Siko Bouterse

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Revision as of 22:32, 10 September 2012 by Sbouterse (talk | contribs) (quote)
Siko Bouterse
Siko Bouterse, Head of Community Fellowships
Siko Bouterse
Head of Community Fellowships, Wikimedia Foundation
"Be bold, evaluate with data and feedback, rinse and repeat."

About me

I joined the Wikimedia Foundation in June 2011 as Head of Community Fellowships, with the goal of building a world-class Fellowships program worthy of the Wikimedia movement. I've worked with global online communities for many years, and am really passionate about online opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue and collaboration. Before WMF, I worked with organizations like hi5.com, where I build a crowd-sourced community translation program to localize the site into nearly 100 languages, and Meedan.net, where I built online community focused on English-Arabic dialogue. I have a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.A. in Middle East History from the American University in Cairo. Now, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and when I'm not online I like to be outside with my family as much as possible.

My work

As Head of Fellowships, I'm responsible for recruiting and supporting a global team of Community and Research Fellows to spearhead projects that, with Foundation support, can have positive impact on the Wikimedia community. I also work on the Global Development Department's Editor Growth and Contribution Program, where we're experimenting with on-wiki strategies for growing the editing community in small-to-medium sized wikis. The best part of my job is learning from community members about what we might do together to strengthen the Wikimedia movement and projects.

Some current projects I work on, in partnership with other staff, fellows, and volunteers:

Disclaimer: I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, and this is the account I intend to use for edits or statements I make in that role. However, the Foundation does not vet all my activity, so edits, statements, or other contributions made by this account may not reflect the views of the Foundation.

Contact me

  • E-mail: sbouterse@wikimedia.org
  • Talk page: Meta wiki and English Wikipedia as Sbouterse (WMF)
  • Seeeko is my volunteer account on English Wikipedia