[Wikimediaindia-l] Welcome to the India Team! : Shiju & Nitika

Sat Jul 30 05:53:03 UTC 2011

This is great news.

A warm welcome and best wishes to Shiju and Nitika in their new roles.

Regards
Arun
On Jul 29, 2011 1:42 PM, "CherianTinu Abraham" <tinucherian at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Congratulations to Shiju and Nitika.
>
> It has been great working along with Shiju, closely for years now and I
> don't have to tell that how much he deserves this. I wondered how he gets
> time to "really" work with ABB with all his wiki activities ;) and I am
sure
> that this position would help him concentrate on one thing he is really
> passionate about.
>
> Welcome on-board, Nitika ! Looking forward to work with you too.
>
> Best wishes again to both Shiju and Nitika !
>
> Regards
> Tinu Cherian
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Hisham Mundol <hmundol at wikimedia.org
>wrote:
>
>> 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 Programs<
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs>
>> *
>> *
>>
>> skype : hisham.wikimedia
>> gtalk : hmundol at 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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>>
>>
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