Hi All,
This email is to announce that Pete Forsyth's year-long position with the Foundation has come to an end and he is leaving us January 15, 2011. Pete's contract as Public Outreach Officer actually ended by in October 2010, but we asked him to stay on for an additional few months to finish a few things and during that time he also provided some critical help to Sara Crouse on grant proposals and reports.
Pete's biggest achievement was to help with the first phase of our Public Policy Initiative. He conducted initial interviews with about 40 professors and other stakeholders in fall 2009. He also worked with Rod Dunican, Sara and me to write the grant proposal for the Stanton Foundation in early 2010. In August 2010, Pete was involved in the training of the initial cohort of volunteer Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors. He also procured the donation to the commons of 18 high quality case studies by Cambridge University Press.
As Public Outreach Officer, Pete worked with volunteers on outreach via screencasts, software feature development, and other initatives. He advised numerous Wikimedia projects in community relations and advised staff on onboarding and training processes related to wiki skills and Wikimedia culture.
For our Bookshelf project, Pete authored and edited instructional materials about Wikipedia and related projects. In addition to working on the Public Policy Initiative grant proposal, he worked with Sara developing and writing proposals and reports for grants for foundations including Hewlett, Stanton, Ford, and Google Charitable Giving Fund.
During his time at the Wikimedia Foundation, Pete presented to graduate students and faculty at Princeton and Harvard university; and to museum Wikimedians, museum curators, librarians at Wikimania, the Chapters meeting, Recent Changes Camp, and Wikimedia France's GLAM event.
Going forward, Pete will be working as a consultant on online peer production projects, and looks forward to continued collaboration with the Wikimedians and academics he has worked with while at the Foundation. In the near term, Pete will also continue to consult with Sara on foundation relations projects.
I particularly appreciated Pete's deep insights into Wikpedia's culture and policies. His involvement in the Public Policy Initiative was key in linking Wikipedia peer production with higher education.
I wish Pete all the very best for his future.
Frank
-----
NB. This mail address is used for public mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will get lost.