[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Frank Schulenburg

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I'm delighted to tell you that Frank Schulenburg has agreed to lead the Wikimedia Foundation’s public outreach initiatives. This is terrific news, and will enable us, I hope, to significantly increase our activities. In this role, he will work for the Foundation part-time, and will report to me.

Many of you know Frank already. He first contributed to Wikipedia in 2005, and quickly grew involved with the other projects as well. In 2006, he founded Wikipedia Academy, an event aimed at increasing quality in the encyclopedia by encouraging contributions from targeted groups, primarily in academia. Since 2006, he’s staged multiple Academies, including our most recent ones in South Africa last November.

Also in 2006, Frank organized an exhibition documenting Wikipedia’s first five years, and created the media literacy “Wikipedia at Schools” project. He created the Zedler medal for distinguished encyclopedic contributions, awarded every year by Wikimedia Deutschland and the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature. He has been a board member of Wikimedia Deutschland since February 2006, and has served, since July 2007, as its vice chair. Prior to this, he worked for the Göttingen State and University Library and for the Institute of Economic History of the University of Göttingen.

Now, in his role as public outreach coordinator, Frank will stage more Wikipedia Academies, and will develop and implement other strategies designed to encourage contributions from targeted underrepresented groups – which may include, for example, small-language speakers, people in developing nations, and older people. (Our general survey, in development with UNU-Merit, will help us solidify the demographics we want to target.) Frank will also design other outreach events, templates and support materials aimed at raising public awareness and understanding of Wikimedia projects. In all of this, he will work closely with the chapters.

I believe this move will strengthen the Foundation's relationship with Wikimedia Deutschland, which is great. Wikimedia Deutschland is an important partner for the Foundation. It was the first chapter to open an office and hire paid staff. It has developed important business partnerships with organizations such as the publisher of the German Wikipedia DVD and with der Spiegel, which has recently launched a knowledge portal combining Wikipedia content with the complete Spiegel archive and the Bertelsmann encyclopedia. Wikimedia Deutschland has also been a successful fundraiser, which has enabled it to make significant financial contributions to the Amsterdam server cluster.

Please join me in thanking Wikimedia Deutschland for its support, and in welcoming Frank to the Foundation.

Sue