The Wikimedia Foundation could invest to address cause of low penetration:
Lack of content in accessible language
Reach out to local communities to recruit contributors for emerging Wikipedias
“In African and Middle Eastern countries there are existing communities of people who are technically oriented. These are the people who have a natural affinity for Wikipedia and should be the focus of any outreach efforts” -Stephen King, Omidyar Network
Example: Google and Wikimedia sponsored a Swahili article writing contest to spur the growth of the Swahili Wikipedia
“Perhaps we need a mentoring network that help work with new contributors to support nascent Wikipedias” -Samuel KleinRead Interview, Wikimedia board member [1]
Lack of culturally relevant content
Example: Indian language Wikipedias have sponsored mini Wikipedia Academy style events focused on University students to increase contributions
“Recently, we did a Wikipedia Academy in Mangalore India, It was attended by quite a few college students and the interest we could generate among them was amazing. One of the topics that came up actually was smaller town articles of India and we did publicly 'review' some of the articles for content accuracy etc. I am convinced that this is an effective way.” -India Task Force member [2]
Lack of awareness of Wikipedia
Encourage bloggers and local media to write articles about Wikipedia and how it works
“I have friends who are involved with the mainstream media, and I think they would be open to writing a bit about what Wikipedia is and how it could be used . . That would be how I would go about increasing awareness of what Wikipedia does.”-Lova Rakotomalala, African blogger
