev/SA-GE networks participate:

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 them by email: Metadel Lemma (metilem[at]yahoo.com) or Elias Damtew (elodamtew[at]yahoo.com).