Grants/sharing creative commons project for Malagasy people
Describe the project you are proposing as clearly as possible in just five sentences.
This project aims to start the porting process to Creative Commons in Madagascar, in order to sensitize Malagasy people to the new technology, and to inform them about the importance of balancing copyright and access to knowledge as a public policy. Our Country is a less developed one, and we want to contribute to its development with sharing with all people this new vision. Only 4% in Madagascar have access to internet, so it will be difficult even about means and infrastructures, but it is important to Malagasy to become narrow-minded, it’s time for us, and that is exactly the goal of the project, to share.
Detail the tangible project output (e.g., paper, blog post, written materials, video/film, etc.; this would be in addition to the final written report that successful grant recipients will be expected to deliver to CC at the conclusion of the project).
1-the public discussion web 2-the platform and mailing to the legal adaptation 3-the official website of CC in Madagascar 4-An investigation and statistics paper to the usefulness of CC in Madagascar
Describe the community you are targeting. How would the project benefit the community?
The project targets all Malagasy people especially artists’ organizations, creators, technology professionals’ organizations and all internet surfers. They will benefit by learning about alternatives to share and access to educational, creative or technological contents. They will also strength their capabilities to organize and articulate common efforts in favor of knowledge and culture sharing. Also, fakes increase in Madagascar, and CC’s philosophy will satisfy most of the people because sharing becomes legal.br />
We had prior experience with Foko Madagascar in 2007. It is a non-profit and apolitical association. Its aim is principally the citizen media and the vulgarisation of the new technology in Madagascar The process was the same, because it was difficult at the beginning. But now Foko counts one thousand members, composed with students, magistrates, advocates, financials, … , and it is a real challenge for us. Foko is today more and more well-known because of the motivation and the passion of all members. And now, we think we are able to establish the CC project successfully because it is promising and enriching. This will be a great innovation and a new vision for Madagascar, and Foko is ready to share with all Malagasy Community.
How will you measure and evaluate your project’s impact - on your main participants? Other contributors? On the larger community?
After the project’s divulgation phase, we will sustain bilateral meetings with all creators, authors and institutions which have participated, in order to measure their degree of interest and receptivity. This will be able to be done through a systematization of interviews and investigations.
How many participants do you expect to be involved in your project? How will you seek and sustain their involvement?
We expect to involve approximately 5 to 9 persons during this project. We are composed of the public leader, the legal group, and specialists on open source and free software. But after, we can consider reinforcing the collaboration. As it is a public affair, everyone who desire to work with us and to ameliorate this project will be welcomed. The participants' involvement will be sought and sustained through bilateral meetings, before and after the divulgation activities of the project, and the implementation of a mechanism of permanent communication
Describe how your project will benefit Creative Commons' mission to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in "the commons".
This project will extend the community of CC in the world, its affiliations. As it is a political sharing, the message is directly the narrow-mind which is a key issue for Madagascar. An expansion of creativity, education, culture and technology’s development.
Describe what technologies and tools your project will use. What kinds of technical skills and expertise do you bring to the project? What are your technical needs?
For the development of the website, a Free-software will be used, and of course computing. Beyond that, there are media, conferences, debates, events organizations. The skills and expertise that are going to be brought to the project are research, planning, sensitization of stakeholders and formulation of projects.
What challenges do you expect to face, and how do you plan to overcome them?
There is certainly that some public officials will show lack of interest and commitment with the topic addressed. As Madagascar is a less developed country, the mentality of the population is also less advanced. So we expect to face to most difficulties. In addition, a few proportion of the population have access to internet and high technology, and the majority of Malagasy are rural. To overcome that, we will stress the public promotion with any means, and the collaboration of everybody is be welcome because as it is said, it is a public affair but not private, it is a culture sharing.
How do you plan to sustain your project after the Creative Commons funding has ended? Detail specific plans. How do you plan to raise revenue to continue your efforts in the future?
In order to continuing the efforts to deepen the knowledge about starting the porting process of CC Licenses in Madagascar, Foko Madagascar will be and will stay in relation with CC origin and enforce their directives. Also, we can apply a strategy to search for funding. This output will be done with the involvement and collaboration of the institutions interested to participate in the process.
How can this project be scalable, or have a scalable impact?
This gives the opportunity to implement the use of CC and the sharing in Madagascar, in encouraging creators and web surfers to employ it in their works, in order to make it more and more recognized, and to attract most people in this spirit.
What resources and support do you expect Creative Commons to provide to your project to ensure its success (if any)?
We expect to be supported by Creative Commons with the free granting of the hosting fees so we can reduce the costs of the sensitizing in 7 regions of Madagascar. As well, we would like to be assisted technically during the process.
Describe how your organization currently communicates with its community members and network partners. (100 words)
Our association currently communicates with its community members via e-mail and telephone, also we have a website (www.foko-madagascar.com) and soon we will implement communication through mailing lists.
Legal
Yes
