New subject: Fwd: [Wikimedia-in-blr] Welcome to the India Team! : Shiju & Nitika

29 Jul 2011


      Congrats Shiju.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Hisham Mundol hmundol@wikimedia.org
Date: 29 July 2011 12:44
Subject: [Wikimedia-in-blr] Welcome to the India Team! : Shiju & Nitika
To: wikimedia-in-blr@lists.wikimedia.org,
wikimedia-in-chn@lists.wikimedia.org, wikimedia-in-del@lists.wikimedia.org,
wikimedia-in-hyd@lists.wikimedia.org, wikimedia-in-mum@lists.wikimedia.org
Cc: Nitika Tandon nitika.tandon@gmail.com
cross-posting pan India (apologies if you got/get this through other mailing
lists.)
Hi Folks,
I'm really pleased to send out this email welcoming the first 2 new members
of the India Programs team.  Just before I introduce them, I thought I'd
share with you the background of their selection.
*Context*
As you might be aware, the Foundation had decided to undertake a catalyst
operation in India to promote the growth of the community and projects here.
 The team is expected to be a small, nimble 5 person group.  We had put out
2 job postings - for Indic Initiatives and for Participation.  (Please
refer:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-May/003007.html)
 We posted them on linkedin and on the Indian FOSS community list as well as
announcing them on various Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.
The response was wonderful.  >110 applications for Indic Initiatives and
nearly 175 applications for Participation.  These were short-listed to 10 (3
for Indic Language and 7 for Participation.)  These were a mix of existing &
previous Wikipedians, Wikipedia newbies and open source advocates.
In June, the shortlisted 10 were interviewed and further down-selected to 4.
 These 4 were then further interviewed by a group of other staff members
from the Foundation.  I am pleased to inform the community of the final
selected 2.
*Shiju Alex - Indic Initiatives*
Most of you already know Shiju. For those who don't, Shiju is a long-time
Wikipedian [User: shijualex] and is active on Malayalam Wikipedia, English
wikiprojects and Wikimedia Commons, as well as Wikisource and offline.  He
has been passionately involved with the establishing and building of Indic
language Wikipedias.  He's participated in a series of outreach activities
and is also (jointly) undertaking a grant from the Foundation for outreach
across India.  He's a regular member of the Bangalore community.
Shiju is from Palakkad, Kerala and is married with a 2 year old baby.  He
currently works as a Senior Technical Writer with ABB in Bangalore.
Even those of you who know him might not know the following 2 things that I
was lucky to discover during the selection process.  Shiju is an MSc in
Physics with a specialisation in Astronomy and Astrophysics - and he retains
a deep interest in anything astronomical.  Feel free to quiz him vigorously
on this!  He also enjoys trekking and misses his time in Pune where he could
be up & close the gorgeous Sahyadri Hills.
Shiju is going to lead our work on promoting Indic language projects across
India.  The challenges are enormous - from technical constraints to low
levels of awareness of these projects to vibrant but nascent communities.
 However, these only point to the massive size of the opportunity for Indic
language projects - which is the joint top-2 strategic priority of the
movement in India.  After he joins, he'll collaboratively put together a
plan for Indic language projects and work towards quality execution of
high-impact initiatives.
Shiju is currently serving out his notice period so will be able to join us
only around September - October.
*Nitika Tandon - Participation*
Nitika [User:nitika.t] is relatively newer to the community - and has been
brushing up her editing.  She's been immersing herself in the Wikimedia
world and attended community meet-ups as well as reviews of the Wikipedia
India Education Program.  She is from Delhi - and is currently based in
Mumbai - where she works as a Strategic Partnerships Manager with Directi.
(If you're not aware, they are one of the most prominent internet domain &
solutions providers in India.)
Nitika has an MBA and has also worked on research analytics.  A fascinating
detail I discovered about a previous assignment of hers - and you must ask
her about it - is how African drums can be used for management coaching!
 She also reliably informs me that there are 7 Spanish dance forms and she
instructs in all of them!
Nitika is going to be working on Participation - which is primarily focussed
on increasing the contributor base of non-Indic language projects, primarily
Wikipedia.   One of her first tasks will be to expand the Wikipedia India
Education Program from the Pune pilot to a more national footprint.  She'll
also work on other initiatives to promote participation - and I can foresee
Wikimedia Commons being a potential initiative.
Nitika will join us on August 1st.
*Introductions*
I'm going to be scheduling the August Monthly India Programs IRC on Thursday
August 18th to introduce them both to you.  Please do join us.  I'll send a
reminder closer to the date.  Also, needless to say, they'll be attending a
series of community meet-ups over the next months.
In the meantime, please do join me in welcoming them onboard. I'm really
excited because this means that we will now have the capacity and capability
to dramatically accelerate our activities in India.
Warmest Regards,
*
*
               *Hisham Mundol*
*
*
***
Wikimedia http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
India Programshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs
*
*
skype : hisham.wikimedia
gtalk : hmundol@wikimedia.org
**
twitter : @mundol
*
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!*
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