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Kiwix

About the Project

This project is one of the 2021 WISE Awards finalists. 

 

Context and Issue 

Four billion people have little to no internet access, because of data cost, lack of infrastructure, or censorship. With Covid-19 sending millions of kids home without the means to continue learning, waiting for connectivity to eventually reach everyone in some distant future is not a viable strategy anymore.

 

Solution and Impact

Kiwix is a free, open-source software that can compress any website into a single file so that people can store the entirety of Wikipedia, join MOOCs or watch Youtube classes on their phone and access them wherever they are, even when there is no connectivity. Though it focuses on educational content, Kiwix is fully agnostic and provides access to thousands of different platforms in hundreds of languages by running on computers, phones and even on small, off-the-shelf nanoservers that can feed a whole classroom while powered by a portable solar panel.

 

Future Developments 

Because any organisation can easily use it for their own purpose, Kiwix quickly scaled to reach 4 million users in 220 countries and territories last year. Be it for medical students in India, community schools in Malawi, the Andes and the Pacific; but also in refugee camps everywhere: use cases are endless. The objective is to reach 100 million users by 2025.

May 05, 2021 (last update 05-05-2021)