2009-2010 AGM/Ordinary member/Andrew Owens

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Hi, my name's Andrew and I'm based in Perth. I'm proud to have this opportunity to run for a Committee position in Wikimedia Australia.
Hi, my name's Andrew and I'm based in Perth. I'm proud to have this opportunity to run for a Committee position in Wikimedia Australia, and am grateful to Sarah and Craig for nominating me and to other members who approached me encouraging me to run this year.  


I've been associated with Wikimedia projects (under the username Orderinchaos) for several years now, registering my first account on en.wikipedia on 22 March 2006 and becoming an admin on that project almost a year later. I've been fortunate to work in en's WikiProject Australia which is a very strong group of co-editors with a wide range of backgrounds, opinions and expertise.  
==Who I am in the real world==
My full name is Andrew Owens. I was born in Northern Ireland but moved to Perth as a young child with my parents, and I've lived here ever since. My qualifications are a Certificate IV in IT (1999), which helped me get my first paid job; a Bachelor of Science (Business Information Systems, minor in Chemistry) (2003); and Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (2009). In a few months I can add a Certificate IV in IT (Networking) and Certificate IV in Business to those.
 
I have worked in a range of industries - prior to my full-time career I home-tutored high school students in Maths and Chemistry, did volunteer IT work for a charity and designed websites on contract. Later, I worked at internet service providers for two years, notionally as a support or customer service officer but branching into training, database and web design/maintenance, home-visit computer support and dealing with the TIO and other regulatory bodies on behalf of my employer. I then worked at Channel Nine for three years for a contractor, writing teletext subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired for TV programs. Upon graduating my degree, I engaged in several IT and business support roles including a major Perth architect, a community newspaper and two transport companies. In 2005 I worked for six months in a risk management role at Curtin University - my first large organisational role where I became very conversant with policies and procedures in a large organisation.
 
Deciding IT was not my career future, I did some work in 2007 towards a Graduate Diploma of Education which introduced me to the wonderful world of schools and education, something I have always had a passion for. For various reasons I decided to go into the TAFE sector instead, but I made many valuable contacts and learned a heap of stuff that one can only learn from experience about the art of teaching.
 
==Wikimedia background==
I've been associated with Wikimedia projects (under the username Orderinchaos) for several years now, registering my first account on en.wikipedia on 22 March 2006 and becoming an admin on that project almost a year later on 11 March 2007. I now have over 50,000 edits including a featured article and a few good articles, and have worked hard to improve more obscure areas of Australia's coverage (mainly local government and politics), much of which has required extensive library and archive research both in this state and in Victoria. I've been fortunate to work in en's WikiProject Australia which is a very strong group of co-editors with a wide range of backgrounds, opinions and expertise.
 
I have also uploaded photos and maps to Commons, mostly for geographic articles, and have coded some important historic documents from Western Australia to Wikisource, and I've also done some work to set up an interlingual WikiProject for ensuring information about Australia in other languages is of a reasonable standard.


Over the past 10 months, I have been privileged to be a non-voting participatory member / official observer of the Committee, per [[Resolution:Inviting non-voting participants to committee discussions|this resolution]] and [[Resolution:Extension of non-voting participatory members|a subsequent one]]. In August 2009, I attended GLAM-WIKI on a bursary and facilitated the Education stream.
Over the past 10 months, I have been privileged to be a non-voting participatory member / official observer of the Committee, per [[Resolution:Inviting non-voting participants to committee discussions|this resolution]] and [[Resolution:Extension of non-voting participatory members|a subsequent one]]. In August 2009, I attended GLAM-WIKI on a bursary and facilitated the Education stream.
(more to come)


I will be contributing a more full statement on Saturday 21 November.
I will be contributing a more full statement on Saturday 21 November.

Revision as of 10:01, 21 November 2009

Hi, my name's Andrew and I'm based in Perth. I'm proud to have this opportunity to run for a Committee position in Wikimedia Australia, and am grateful to Sarah and Craig for nominating me and to other members who approached me encouraging me to run this year.

Who I am in the real world

My full name is Andrew Owens. I was born in Northern Ireland but moved to Perth as a young child with my parents, and I've lived here ever since. My qualifications are a Certificate IV in IT (1999), which helped me get my first paid job; a Bachelor of Science (Business Information Systems, minor in Chemistry) (2003); and Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (2009). In a few months I can add a Certificate IV in IT (Networking) and Certificate IV in Business to those.

I have worked in a range of industries - prior to my full-time career I home-tutored high school students in Maths and Chemistry, did volunteer IT work for a charity and designed websites on contract. Later, I worked at internet service providers for two years, notionally as a support or customer service officer but branching into training, database and web design/maintenance, home-visit computer support and dealing with the TIO and other regulatory bodies on behalf of my employer. I then worked at Channel Nine for three years for a contractor, writing teletext subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired for TV programs. Upon graduating my degree, I engaged in several IT and business support roles including a major Perth architect, a community newspaper and two transport companies. In 2005 I worked for six months in a risk management role at Curtin University - my first large organisational role where I became very conversant with policies and procedures in a large organisation.

Deciding IT was not my career future, I did some work in 2007 towards a Graduate Diploma of Education which introduced me to the wonderful world of schools and education, something I have always had a passion for. For various reasons I decided to go into the TAFE sector instead, but I made many valuable contacts and learned a heap of stuff that one can only learn from experience about the art of teaching.

Wikimedia background

I've been associated with Wikimedia projects (under the username Orderinchaos) for several years now, registering my first account on en.wikipedia on 22 March 2006 and becoming an admin on that project almost a year later on 11 March 2007. I now have over 50,000 edits including a featured article and a few good articles, and have worked hard to improve more obscure areas of Australia's coverage (mainly local government and politics), much of which has required extensive library and archive research both in this state and in Victoria. I've been fortunate to work in en's WikiProject Australia which is a very strong group of co-editors with a wide range of backgrounds, opinions and expertise.

I have also uploaded photos and maps to Commons, mostly for geographic articles, and have coded some important historic documents from Western Australia to Wikisource, and I've also done some work to set up an interlingual WikiProject for ensuring information about Australia in other languages is of a reasonable standard.

Over the past 10 months, I have been privileged to be a non-voting participatory member / official observer of the Committee, per this resolution and a subsequent one. In August 2009, I attended GLAM-WIKI on a bursary and facilitated the Education stream.

(more to come)

I will be contributing a more full statement on Saturday 21 November.

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