Dear Wikimedia CH - Community,

At the Bern University of Applied Science we are currently working on a project proposal which we are planning to submit in response to the current AAL Call for Proposals (European Commission: "Ambient Assisted Living"; the Call-2009-2 deals with questions related to "ICT-based solutions for the advancement of social interaction of elderly people").

 
Our project's main goal is to facilitate and to promote access of elderly and early retired people to online collaboration projects. To do so, we would like to collaborate with two types of online communities: communities particularly targeted at elderly people  and communities with a mixed target/user group (introducing elderly people in online settings which at present are dominated by a younger user base).

 
At first glance, Wikimedia would be a perfect partner for us to cover the second type of community for several reasons:

• With its large and lively communities covering several projects, Wikimedia already has a large user base and offers a large palette of possible activities.


• Because of their openness and large visibility, innovations implemented on Wikimedia projects can be expected to spread quickly, which would ensure maximum impact.


• Wikimedia is used to collaborating in international settings and has different local chapters in Europe which can serve as the primary contacts for a project financed by the European Commission and which has to be carried out in several European countries in parallel.


• Wikimedia appears to be very open with regard to innovations.


• One of our project's aims is to boost open production by harnessing the reservoir of potentially active elderly people. Therefore, we would clearly expect Wikimedia to be on the winning side of our project.

From Nando Stöcklin I learned that Wikimedia CH is about to see some major changes in the Board and that it is therefore unlikely that the association will be able to committ itself to a large project spanning over 2-3 years by the end of April.

So I decided, as he suggested, to address you individually over the mailing list. My question therefore is: Who among the Wikimedia CH community finds the project interesting and would be ready to take an active part in it? (The exact type of the engagement would depend on the number of people ready to participate as well as on their availability and interests - or to put it in other words: it is open to negotiation).

You'll find attached a short project summary. I can give you more details about the project on request (details are evolving as the project planning goes on - so it does not make much sense to post them widely at this point).

Feel free also just to e-mail me your comments about the project. I'm curious to hear from you, and of course, I am also curious to get to know the new board members by the end of this month!

Best regards,

Beat Estermann

P.S.: Feel free to write me in French or German. Italian is ok too, but my response will be in French, English or German (just indicate your preference).

<<Project_Summary_20090304.pdf>>

_____________________________________________________

Beat Estermann
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

Berner Fachhochschule
Kompetenzzentrum Public Management und E-Government
Morgartenstrasse 2a
Postfach 305
CH-3000 Bern 22 

beat.estermann <at> bfh.ch
www.e-government.bfh.ch

T+41 31 848 34 30
T direkt +41 31 848 34 38
F +41 31 848 34 31