[Foundation-l] Announcement: Pete Forsyth leaving the Wikimedia Foundation

[Frank Schulenburg]

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

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