María Sefidari

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María Sefidari
María Sefidari in 2023 during Wikimania
Sefidari in 2019
Born
María Sefidari Huici

1982 (age 41–42)
Madrid, Spain
Alma materComplutense University of Madrid
TitleChair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
Board member ofWikimedia Foundation

María Sefidari Huici (born 1982) was the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees from July 2018 until June 2021,[1] having been re-elected to the position in August 2019.[2] Sefidari was named a Techweek "Women's Leadership Fellow" in 2014.[3] In 2018, an essay she wrote about the upcoming European copyright reform was widely covered, including by TechCrunch and Boing Boing.[4][5][6]

Wikipedia experience[edit]

Sefidari discovered Wikipedia when her little sister explained that it was a website that anyone can edit. "Everything begins," she said in an interview with online newspaper elDiario.es, "when you start to get involved in a topic and spend many hours improving articles, and you see that there are Wikipedia policies that should be changed."[7] Shortly afterwards, she launched Wikiproyecto:LGBT to give visibility to these groups and improve and organize all the contents related to this topic, taking inspiration from English Wikipedia's WikiProject LGBT studies.[7] She has also worked to close Spanish Wikipedia's gender bias.[8][9]

Sefidari is also a founding member of Wikimedia España (WMES), the Spanish chapter of the Wikimedia movement, and she served on its Board as its first vice president.[10]

In 2015, she gave a conference on Wikimedia at King Juan Carlos University on their Digital Communication, Culture and Citizenship program.[11] In 2017–2018, she was in charge of the discipline "Communities in Network: Cooperative creation at the Internet", provided by Wikimedia Spain, as part of a master's degree on communication, culture and digital citizenship, at the same university.[12]

Wikimedia Foundation Board[edit]

In June 2013, Sefidari was elected to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees by the community of Wikipedia editors. Her term expired in June 2015. In 2016, she was appointed to the Board to fill a vacancy.[1] She was elected to the position of chair in July 2018,[13] a position she held until her resignation from the board in 2021.[2][14] In March 2020, Sefidari requested a four-month leave from the Board, in preparation for her upcoming maternity, being replaced in the role by Nataliia Tymkiv, as acting vice-chair of the board.[15]

Professional career[edit]

Sefidari received a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in management and tourism from Complutense University of Madrid.[16]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "María Sefidari". Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 11 July 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  2. ^ a b "Wikimedia Foundation announces Shani Evenstein Sigalov as new Trustee, as well as leadership appointments at fifteenth annual Wikimania". Wikimedia Foundation. 16 August 2019. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
  3. ^ "Women's Leadership Fellows". Techweek (conference). Archived from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  4. ^ Sefidari, Maria (6 September 2018). "Your internet is under threat. Here's why you should care about European Copyright Reform". Medium. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  5. ^ Lomas, Natasha (4 September 2018). "Wikimedia warns EU copyright reform threatens the 'vibrant free web'". TechCrunch. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  6. ^ Doctorow, Cory (5 September 2018). "Wikipedia's warning: EU copyright changes threaten the internet itself". Boing Boing. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  7. ^ a b Caballero, Lucía (15 March 2017). "La española que ha llegado a vicepresidir Wikimedia defendiendo al colectivo LGBT" [The Spanish Woman Who Has Become Wikimedia Vice President Defending the LGBT Community]. elDiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  8. ^ Puga, Jessica M. (18 October 2016). "Wikipedia se llena de nombres de mujer" [Wikipedia is Filled with Women's Names]. El Comercio (in Spanish). Oviedo. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  9. ^ Calvo Tarancón, Sara (8 July 2016). "Nosotras creamos, nosotras editamos" [We Create, We Edit]. Público (in Spanish). Madrid. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  10. ^ Delclós, Tomàs (11 January 2011). "Wikipedia: 10 años y 278 ediciones" [Wikipedia: 10 years and 278 Editions]. El País (in Spanish). Barcelona. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  11. ^ "Wikimedia: otras formas de colaborar para compartir conocimiento". Medialab Prado. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  12. ^ King Juan Carlos University. "Table of disciplines on the Masters in Digital Communication, Culture and Citizenship 2017-18" (PDF). Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  13. ^ "Wikimedia Foundation announces Tanya Capuano as new Trustee, alongside leadership appointments at 14th annual Wikimania". Wikimedia Foundation. 20 July 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  14. ^ Sefidari Huici, María (3 June 2021). "Update from the Wikimedia Foundation Board chair". Diff. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  15. ^ "Minutes/2020-02 - Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  16. ^ "María Sefidari Huici | Medialab-Prado Madrid". www.medialab-prado.es. Retrieved 26 June 2020.

External links[edit]