Anasuya, it was a pleasure to take profit from your wisdom and joy. I hope
to see you recovered as soon as possible. I'm very grateful for your
kindness with Brazil!
Congratulations for Luis and the team. I wish you do a good job!
Vinicius Siqueira
WUG Brasil
On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 9:22 PM, Katie Chan <katie.chan(a)wikimedia.org.uk>
wrote:
Anasuya, thank you for the time and wisdom you have
shared with us. We will
miss you dearly.
Luis & Siko, congratulations. Looking forward to working with you in your
new role.
Katie
On 19 February 2015 at 23:02, Gregory Varnum <gregory.varnum(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Anasuya - I think you know that I adore you - and
I am truly sad to see
you go.
I look forward to seeing you around online - and hope to see you at
Wikimanias - but your impact has been immense and you will be missed. :(
-greg aka varnent
On 19 Feb, 2015, at 5:20 PM, Anasuya Sengupta
<asengupta(a)wikimedia.org
wrote:
>
> Dear friends and colleagues, fellow adventurers on the Wikimedia
journey
-
Goodbyes are overrated.[1] But since I’m sure this will be au revoir,
I’ll
> continue: I am leaving the Foundation as head of the Grantmaking
> department, at the end of March. This was not an easy decision to make;
> this is not an easy email to write.
>
> As some of you know, I have been battling health issues over the past
few
> months. I’ve learnt sharp and intimate
truths about myself as I’ve
worked
> to get better, and what I’ve kept coming
back to is the compassionate
but
fierce
feminist slogan around self-care and sustainability: ‘what’s the
point of the revolution if we can’t dance?’[2] To reassure you all, I
will
> be well,[3] but I need a little time and space to focus on getting my
> dancing legs strong again.
>
> That said, I am pleased that we have a really solid plan in place as I
> leave. As Lila’s email announced, Luis Villa (our current Deputy
General
> Counsel) will be taking over the team
effective immediately, and
leading
the
organisation further in our support of Wikimedia communities
worldwide.
Luis brings with him a range of skills and
qualities that I know will
stand
> him, the team, and the movement in wonderful stead through it all. As a
> friend and colleague, I am so delighted to be supporting Luis through
the
> next few weeks of transition.
>
> I joined the Foundation in July 2012 to oversee and implement the FDC
> process. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of creating and leading a
> department of more than twenty remarkable and passionate people who
care
> about our mission, our communities, and the
resources needed to match
the
two.
We went from Asaf managing a small grants portfolio on his own, ably
supported on occasion by Winifred, to a fully fledged grantmaking
department with a spectrum of monetary and non-monetary resources. We
have
been able to offer these in different ways to
different parts of our
movement: to individual volunteers with great ideas in need of project
management, to small groups experimenting with new initiatives, and to
established organisations who form critical content and policy
partnerships
> in their local contexts. We built an infrastructure for understanding
our
collective impact. We learned together about what our different
communities
> are doing globally, about the successes and challenges we have, and
above
all:
about how we can, together, create a more powerful set of outcomes
for
> free knowledge.
>
> In doing so, I’ve had the joy of discovery,[4] of learning from and
with
> some of the most dedicated volunteers in the
world, who believe that
> knowledge matters. Most importantly, that it’s not only free knowledge
> _for_ all that we seek, but even more critically, that we believe in
> knowledge _from_ and _with_ all.
>
> And I’ve discovered that the nerdy, geeky, obsessed-with-data part of
me
found a
home in this extraordinary universe, where everybody’s
“unimaginable,
> magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds” can find
expression.[5] I
> look forward to the day when my worlds find
more space on Wikipedia,
when
80% of
the globe is represented by far more than 20% of the edits, when
much more than 15% of our contributors can self-identify as women. Till
then, I’ll keep fighting notability one article at a time...[6]
So thank you for sharing your worlds with me, and no thanks for turning
me
into an obsessive Wikimedian. :-) As I have
learnt with you, I know I
have
> done so with trust, and as I have challenged you, I hope I have done so
> with respect. I look forward to continuing our friendships and
obsessions
on a wiki
near you.
With appreciation and gratitude,
Anasuya
p.s. You can find me in the future at my enWP user page (User:Anasuyas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anasuyas) or (dare I say it) on
Facebook. Longer diatribes on liff, the universe and everything can be
sent
to
anasuyaATsanmathi.org
[1] Neil Gaiman, American Gods (Chapter 8)
[2] Urgent Action Fund, a funder of women’s human rights defenders, has
this book on sustainability:
http://urgentactionfund.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/06/WTPR-Final…
[3] And look forward to dancing together on the beaches of a future
Wikimania…
[4] Sometimes frustrating, sometimes unbelievable, sometimes somewhat
insane; but yes mostly, generous beyond belief, and always, joyous. :-)
[5] More Neil Gaiman, from The Sandman:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Sandman#A_Game_of_You
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Key_theme_-_Global_South,…
Ask
Florence (User:Anthere) for _that_ story!
On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 2:15 PM, Lila Tretikov <lila(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
>
>>
>> Dear Wikimedians,
>>
>> Among the WMF’s top priorities for 2015 is strengthening our
engagement
> with
Wikimedia editors and volunteers. Today we are taking the first
step
>> by bringing together the people who know our communities best and
asking
>> them to break barriers and improve
engagement. Everyone at the WMF who
>> carries responsibilities directly related to the communities will
join a
>> new Community Engagement department.
>>
>> I have asked Luis Villa to lead the Community Engagement organization
as
>> the Senior Director of Community
Engagement, reporting to me.
Promoting
>> from within the WMF for this critical
role will allow us to leverage
the
>
knowledge and experience with our communities and reinforce the
strengths
>> of our people.
>>
>> Luis’s experience with communities is lengthy and deep. He has been
>> involved in open communities since the late 1990s, from communities as
>> small as the Lego Mindstorms hackers to those as large as Mozilla. He
>> worked in open communities as a lawyer, a programmer, a bugmaster, an
>> engineering lead, a community leader, and a board member. Luis has
>> performed exceptionally within the Foundation and supported some of
our
> most
fruitful community engagements. The Grantmaking, L&E, Education,
> Community Advocacy and Community Liaisons teams will join the new
Community
>> Engagement department [2] under his leadership.
>>
>> Unfortunately, Anasuya Sengupta -- our beloved leader of grantmaking
--
>> will be leaving us due to personal
health concerns at the end of
March.
We
>> will invite you soon to celebrate her time with us, her work at the
WMF
and
> the deep insight she brought to the
Foundation. We are saddened to see
her
> go. The team she has nurtured will provide an
important foundation for
our
> upcoming work.
>
> Siko Bouterse will move up to lead the day-to-day work of the
Grantmaking
> team as Director of Community Resources,
supervising all department
Grant
> programs and the Global South strategy. Siko
has been instrumental in
> innovating programs at the WMF, including initiatives like the
Teahouse[1]
>> and the IdeaLab[2] combining vision with strong support for volunteer
>> community, tough decision making, and great project management skills.
>>
>> These changes are an opportunity to improve the coordination of our
work
>
supporting the communities. To accelerate this, I have asked Luis to
lead
>> an internal “tiger” team to better understand the needs, concerns and
>> priorities of our volunteers, and to develop recommendations for
future
>
programs. This work will be shared with all of you as it becomes
available.
>>
>> Please join me in congratulating Luis and Siko and in supporting our
>> teams. The Wikimedia communities are what makes the projects strong,
>> unique, and irreplaceable. This is the next step forward in our
support
to
> them, and in service of our mission.
>
>
> ~~~~Lila
>
>
>
> [1] As Director of Community Resources, Siko will oversee the IdeaLab,
> Annual Plan Grants, Project and Event Grants, and Travel and
Participation
> Support. Her team will include Katy Love,
Winifred Olliff, Alex Wang,
> Janice Tud, Jonathan Morgan, and Asaf Bartov. Asaf will also take on a
new
>> title as Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities.
>>
>> [2] Rachel DiCerbo, Philippe Beaudette, Siko, and Anasuya’s other
direct
>> reports, and their respective teams (CL,
CA, and Grantmaking/GLEE)
will
>> report to Luis. The Engineering
Community team will be part of the
tiger
team but will continue to report to Engineering.
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab
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*Anasuya SenguptaSenior Director of GrantmakingWikimedia Foundation*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Support Wikimedia <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>
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