The on-wiki version of this newsletter is available here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2021-10-08 ------------------------------ This week we are happy to welcome Cai Blanton <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:CBlanton_(WMF)> to the Wikimedia Foundation and to the Abstract Wikipedia team! I will let Cai introduce herself with her own words. “I am thrilled to be joining WMF as the Senior Engineering Manager for Abstract Wikipedia. From my beginnings as a full-stack UX-focused software engineer, I have focused my career on building products that make people’s lives better, spanning from education to employment technology. At the heart of it all lies my passion for DIBE (Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Equity) and drive to create an environment where collaboration is personal and fun. “Languages and the nuances of cross-cultural communication have fascinated me since grade school when I took my first Spanish class. This interest has only grown through my further language studies, stint as a linguistic major, and time living and working abroad in a multinational environment in Western Europe and Scandinavia. The Abstract Wikipedia vision is particularly compelling to me for these reasons. “I look forward to working together with the community to advance global knowledge equity!” We are also happy to welcome Adesoji Temitope to our team. Adesoji joins Simone <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2021-03-10> (who joined us together with Lindsay <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2021-09-30>) from ThisDot. Adesoji <https://twitter.com/temitopedavid_> is on Twitter. Here is his introduction in his own words. “I am Adesoji Temitope, a software developer at Thisdot. I am currently based in Lagos, Nigeria. “I love to play football and first-person shooter games. “Started learning to code in my last year in high school and worked on a lot of personal projects using PHP. I luckily got into a school that had a lab setup by one of the lecturers and I was able to really start learning to work with people and had my first live code. I owe a lot of my early assistance to my brother. “Really love researching about communities and I am excited about the opportunity to join the Wikimedia team.” Please join us in welcoming Cai and Adesoji to the team! ------------------------------ On October 15, Houcemeddine Turki <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Csisc> will present Wikifunctions <https://www.wikiarabia2021.com/en_GB/event/propose-2/agenda> at next week’s WikiArabia conference <https://www.wikiarabia2021.com/en_GB/> organized by the Wikimedia Algeria User Group <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Algeria>. The presentation will be in Arabic. We also presented Wikifunctions and Abstract Wikipedia at the Russian Wiki-Conference <https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F_2021> in Moscow, Russia, organized by Wikimedia RU <https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0>. The presentation was translated live into Russian. Thanks to Gulnara for the translation! We will link to the recordings when they are available. We also presented Wikifunctions and Abstract Wikipedia at the German WikiCon <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiCon_2021> in Erfurt, Germany, organized by the German-speaking Wikimedia community with support from Wikimedia Deutschland <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland>. The presentation was given in German. We will link to the recordings when they are available. Thanks to the communities and the organizations for organizing these hybrid events. It is beautiful to see the communities come together again, but also the effort to continue to allow people to participate online. It is a lot of work, and thank you all for your efforts.