Wiki Loves Africa is a program organized by the Wikimedia community which seeks to improve the representation and availability of rich African content on the Wikipedia site. They do this through an annual contest that calls for people to contribute media (photo, video, audio) that depicts the African culture to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation. The contest began in 2014 and has continued since.
The theme of the contest changes each year. In 2014, the theme was ‘
Cuisine’, then ‘
Cultural Fashion and Adornment’ in 2015, and
‘Music and Danse’ for the 2016 edition.
The theme for the 2017 photo contest is
Wiki Loves Africa People at work. Therefore, participants are expected to submit photographs, videos and audio files that document all manner of occupations undertaken across the continent – formal and informal, contemporary and ancient, business-oriented.
All submitted media content will be considered by a jury of international Wikipedians and professional photographers, who will then select the winners of the contest. They’ll judge the media content based on technical quality, originality, and potential usefulness and overall value of the image (including its licensing) to the Wikimedia projects.
The prizes to be won are given below.
- 1st prize: US$600
- 2nd prize: US$400
- 3rd prize: US$200
- Organizer price: US$200
- Photo Essay Prizes: Women Working US$200
- Photo Essay Prizes: Rare, Fading or Threatened Traditional Craft, Style or Way of Working US$200
- Additional prizes in each category: A Wiki Loves Africa powerpack + t-shirt
Rules of the competition are given below:
- All photos must be taken by the person submitting them.
- Uploads can only be done from the 1st of October 2017 to 30th of November 2017. You can enter media that was taken at any time, even historical photographs (as long as you own the copyright on these photographs), but they must be uploaded during those dates.
- Images must be free of watermarks or embedded signatures to be eligible. All entries will automatically be submitted under a free license such as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0) (or in the public domain).
- All eligible pictures will be categorized under Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2017, this will be automatically assigned during the upload process.
- Participants must enable e-mail on Wikimedia Commons so they can be contacted should their image be chosen for a prize.
- Other files, such as audio and video, are welcome. For videos, please submit files in the following formats: .ogg or .ogv or .webm
The contest lasts for 2 months. It began on the 1
st of October and will end on the 30
th of November.
The contest is open to the general public.
Winners will be announced on or before February 2018.
* Deadline for submissions: 30
th November, 2017.
* For more info visit the
Wiki Loves Africa Official Page
* Click
here for FAQ
Feature Image:
Wikimedia Meta-Wiki
