Many Internet users have become familiar with using the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for their research needs, but a clan chief in Cameroon, Gaston Donnat Bappa (pictured below), is hoping to offer a rival to the vast resource by providing what he is calling the African Traditions Online Encyclopedia (ATOE) (pictured above).
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Bappa, who resides in the Ndjock-Nkong village and has 34 years of experience in computer technology, has been working on the ATOE project since early 2013. He created ATOE to preserve falling traditions as technology and other developments continue to emerge.
The Guardian reports:
“People think traditions don’t belong with information and communications technology (ICT) because traditions are so far behind us and ICT is so far ahead of us,” Bappa said. “But if you don’t know who you are, you don’t know where you are going.”
Bappa, 56, is creating a site that he hopes will become the first port of call for African arts and crafts, food, laws, medicine, music, oral storytelling, religion, science, sport – anything that can be defined as tradition, dating back millions of years. A prototype is open for contributions, with early entries including Myths and Legends of the Bantu, and Concepts of Social Justice in Traditional Africa.
Bappa, who has been chief in his village for 22 years, had a yearning for completing the project as he saw traditions from his own tribe begin to erode.
Amazingly, Bappa is determined to make the ATOE happen in a region that’s both off the power grid and some 93 miles away from the capital city of Yaoundé. Deeply entrenched in the deep forest, Bappa hopes to bring solar panels and other technology to the village to bring ATOE to life.
He currently works on the ATOE project in the capital, and is hoping to increase knowledge of the project at the 2015 eLearning Conference in Africa.
“It is not only for Africa,” he said. “It will be open to all worldwide, Africans and non-Africans. It is for the whole of humankind because Africa is the cradle of humanity.”
Learn more about ATOE here.
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At last a renaissance visionary
Great, interesting. I will repost on my wall on facebook
Dear managers of FACE2FACE AFRICA,
Good day.
I am the founder and promoter of the ATOE (African Traditions Online Encyclopedia).
I thank you, in the name of all who are attached to African traditions, for having published an article on the above project.
We are at the beginning of a tremendous, challenging, but interesting, fascinating, important and necessary work, when integrated to technology, will tightly improve innovation in Africa, for its sustainable development, as the current century, the 21st one, is the one of Africa.
With 4.1 billion inhabitants and 3/4 of world economy by year 2100 (cf. World Bank studies), Africa becomes from now, the most important continent to focus interest. The other continents know it very well, and they have started entering Africa, for this new evolution, after slavery and colonization from 15th to 19th century, and neo-colonization in the 20th century.
The only way for Africa to fully benefit from this new evolution is to reappropriate its native identity, which is more than 7 million years (age of the world oldest known human hominid, in the Republic of Tchad) through its traditions and technology.
ATOE, the very first African Encyclopedia, will be also the first world biggest integration of Traditions and technology, thru the usage of ICTs at high level, to save, sustain and make African traditions be available and known for all everywhere it is needed, easily and at low costs for final user, starting from African Rural areas.
Thank you again for having published this article on ATOE project. We are now organizing and building the basic international team which will initiate massive content production from all good existing sources. We are also searching funds, from all international due sources and from the African diaspora worldwide.
We will regularly provide you information on the evolution of the project, for the public.
Blessings from our African ancestors.
Chief Gaston Donnat BAPPA.