Protais Uwayezu was on Friday May 13, announced as the third winner of Wiki Project Afrocine/Months of African Cinema, a contest that aims to bridge a huge gap of African cinema content on the world's largest encyclopaedia, Wikipedia.
The Civil Engineering student at the Rwanda Polytechnic (RP) - IPRC Musanze who is also a member of Wikimedia User Group Rwanda competed with 93 other contributors from different corners of Africa and the Middle East.
During the contest which started on October 15, and ended on November 30, 2021, more than 4,200 articles were created and Uwayezu created 534 on the Kinyarwanda Wikipedia.
"I also put the Kinyarwanda language among twelve languages that have contributed the most," he said.
"I cannot only be proud of the prizes but also for putting Rwanda among the winners. It is the first appearance of Wikimedia User Group Rwanda among other active Wikimedia communities, a pride I have been fighting for."
Uwayezu also noted that winning the prize boosted his confidence and skills, adding that he aims to keep Rwandan content updated on Wikipedia.
"Rwanda has its own story about culture, history and other areas. Rwandans have a chance to participate in internet decolonization of contents about Rwanda and nurture the image of the country while increasing its visibility," he said.
"I believe it would be fair to us if we contribute and tell our stories in the process of sharing knowledge. I took time to learn and practice Wikipedia editing hints. In the beginning, I had to contribute as much as possible just to give others examples and raise awareness of how it is so easy to tell your story."
Uwayezu has been editing Wikipedia since 2020. Apart from the Afrocine, he has also scooped different awards including first prize in WikiGap Kigali 2021: editing articles about Rwandan women politicians, second prize in WikiVibrance 2021: African contest for editing about African agriculture and third prize in both Wikipedia pages Want Photos (WPWP 2021): adding photos to Wikipedia articles which they correspond to and Wiki Loves Earth 2021: Editing about Rwandan Diversity contents.