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Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024/Candidates/Tesleemah Abdulkareem

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Tesleemah Abdulkareem (Tesleemah)

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Tesleemah (talk meta edits global user summary CA  AE)

Candidate details
Tesleemah as a project lead of a wikimedia event
  • Personal:
    • Name: Tesleemah Abdulkareem
    • Location: Nigeria
    • Languages: English

Yoruba Arabic (Basic) French (Beginner) German (Beginner)

  • Editorial:
    • Wikimedian since: 2021
    • Active wikis: En.wikipedia.org

Yo.wikipedia.org Wikiquote Wikibooks

Total word count for the whole application (required + optional questions) is 1000 (one thousand) words
Required questions
Why are you running for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees? What would you contribute? What would you like to learn more about? I am running for the board of trustee as I would like to be more practical about my contribution to free knowledge. Before now, I have been contributing to the wikimedia projects however been elected as one of the Wikimedia board of trustees will make it easier to do more than just editing, I will be able to proffer solutions and help the Foundation directly.

Also, I am an enthusiastic individual who put in the best in whatever she does. I will be bringing my energetic vibe to the board which is very contagious, of course!.

Please describe your Wikimedia experience (such as contributions to the Wikimedia projects, memberships in Wikimedia organizations or affiliates, activities as a Wikimedia movement organizer, or participation with a Wikimedia movement ally organization). I am an active Wikipedia editor with 2660 edits and 101 articles on English Wikipedia.

I led the "Wikimedia Promotion in Akure" project in 2023 in my state; Ondo state, Nigeria and the project aimed to create awareness of Wikipedia and its sister's project in Akure. At the end of the project which lasted for a month, the Wikimedia Editors in Akure was established with 110 Editors and 510 articles improved.

Link to show the impact of Wikimedia promotion in Akure: Wikimedia Promotion in Akure

In addition, 7 months ago I was one of the core organizers for the "WikiClimate Campus Tour Nigeria" Project, a project about climate and environmental issues awareness involving 6 institutions in Nigeria.

At the end of the project, 324 Editors were recruited and 1907 Wikipedia articles were Edited with 209 Wikidata items created. Link to show the impact of "Wikiclimate Campus Tour Nigeria Project": Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria/Partnership and Implementation team

Currently, I am one of the board of trustees, Wiki Project Medicine.

From your perspective, what should the Wikimedia Foundation be prioritizing over the next 5-10 years, and why do you see these as the most important priorities? wikimedia foundation should prioritise contributions to other sister projects of Wikipedia that are not very functional such as Wiki functions, Wikispecies. This is because emphasy as always been on Wikipedia and its high time to make the world go round and fulfil her mission "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally".
Optional questions - Professional Experience, Skills and Education
Please describe your experience with governing bodies of organizations (nonprofit or for-profit), mentioning the scope of your responsibilities, as well as the complexity of the organization (in terms of scale of operations, budget, number of people involved, or other meaningful measures) and the size of the board or body. I am the first female President of an indigenous association; National Association of Ondo State students, (NAOSS) Unilorin Chapter a small scale association with less than 300 members where I direct the activities of the members, seek for donations and ensure peace among the members.
Please describe your professional career experience. I am the CEO of Mira Sight Foundation founded in 2022, an NGO focused on prevention of blindness and creating awareness about eye. The foundation has about 4 board members who chaired her activities. My role as the founder and CEO is to oversee the activities of the Foundation, last year through donation, I was able to secure free eye screening and free drugs as well as glasses for about 500 students and staffs of a public school.
Please briefly describe 3 situations that show how you tackled, or advised others on, a complex problem in an organization. How did you work with others to address the situations? 1. This made me remember how I transform the abandoned toilet at my physical store to a usable one by simply getting a cheap door lock while speaking to few other vendors who contributed money to clean up the place.

Nobody appointed me the Health Manager of my store, nor was I place in charge of the place officially, however. I took it upon myself to see to the cleanliness of the place.

2. I was able to stay calm when the card of the association I lead was stucked in the ATM during an event.

Please describe your educational background, including degrees, certificates, and courses of study finished, and their relevance to board work. I have a college certificate with credit in 9 courses.

I am an optometrist In view in the University of Ilorin, Nigeria with just few month to my induction and board exam. I am currently working on a project to shows the relationship between myopia, a refractive error and intraocular pressure of the eye.

I have certificate in grant writing and software development.

Also, I recently earned the Wikimedia Foundation badge for completing the Boad of trustees pre-boarding training on Wikilearn.

All these will be useful in working as a board of trustee of wikimedia foundation

Please add any relevant links describing your professional background, experience, profile (such as LinkedIn, staff page, etc.). www.linkedin.com/in/tesleemah-abdulkareem
Optional questions - Leadership Experience
Please describe ways in which you have helped to form a bridge between multiple communities (such as by working on projects outside your home wiki, or working on a collaboration between multiple affiliates). I have bridged gap between multiple communities within wikimedia foundation by organizing events on the English Wikipedia such as the 'Wikimedia Awareness in Akure', the most recent of such bridge is the event I am currently championing 'Wiki And Health articles in Nigeria' for medical editors in Nigeria and collaboration with Wiki Project Medicine where the chair, Dr James Heilman is an advisor.
Can you describe a policy, on wiki or off, that you helped to create or change? What did you learn from this experience? One policy I once incorporated was during an edit-a-thon, myself and three other wikimedia editors set up a WhatsApp platform where we discussed how the organizers will release the gift for winners. While I chaired the committee, we concluded on how best to approach the person in charge and it was productive at the end of the day with the gifts released to the winners.

What I gave learnt from the experience is to work collectively with others to fight for good cause.

How have you been able to empower people to make their voices heard? I have actively involved members of my community in Nigeria when organising events. Recently, I led a project, Wiki and Health articles in Nigeria, a project that brought medical professionals into limelight and they were recruited to edit medical contents on wiki projects. Also, I share links to resources as well as trainings. One of the notable one was Organizer lab, after I finished with the cohort 1.even though, only few were selected for the second cohort. I'm glad the members in my community gave it their best shot.
Sometimes in professional situations, there are personality conflicts. Explain how you remain productive even with personality conflicts. I'm the strict to business type, even if you are not the best person in term of the way you relate with others. I focus on how jobs can be done without issues hence I focus on the good sides of others, this make it easy to overlook the flaws of others.

In summary, I remain productive in case of personality conflicts in a professional settings by figuring out the best in others and keeping my emotions in check.

Optional questions - Strategic Thinking
Where do you see the need for greater diversity in the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees or within the movement? What steps would you take to improve diversity on the Board or within the movement? What steps would you recommend the Board take to improve diversity? Going through the list of past and present, I do not noticed board of trustees from Africa or Nigeria at large however I'm not sure this is the foundation's fault as election of board of trustees as always been thrown open however this could be due to lack of information due to underrepresentation of the black continent.

This is why I'm presenting myself to elected as a board member.

Verification Identity verification performed by Wikimedia Foundation staff and eligibility verification performed by the Elections Committee
Eligibility: Verified
Verified by: KTC (talk) 20:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Identification: Verified
Verified by: – NahidSultan (WMF) (talk) 10:56, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]