Education/Newsletter/September 2014/Wikipedia Education Collaborative welcomes five new members
By Floor Koudijs, Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program, Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikipedia Education Collaborative (Collab) welcomes five new members this month, who will continue working on expanding resources for and providing mentorship to other Wikipedia Education Programs worldwide. We are happy to include program leaders representing for Egypt and Uruguay, replacement members for Serbia and Catalonia, and a co-representative for Armenia.
Samir el-Sharbaty will be the representative for Egypt. After being an ambassador for the Wikipedia Education Program for the Arab world he has stepped up to be the volunteer leader for the Egypt program for the past two terms. He is an active Wikimedian, a sysop/admin on Arabic Wikipedia, and one of the co-founders of the recent Egyptian user group.
Fernando da Rosa Morena will be representing Uruguay. He is a professor at the Universidad de la República, a public university in Uruguay, and he uses Wikipedia in the classroom in his own classes. He is the director of Wikimedia Uruguay, and the author of UNESCO's guide to free and open software in Spanish. He is working with two government agencies (CEIBAL and CFE) and has implemented a program where future teacher trainers are trained in Wikipedia editing.
Filip Maljković will be Serbia's new representative, taking the place of Ivan Matejić. Filip joined the Wikimedia movement in 2004, when he was only 17 years old! He is a sysop and a bureaucrat. He was one of the founding members of Wikimedia Serbia, he is the board president for Wikimedia Serbia, and he has been active in WMRS's Academic Board.
Mariona Aragay is representing Catalonia and taking the place of Alex Hinojo. She is a Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Museu de la Música de Barcelona. There she launched this WikiProject, and she is currently working on collaborative projects between universities and Wikipedia. She joined our movement in 2011 as part of a Wiki Loves Monuments contest.
David Saroyan will be representing Armenia together with Lilit Tarkhanyan. David has been involved with Armenia's education program and the chapter since 2013, and he has been involved in our movement since 2009. He's working on his PhD at the Institute of Molecular Biology National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.
With these new members joining the Collab, together we will keep working together toward our vision, which is that Wikipedia belongs in education!