Welcome on Florence Devouard speaker website.


For a corporate event, a conference, a workshop, or a seminar ask for a speaker that offers a unique value.

Who am I ?

I am a speaker on Collaborative Media topics since 2004. I participated in over 50 events, from the very large public conference to the small corporate seminar; from Paris to Buenos Aires, Taipei, Johannesburg, or Alexandria; in English or French.

A user of Internet since 1992, I worked for a private company doing internet-based decision tools in sustainable agriculture from 2000 till 2005.
Editor at Wikipedia (the famous online encyclopedia) since 2002, I enjoy participating to the best of my abilities to online knowledge-sharing communities.
Former chair of the Wikimedia Foundation (the US non profit that hosts Wikipedia) and founding board member at Wikimedia France (the association supporting Wikimedia projects in France), I have been deeply involved in the development of the legal, financial, technical, communication, fundraising framework supporting Wikipedia.
I also provide consulting services on issues related to knowledge management, collaboration tools and online communities.
I care for language diversity and multicultural dialogue, and am a supporter of the open-source and free knowledge mouvement.

 

What do you need ? 

Speaking is not a goal in itself, but rather an opportunity to share stories, experiences and thoughts with other human beings. But this exchange has its root in your needs.

Are you looking for someone to explain to your audience what Wikipedia is ? how it works ? the collaboration model ? the financial model ? want to hear about all the challenges facing a world-wide, multilingual, decentralized, volunteer-based project ? interested by the last rumors in the Wikipedia-world ?

I can help you.

When I joined Wikipedia in 2002, it was essentially a totally unknow project, led by a group of 50 people working on an English-based project, with no money and no official structure. When I joined the board of trustees of Wikimedia Foundation in 2004, Wikipedia was still pretty much a confidential project except in the USA, the project was running on 3 servers and the Wikimedia Foundation was hardly more than a piece of document describing bylaws and a bank account with 20 000 dollars on it.

When I quit the board in 2008, Wikipedia had become a very well-known website with over 10 000 000 articles in over 200 languages, and the Wikimedia Foundation hosted a top 10 most visited website, operated over 200 servers in several locations, had an office, over 25 staff members, an annual very successful fundraiser, was independantly audited, and ran on a budget of over 6 millions dollars.I have many stories to share with you... Just ask.

Are you looking for someone to help you discover new internet-based tools, such as wikis? Or more generally, tools and practices in social media that can help improve collaboration and knowledge sharing in your company? Or do you want to create a community-based project ?

I can help you as well. I love sharing my own knowledge and past experiences on new online practices, e-communities management, social decision-making, and digital identity issues.

Are you looking for a woman ?

Eh, I am not kidding here. Most conference programs are quite masculine in nature. Women speakers are not so numerous. Even less numerous in the technology sector... And a rare occurence in the open source world... I'll be happy to bring this little feminine touch if needed.

I have also been told that being from the x-generation (I am 41) was actually a strong point as most speakers in new technologies tend to be much younger, which sometimes is not so cool with an older audience. And since I am on this, yes, my English is far from perfect, but I can bring a cute French accent to the table ;)

Some recent public events

In the past few months, I have participated to events such as
* the Open World Forum in October 2009, for a panel on the human factor in Open Source
* The  International Conference on Economics and Culture. Session "Culture and the New Economy : Creative Enterprises and Innovation". Barcelona. In May 2009
* The Global Humanitarian Forum. Panelist during the "Social Media" session. Geneva. June 2009.
* Sales 3.0 : Sales Management & Sales Education Skills in an Interconnected World, GSSI : at ESC Clermont. Speaker and moderator. June 3-5.
* "Communicating human rights through technology". (in english) HURRIDOCS conference. Geneva, February 2009.
* "Partage et collaboration sur Internet : le cas Wikipédia" - Amitiés Françaises d’Anvers. Février 2009. Anvers - Belgique.

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I also provide consulting services on issues related to knowledge management, collaboration tools, and online communities. If you are French speaking, please check out my other website:

http://www.devouard.com.
If not, please contact me and let's talk about your needs.