Hello everybody,

Thank you Nataliia et al. for the warm welcome (and light hazing) and apologies to all for my late response.

Years ago, a colleague from the Wikimedia Foundation staff reached out to talk about product & technology at the organization. I still remember how eye-opening that initial conversation was - discussing the challenges and opportunities behind Wikipedia, one of my favorite sites that I had used for over a decade at that time, left me with little doubt that this is a movement I would want to be part of in some capacity. I was still at Reddit at the time, learning what it was like to shift from using and contributing to open source software to working in a tech company built around open source and through active, committed, and vocal communities. My experience at Reddit was one of the most transformative periods in my career and one of the reasons that I was interested in volunteering for this role.

I was born and grew up in Brazil, under vastly different circumstances than today. There was a critical moment in my life when my father placed me, at 8 years old, in a BASIC programming course which I would practice on our x286 hidden away in a laundry room. My passion for technology started then, and has only grown since. I believe in technology as a key path to the furthering of humanity, of knowledge, of quality of life, and of our collective future. I also believe that this will only happen with the guidance and efforts of active and inclusive communities that shepherd said technology to positive outcomes.

So now, years later and after my return to Latin America, there was an opportunity to join the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. I spent the next several months in conversations with other board members, staff, community members and friends to try and internalize more about the challenges and opportunities ahead, and most importantly to learn whether I could indeed make a positive contribution. I join this movement deeply humbled and inspired by the passion of everyone I met, and with a strong drive to leverage my experiences as a product and engineering leader to build a world where every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

In this role, I can only be my authentic self, I will strive for understanding in my interactions with you, as well as do my absolute best to bring excellence to our product and technology. I will always be inclusive and welcoming of our differences, and engage in civil discourse, in service of a movement that is bigger than ourselves.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute. I hope to connect with many of you directly over the coming months.

Cheers,
Luis

PS: I see a separate conversation has emerged relating to blockchains and my interests in that field. I want to clarify that I don’t work professionally in this field, and while I’m historically an early adopter of technology - in the same way I adopted the internet in the 90s - I share many of the same thoughts and questions about this new technology’s future that have been raised in this thread. As a new Trustee, first and foremost, I am here to learn and to hear more from all of you.
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/AG4DB7SN6PHBBQLBSSSFRYWWA7LEIMLF/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org