Wiki Loves Women’s Inspiring Open podcast series celebrates women whose work and personal ethics intersect with the Open movement. Dynamic women who push the boundaries of what it means to build community and succeed as a collective. Inspiring Open amplifies their stories, letting them take you on their personal journey in conversation with host Betty Kankam-Boadu.

Join Inspiring Open as we raise the global visibility and profiles of women redefining and reclaiming the Open sector.

The Wiki Loves Women’s Inspiring Open podcast series is available across multiple platforms under a free licence (CC BY SA). The series is free to access, and free to share, redistribute, reuse, and remix.

Listen to each episode on the Inspiring Open website.

Episode 1 focuses on Anie Apke, a tech entrepreneur from Nigeria and founder of African Women in Tech.
Episode 2 features Maryana Iskander, new CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, who has worked at accelerating youth employment across Africa.

Why Inspiring Open

Wiki Loves Women was created to increase the visibility of women online and give them a voice, by informing, mobilising, and training people to add factual content that reflects women’s experiences.

The Inspiring Open podcast series showcases and celebrates inspiring women leaders within (and aligned to) the open movements, with a strong focus on Africa. The interview-format podcast asks these exceptional women leaders to interrogate what “being open” means to them, and share their journeys, achievements, challenges, and motivations, and ultimately, the women who inspired them.

16 women profiled in Series 1

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Inspiring Open provides meaningful, culturally sensitive content that celebrates the achievements of women where gender-equity intersects with Open Movement initiatives. It raises the global visibility and profile of the currently underrepresented women working with openness, transparency and collaboration towards the communal good.

16 women have been chosen for the first series. Each podcast will be released 2 weeks apart over 2022. Read about all 16 women here.

Each episode is crafted to inspire present and future women (and men) from all walks of life to consider adopting “open” practices as their ‘normal’ when they navigate their future paths; placing opportunities of the open movement and digital media platforms top of mind. Each podcast will empower listeners by imparting alternative ideas, pathways, tips, solutions, and opportunities to underserved communities across the African continent.

In these ways, it helps to redefine what Chimamanda Adichie calls the Single Story of Africa for both African and global audiences (especially South/South). The podcast series amplifies, through their own voices, the experiences of the featured guests.

How did we choose?

There are so many amazing women – how did we find them? Open and aligned communities were asked to nominate the female leaders that have inspired them. These women could have been in the open movement already, or their personal philosophy could be focused on transparency, openness, collaboration, and access. They could be from the arts, culture, and education sectors, be involved in politics, advocacy, and human rights, or lead knowledge and memory institutions … whoever she is, we wanted to hear about her!

What listeners can expect

The Inspiring Women Podcast Series profiles 16 exceptional women across the Open Movement and creates online content that celebrates the laudable achievements of Africa’s open feminists. We want those who listen to the podcasts to be inspired to get involved. Listeners will also learn that:

  1. They can become part of the Open Movement, and can actively contribute if not lead.
  2. If they dare to try, and they succeed, it will be an important and visible contribution, while also being part of a wider community and having fun.
  3. They learn new organizational and leadership skills that can be reused in other contexts.
  4. They will extend their personal and professional network and thus their area of influence.

Inspiring Open is a podcast series from Wiki Loves Woman – a project of Wiki in Africa.

Inspiring Open was created by Wiki In Africa’s Isla Haddow-Flood and Florence Devouard. It is hosted by Betty Kankam-Boadu, produced by Rachel Zadok, and sound engineered by Jey at Melody Hub Studio, Accra, Ghana. Illustrations were created for Inspiring Open by Candace di Talamo. Branding and Design by Creative Flood. Website development by Terri-Mae Sasman. The music used in all Inspiring Open podcasts is High Funk by Crowander (www.crowander.com CC-BY-SA-NC 4.0).

It was funded through the International Relief Fund for Organisations in Culture and Education 2021, an initiative of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut, and other partners.

The series is available online on all the main podcast platforms, under a free licence (CC BY SA). It will be free to access and free to share, redistribute, reuse, and remix.