Access to Knowledge Without Barriers
Celebrate Public Domain Day 2025 with Free Knowledge Africa! Discover newly available works from literature, music, and photography, including iconic Nigerian treasures. Learn how these cultural gems inspire creativity, education, and preservation.
As the year draws to a close, we take a moment to reflect on an extraordinary journey of collaboration, growth, and impact. At Free Knowledge Africa, we believe that open access to knowledge is not just a principle—it’s a catalyst for transformation. Together, we’ve made significant steps in bridging information gaps, preserving cultural heritage, and …
How to participate in the African Anti-Corruption Day Campaign. Record a one minute video on the topic: The Role of Knowledge in Combating Corruption. Tag FKA on Instagram, Twitter and Threads. Twitter: @freeknowafrica Instagram: @freeknowledgeafrica Threads: @freeknowledgeafrica Use the hastag #freeknowledgeafrica #africananticorruptionday Make sure you are following FKA on IG and Twitter. Winners will be …
With support from the WikiCred initiative, the Africa Open Biodiversity project is intended to promote the documentation of African biodiversity on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. The campaign aims to advocate and support current biodiversity conservation efforts while bridging the knowledge gap about African content on Wikimedia projects. Biodiversity loss is a global …
The public domain consists of all the creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. to which no …
The Celtic Knot Lagos Satellite Event held on Saturday, 12th February, was a resounding success, with many indigenous language enthusiasts in attendance. The event, which was held at Cr8tive Workspaces in Surulere, Lagos, brought together a community of like-minded individuals who are dedicated to making knowledge accessible to all. There were five speakers at the …
There are thousands of sports and games played across Africa that the world doesn’t know about. There are a myriad of games that are indigenous to Africa, originated from Africa, played by Africans and we intend to bring these games to the open. The African games and sports writing contest (Afrosports) for short, is aimed …
Language is one of the most beautiful and important aspects of every culture. It provides people with a unique ability to communicate with one another. This will build relationships and create a sense of community, togetherness, and oneness. Many Nigerian languages have these uniqueness in their pronunciations, spellings and intonations. Cause for concern It has …
It’s the end of the year and for us at Free Knowledge Africa it’s been an exciting one. We had a lot of things planned out for the year and we are glad that we accomplished them. If you missed it, then this blog post is for you. Here are the things we did at …
Africa is a beautiful continent with great people. It offers countless destinations worth exploring for people who are travel enthusiasts. With over 1.2 billion people, Africa is the second most populous continent. However, there is little information detailing the travel destinations. The Explore Africa Campaign aims to bridge the content gap that currently exists with …
Free Knowledge Africa, a non-profit organization dedicated to bridging content gaps on travel, places, settlements, landmarks, heritage, and tourist sites towards sharing and contributing to global knowledge, carried out an advocacy campaign for Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) across different Cultural Heritage Institutions within Plateau State. Four members of the team travelled down …
Free Knowledge Africa paid a visit to Plateau State in North Central Nigeria as part of its awareness advocacy campaign on the importance of documenting cultural heritage. The team visited the Tarok tribe to document the oral history of the tribe. The Tarok tribe in Plateau State are predominantly located in Gunnung Village, Pilgani, in …
Free Knowledge Africa is pleased to announce the advisory board. The advisory board is made up of the following members: Carlos Iglesias, Larissa Borck, Susanna Ånäs, Douglas McCarthy and Sam Oyeyele. Carlos Iglesias is a Senior Research Manager at the World Wide Web Foundation.Carlos is an active participant at several global communities related to Open …
The public domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Public Domain Day is an observance of when copyrights expire and works enter into the public domain. This legal transition of copyright works into the public domain usually happens every year on 1st January based …
Lessons from Free Knowledge Africa’s Digitisation Projects The dream of universal open access is a dream worth holding onto. But in the day-to-day work of making knowledge free and accessible, perfectionism can become an obstacle of its own. Not every Institution is ready to throw open every door at once, and that’s okay. Start where …
In 2011, Nigeria passed into law the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. The law gave every Nigerian citizen regardless of education, status, or connection the legal right to demand information from any public institution. This includes government contracts, spending records, policy documents, meeting minutes. All of it, in principle, is accessible to anyone who asked. …
If you’ve ever searched for Nigerian history online, tried to find photographs of 1900s Lagos, or looked for primary sources about African independence movements, you’ve probably noticed something. There’s just not much knowledge there. It’s not that African knowledge doesn’t exist. Our libraries hold centuries of newspapers and archival materials. We have archives that preserve …
Nigeria has a rich and complex history deserving to be told by Nigerians, for Nigerians, and shared with the world. However, too often, we see our historical materials: documents, photographs, books, and newspapers that perfectly and accurately capture our past, hidden and locked away in archives, making them inaccessible to the very people whose stories …
In cities like Helsinki, residents can access dozens of well-funded public libraries within a short commute. In contrast, Lagos, a city of over 15 million people, has only a handful of functioning public libraries. The disparity is sharper in rural Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa, where entire local government areas may have no library at …
Public Domain Day, celebrated on January 1st of every calendar year, marks the moment when works that were once copyrighted become free to be used and reused by all. In celebration of this year’s Public Domain Day, we published this blog post highlighting films, albums, and movies released in 1976 that will enter the public …
Every year, as the calendar turns to January 1st, something remarkable happens in the world of creativity and culture. It is a moment when the doors of history swing open, and works that were once locked behind copyright protections step into the light, free for all to enjoy, remix, and reimagine. It’s a celebration of …
FKA 2025 Impact Every year begins quietly. But for Free Knowledge Africa, January 1st is never just another day. It is Public Domain Day, a reminder that knowledge, once protected by time, returns to the people it belongs to. And so, we began 2025 exactly where our work is rooted: the Public Domain. Where the …
The public domain is a collective inheritance. It is where knowledge, songs, stories, and art live freely — not bound by ownership, but by memory. Listening to the speakers at the Public Domain Conference, I realised that this freedom is what oral storytelling has always represented for African societies. Long before we learned to write, …
I got to know about Free Knowledge Africa for the first time this year, and the experience has been nothing short of transformative. I gained so much from the opportunities they provided, and each one helped me understand open knowledge in ways I never imagined. Stay with me as I walk you through how these …
