AN EXPERT IN COMMUNITIES AND ONLINE-COLLABORATION

Florence Devouard is a speaker and a consultant in Collaborative Media. She helps organizations to discover and implement new internet-based tools. Above everything, she loves to share her knowledge of new practices and online communities. She cares for language diversity and multicultural dialogue, and is a supporter of the open-source and free knowledge mouvement.

EDITOR AT WIKIPEDIA
FORMELY CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION

A small organization with no staff, no office and only a couple of dozen of thousand dollars in bank in 2004, the Wikimedia Foundation has grown to be a world-wide recognised organization. In 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation was hosting several websites including Wikipedia, a top-ten most visited website in the world, with an office located in San Francisco, staffed with over 20 people running on a budget of 6 millions dollars, collected from internet-users and big donnors. Florence efforts have been oriented to insure that the Wikimedia network would preserve the diversity of the community, that the community would stay involved in the organization decision-making process, and that the whole system would stay as decentralized as possible, to preserve its independance and facilite its durability.

Florence is also a founding member (2004) of Wikimedia France, the local French association supporting Wikimedia projects locally.
As member of its board, she is the leading person for the fundraising effort in France.

For her involvement, on May 16 2008, Florence was made a knight in the French National Order of Merit, proposed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as "chair of an international foundation", by M. Eric Besson, presently Minister of Immigration, Integration, National identity and Solidary development in the government of François Fillon French National Government. Florence has been awarded a Montgolfier in October 2008, by the  Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale in the category « training and communication ». She is the co-author of the book "Wikipédia : découvrir, utiliser, contribuer" published in January 2009. She is also one of the authors in a collective book (benefits of the sales given to Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque): La nouvelle renaissance.

French National Order of Merit ceremony with M. Eric Besson

A FRENCH ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE

On 9 March 2008, Florence was elected member of the municipal council of the city of Malintrat.

A SUPPORTER OF OPEN KNOWLEDGE AND FREE CULTURE

“As the Chair of the Foundation, Florence not only demonstrated her leadership toward global community but also implemented insightful strategies and tackled various challenges promptly. It takes both intelligence and empathy to collaborate with community from all sorts of culture background, and Florence did a fabulous success in her term. After she finished the post as Chair, she still actively participates and contributes in the Internet culture and open knowledge movements as she did before. The extensive global connections and experiences she has is definitely a great advantage for anyone looking for advise about the Internet. Meanwhile, she also has sharp observation and always speaks straight to the point. Florence is a good role model about how could a single person improve the world gradually. She is considerate of others in all respects. Most of all, she is always a true friend you could count on and trust.” March 23, 2009
Tzu-Chiang Liou , Organizer and Program Comittee Coordinator of Wikimania 2007 , Wikimedia Foundation
worked with Florence at Wikimedia Foundation Inc

AN AGRONOMIST BY TRAINING

Florence was born in Versailles (France). She grew up in Grenoble, and has been living since then in several French cities, as well as Antwerpen in Belgium and Tempe in Arizona, USA. She holds two masters, a master in Agricultural Sciences (a 5-year degree in agronomical engineering (Diplome d’Ingénieur Grande Ecole) from ENSAIA and the other a postgraduate degree (DEA) in Genetics and Biotechnologies from INPL. She followed some civil engineering and web sciences courses in Arizona State University and was later trained as a webmaster.

She has been working in public research, first in flower plant genetic improvement, and second in microbiology to study the feasability of polluted soil bioremediation. She was employed until 2005 in a French company, to conceive decision-making tools in sustainable agriculture.

A SPOUSE, A MOM, AND A GARDENER

See also Florence Devouard biography on diplomatie.gouv.fr (in English).

Florence is 41, and lives in Clermont Ferrand (France) with her husband Bertrand and their three children, William 13 (a co French and American citizen), Anne-Gaëlle 11, and Thomas 3. She loves living in the fresh air, gardening, walking in the country.   Far from the explosion of the Net, ambitious firms and fashionable "blogs", the people known as "Wikipedians" refuse, in spite of the difficulties, to let their work be commercialised. They are passionately committed, independent amateur volunteers - a spirit that sits perfectly with the image of their president, who prefers to work from her peaceful country home between tending plants, her hands freshly washed clean of soil from her kitchen garden. Pierre Langlais Journalist

Where to find more on Florence

Find Florence Devouard on Wikipedia