Meet Daniel, is a 29-year-old medical student from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently in his third year of doctoral studies at the Evangelical University in Africa in Bukavu, South Kivu province, Daniel is determined to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, a field he is passionate about, but the financial constraints are heavy. Higher education is neither easy nor free for anyone, and choices have to be made every day.
Daniel’s academic career took a significant turn for the better, however, when he discovered Kiwix during his first year of medical studies, thanks to a friend’s recommendation. Equipped with his tablet, Daniel immediately downloaded the Kiwix application and, via it, the Wikipedia’s entire medical subset. The encyclopaedia, with its well-structured, well-organised, quick and easy-to-find clinical data, has become an essential companion to his studies (note to Wikipedians reading this: Daniel would like specialist acronyms to be better referenced via redirects).
One of the main advantages of Kiwix for Daniel is its offline accessibility, which saves him significant costs on Internet connectivity. In the DRC, the average cost of a gigabyte of data is around $5 (the average monthly salary will be $50 in 2022); when you’re a student, and therefore necessarily on a limited budget, offline access is a must.