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For five months starting Friday, 68.9 million mobile customers of Smart, Talk 'N Text and Sun Cellular may get unlimited access to open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia, as Smart and Wikimedia Foundation teamed up to bring Wikipedia Zero to the Philippines.

Smart public affairs head Ramon Isberto said this is one way to use technology and mobile communications to drive learning and development.

Wikipedia Zero is relevant in a country where access to both computer terminals and Internet connectivity is still relatively low, but where almost everyone owns a cellphone. We are excited to bring Wikipedia Zero to the country and help create a way to make learning more accessible to millions of Filipinos, he said.

In a news release, Smart noted Wikipedia has 500 million visitors a month, and has 30 million articles in 287 languages, contributed by a global community of 80,000 volunteers.

Under Wikipedia Zero, Smart, Talk N Text, and Sun Cellular subscribers may access m.wikipedia.org, zero.wikipedia.org, the Wikipedia apps and Wikimedia sites on their cell phones without incurring data charges until February 3, 2015.

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Free mobile Wikipedia access launched on Smart network

SMART Communications, Inc. (Smart) recently announced a new partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Part of the global Wikipedia Zero program, the collaboration will give Smart, Talk N Text, and Sun Cellulars 68.9 million customers unlimited free access to Wikipedia on their mobile devices.

We have always looked for and promoted ways to use technology and mobile communications to drive learning and consequently, development. Wikipedia Zero is relevant in a country where access to both computer terminals and Internet connectivity is still relatively low, but where almost everyone owns a cellphone. We are excited to bring Wikipedia Zero to the country and help create a way to make learning more accessible to millions of Filipinos, said Ramon R. Isberto, head of Public Affairs at Smart.

Wikipedia is the worlds largest online encyclopedia, visited by 500 million people each month, according to Comscore. Wikipedia contains more than 30 million articles in 287 languages, contributed by a global community of 80,000 volunteers.

Under Wikipedia Zero, starting Sept. 5, 2014 until Feb. 3, 2015, all Smart, Talk N Text, and Sun Cellular subscribers who will access m.wikipedia.org, zero.wikipedia.org, the Wikipedia apps (available for iOS and Android devices) or any other Wikimedia sites on their cellphone, can do so without incurring data charges.

Smart has been a terrific supporter of Wikimedia, and now were very happy to formalize our relationship with Wikipedia Zero, said Carolynne Schloeder, head of global mobile partnerships at the Wikimedia Foundation. Smarts emphasis on education is aligned with Wikimedias global mission, driven locally by Wikimedia Philippines.

In addition to the free use of Wikipedia by Smart subscribers, Filipino Wikipedia editors are also participating in Smarts Tap&Learn: Tablets for Education, the telco leaderslatest initiative in the mobile education (mEducation) space, where mobile technologies are utilized to enhance the learning experience of partner communities.

Through Smarts Tap&Learn, Wikipedia Philippines representatives are helping train educators from public elementary and secondary schools across the country on how to use Wikipedia to enhance the learning experience of their students, and for their own professional development.

With the Tap&Learn program, Wikimedia Philippines is very excited to partner with Smart in training teachers in using Wikipedia as one of the tools they can use in their profession, according to Eugene Alvin Villar, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Philippines.

While we all know that students should not simply copy from Wikipedia when doing assignments, we hope that through Wikipedia, teachers can impart to their students the value of using reliable sources, adding proper citations, and using critical thinking when reading anything on the Internet. It would also be great if they can encourage their students to contribute to Wikipedia as well, added Villar.

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Smart offers free Wikipedia access

Smart Communications and Wikimedia foundation have recently inked a deal which will allow the two parties to give Smart, Talk N Text and Sun Cellular subscribers free and unlimited access to Wikipedia through the initiative called Wikipedia Zero.

Its almost been a year since we brought you the news about Wikipedia Zero, and if you can remember, neither Smart nor Globe were on the initial list of telcos that expressed their intent to bring Wikipedia Zero to their respective regions.

Luckily, Smart Communications had a change of hearts and formalized its partnership with Wikimedia Zero to bring Wikipedia Zero to the Philippines. Through this initiative, accessing m.wikipedia.org, zero.wikipedia.org, Wikipedia apps, as well as other Wikimedia sites on their mobile device will not incur additional data charges to all Smart, Sun Cellular and Talk N Text subscribers.

As stated on our previous report, Wikipedia Zero will be a lightweight and text-only version of the desktop site, which will not eat too much of the telcos bandwidth, as well as making it easier to load on the users mobile browser. Free access to Wikipedia started last Friday, September 5, and will end on February 13, 2015.

Source

Wikipedia Zero: cost-free access to Wikipedia

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Smart brings Wikipedia Zero to PH

Many Paula Deen Fans Stand By Her Tim Wise Weighs In
By James E. Wright.

By: gw31979

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Many Paula Deen Fans Stand By Her Tim Wise Weighs In - Video

August 28, 2014

A great and brief clip of Baldwin on Dick Cavett, explaining racism to folks who clearly dont get it. Here, Baldwin explains the irrelevance of whether or not whites are prejudiced against blacks, noting that the real issue is how white institutions treat folks of color, regardless of intent, bigotry or hatred. A lesson worth remembering today

August 16, 2014

Be hard on systems, but soft on people.

Im sure this nugget of wisdom has been around for more than a while, but it was only about a year or so ago that I heard it: spoken into the room where several were gathered parents and faculty at our daughters school to discuss matters of identity and oppression: things like racism, sexism, heterosexism and the like.

The facilitator for the session, who offered up many other insights throughout the course of the dialogue, repeated this one several times, and with good reason. First, he explained, we need to be soft on people because people make mistakes, we hurt each other, we are all works in progress, and each of us is capable of saying or doing the wrong thing at any time indeed we all have, many times and so we should essentially extend to others the patience and compassion we would want for ourselves, as growing, changing, and hopefully maturing people. But also, and more importantly, when it comes to the issues we were discussing, be soft on people and hard on systems because it is the systems (racism and white supremacy, sexism and patriarchy, classism and capitalism, heterosexism and straight/cisgendered supremacy) that have distorted us, taught us the biases with which we all walk around to one degree or another, and in some ways damaged our ability to see each other as fully and equally human sometimes.

In other words, to go too hard on other people, as people, is to often miss the structural and institutional roots of their (and our) own bad behaviors. No one acts or speaks or writes, or anything, in a vacuum. We operate within the context of everything from our upbringing to our education to the media we consume to the peers with whom we associate to whatever happened to us an hour before the dialogue session, which put us in a pissy mood. And because no one knows another persons damage completely, nor its source and yet we know, intuitively, that we all have plenty of it we should probably err on the side of system-based critiques and offer kindness to people whenever possible, knowing that who we all are today owes an awful lot to where we were yesterday, and the day and the month and the year and the decade before that. This is not to say that we let people off the hook for injurious behaviors or statements; it is merely to say that we acknowledge that there is, indeed, a hook; and it has a source that did not originate with the person we are placing there.

This maxim, to be soft on people but hard on systems is perhaps, at least in my experience, the most important guidepost any of us can follow when trying to challenge monumental social problems like racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, religious bigotry, ableism, or any other form of identity-based mistreatment. Among the reasons its so important is precisely the fact that its so incredibly hard to do, and this I say from personal experience, not just as some abstract observation.

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August 15, 2014

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Tim Wise - Official Site