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User:ABruszik-WMF

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Agnes Bruszik
Agnes Bruszik
Lead Program Officer, Northern and Western Europe, Wikimedia Foundation

About me

Hello everyone! I am excited to join the Wikimedia Movement. I am a Hungarian native currently living and working in Gloggnitz, Austria. I have spent most of my adult life in the Netherlands, London and Brussels. I listen to all variations of my name's pronunciation.

In the past, I coordinated various projects and initiatives funded by the EU, bilateral donors, private foundations and intergovernmental organizations. I have experience working with policymakers (e.g. Council of Europe, the EC, UNEP, UNESCO, EEA), and contributing to the workflows of global conventions. As a consultant, I helped NGOs in Europe to develop their skills and capacities in strategic program development and fundraising. Thematically, I have worked in sustainability issues, media education, media-, digital- and information literacy, and open knowledge.

As a volunteer and curator for 7 years, I supported the Helikon-Art foundation in Hungary that provided skill development, grants and exhibition spaces for a community of talented amateur artists. I also volunteered at Swarm Dynamics, a cross-disciplinary group of artists and scientists that promote rapid transformation solutions towards zero carbon economies, and develop artful communications to help engage wider audiences.

Outside the Wiki world, you'd find me enjoying anything related to the arts, watching a TED Ex, painting my next kids' book, being in nature, or planning my future food forest.

My work

I am happily joining the community resources team and helping the region's affiliates, user groups and community members. I am looking forward to learning about their priorities and proposed solutions, and see where they feel they need assistance.

I am not new to the Wiki universe as I have been providing quantitative and qualitative analysis of WMUK's program delivery, and supporting its volunteer community with project grants in 2017-18 (and, together with the great Sara Thomas, in 2020-21). I learned about building programs on the strengths of the community, about tools used for metrics and the pain of formatting color coded tables in HTML. From Wales, I was shown me that there is passion that can bring a government on board to support a minority language Wikipedia flourish at a larger scale. I learned from Wikimedians-in-Residence that impact lies in consistency, and with consistent support, educational and GLAM institutions are willing to take inspired actions beyond their status quo. And I met inspiring individuals, like Magnus Manske, teaching us to just do, to dare to imagine, and develop ideas, tools or prototypes even before their future applications are understood, or before they are funded. That's how I was inspired to carry out research related to the ways Wiki projects help develop [digital literacy] in individuals. With Daria, we also worked on the [impact of Wikimedia UK's information literacy work on citizen engagement and democratic participation]. I am currently translating the educational game Wikeys to Hungarian.

I hope to continue contributing in meaningful ways to the global Wikimedia movement. There is no other place like this: it is the single greatest endeavor of humanity so far to provide a model for community self-governance at a global scale, while improving the quantity and quality of accessible free knowledge for all. I feel honored that I was given the opportunity to be a part of it.

Disclaimer: I work for or provide services to the Wikimedia Foundation, and this is the account I try 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

abruszik@wikimedia.org