[Foundation-l] Welcome to a new board member

[Michael Snow]

As many of you know, we have had one vacant seat left on the Wikimedia 
Foundation Board of Trustees for the board to appoint. We have now 
filled that seat by appointing Bishakha Datta, a journalist, filmmaker, 
and nonprofit leader from India. In the course of finding Bishakha, we 
met with a number of great people and had a lot of support going through 
the process, and I want to thank everyone who participated.

I hope everyone will warmly welcome Bishakha as part of our community. 
By way of background, Bishakha runs a nonprofit based in Mumbai that 
focuses on conveying women's perspectives in culture and the media. She 
also has been involved in other international nonprofit work, and her 
knowledge of India should be a great help to us as we move forward with 
the strategic plan. In general, her experience will be a wonderful asset 
and I think she is an ideal fit for the remaining board seat.

In a bit of an ironic twist, Bishakha's organization is called Point of 
View, but rest assured that she understands and endorses the neutral 
point of view approach for Wikimedia projects. Her journalistic 
background means she appreciates the value of an objective presentation, 
and throughout our conversations with her it was clear that she supports 
our mission and values.

We will have an official press release in the next day or so with some 
more information. I'm excited to be able to work with Bishakha, and I 
know that she is looking forward to being involved as well.

--Michael Snow