Welcome Shiju and Nitika!
But now I can't help asking: how exactly can African drums be used for
management coaching (per Hisham's introduction of Nitika)?
=)
Annie
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Nitika Tandon nitika.tan...@gmail.comwrote:
Dear All,
Thank you for your heart warming mails and welcoming me to the Wikimedia
Foundation!
I am extremely excited to be a part of the Wiki community and would love to
contribute to the benevolent cause of the movement. A lot has been achieved
to awaken the world by the community and I am eager to learn from their
experiences. I believe that there is a tremendous opportunity to take the
movement to a different height, especially in India, and I look forward to
working closely with all of you in future.
Kind regards,
Nitika Tandon
On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Hisham Mundol hmun...@wikimedia.orgwrote:
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
