Our First Step in Indonesia – Global Tangerang School

Last week was our first step in sharing Kiwix in Tangerang, Indonesia. Together with Wikimedia Indonesia and Institut Teknologi Tangerang Selatan (ITTS), we journeyed to the outskirt of Tangerang to visit a local school – Global Tangerang. With 109 students enrolled, 6 teachers, and 5 classrooms, they have insufficient resources to spare for a stable internet subscription.

 

What did we do?

We shared the wonders of Kiwix and demonstrated how to setup a Kiwix server using their current PC to students (age 14-16 years old). In our demo, we installed Kiwix using a USB-thumbdrive and showed them the ability to browse Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia, and several educational videos offline, serving wirelessly at zero cost.

 

What did we want to achieve?

At this current stage, we wanted to share what an offline Content Management System (CMS) can achieve and its ability to provide free educational content to areas of limited/no internet connectivity. With an aim to lower the barriers to education by providing accessible educational content to underprivileged children or rural areas in order to assist their educational journey.

 

What did I learn?

To my surprise, Kiwix is quite well-known among the EduTech folks in Jakarta, Indonesia. Kiwix’s message to spread offline internet has reached certain parts of Java. However, this open-sourced technology ability to democratize knowledge, through an offline CMS wasn’t widespread. Moreover, the knowledge in setting up, recycling, and utilizing old PCs/phones in order to deploy Kiwix was siloed. 

Not to worry, this presents an exciting challenge for an archipelago with over 18,110 islands, where this is just the beginning of our journey in Indonesia. Onwards we shall march in democratizing knowledge by providing accessible educational content. Till next time!