On the 1st October the international Wiki Loves Africa (wikilovesafrica.org) photographic contest launched across Africa (and beyond). Since its launch, there have been 2,655 photographic entries and many food-related events have been held in Uganda, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, Malawi, Ethiopia, Tunisia and South Africa, with more events, presentations, upload marathons, cook-offs and food walkabouts planned towards the end of the contest.
There is just under 2 weeks of the competition to run. The competition will close on Sunday, the 30th of November 2014.
Wiki Loves Africa (wikilovesafrica.org) is an international competition where people can celebrate the diversity, richness and complexity of this continent we live on. The competition was started to encourage people from all walks of life to contribute images of Africa to Wikipedia, the least covered of any of the regions on Wikipedia.
Competitors enter by taking photographs, video or audio related to that year’s universal theme and entering it into the competition. There is a specific focus on encouraging people from the continent to enter images of their daily lives, but the competition is open to people from around the world. All entries are donated to Wikimedia Commons with the intention of being used to illustrate relevant existing articles or as a basis to begin new articles on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation. The images donated are also available for use on the internet and beyond, under a free Creative Commons license.
For the first Wiki Loves Africa competition in 2014 the chosen theme is Cuisine.
This universal, yet culturally-specific theme encapsulates all that is glorious and challenging about our continent. The competition offers the ability for anyone to contribute to a greater global understanding of Africa and its complexity. Cuisine presents a visually rich, evocative subject matter that establishes identity and enables understanding.
The competition accepts any media that is related to the production and consumption of food from across the continent, including the foods, dishes, crops, husbandry, culinary art, cooking methods, utensils, food markets, festivals, culinary events, famine food and any other issues that are related to cuisine on the African continent. You can view the images that have been uploade on this page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Africa_2014
The international jury is made up of professionals from different locations (South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, France, United Kingdom and Tunisia) and across disciplines that range from professional photographer to veteran Wikipedians, to the vice-principal of an internationally renowned cooking school. The jury will select the best of the entries based on their relevance, photographic skill and ability to convey the subject matter clearly to a curious audience.
To raise interest in the competition and to create individual ‘ownership’ of the competition, Wiki Loves Africa has started a crowdfunding campaign on Indigogo to raise money for prizes. You can access this campaign here: http://www.indiegogo.com/project/preview/92a2b9a3
The prizes for the contest have been selected and will be the following ones:
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1st prize: Smartphone Galaxy note 4 + An Africa-published cookbook + Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + print of the participant winning picture
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2nd prize: Smartphone + An Africa-published cookbook + Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + print of the 2nd prize picture
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3rd prize: US$200 Amazon gift + An Africa-published cookbook + Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + print of the 3rd prize picture
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Jury Prize: US$200 Amazon gift voucher + Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + print of the Jury Prize
The international Wiki Loves Africa competition is organised by the Wikimedia community that created Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, and built the free media archive Wikimedia Commons. Wiki Loves Africa is supported by WikiAfrica at the Africa Centre and is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and Foundation Orange.