Job openings/National Program Director, India

Position summary:

The National Program Director, India serves as the Wikimedia Foundation's chief representative in India with responsibility for partnering with the Wikimedia community to grow participation in our projects and support the establishment of strong organizational capacity across the country to support the movement's growth in a sustainable way.

Position responsibilities:

• Partnerships that grow the community:

• Individuals: Establish connections to a group of advisors and friends of Wikimedia India who can both advise the team and community and help serve as ambassadors
• Universities: Focus on introduction of WIkimedia to large universities with significant graduate student populations
• Open source software community: Build relationships with open software community groups in India to encourage collaboration around Media-Wiki software development to support growth of Indic language projects and help encourage editing within the community
• Schools: Develop partnerships with education ministries at the national and state level (e.g., IT@Schools program)

• Outreach in partnership with the Wikimedia volunteer community focused on under-penetrated language Wikimedia projects and geographic areas in India. This might include:

• Outreach focused on national, major local and multi-language media to build awareness
• Advertising/marketing to encourage participation
• Competitions
• Facilitate knowledge sharing across the country (and ultimately around the globe) on approaches to building under-penetrated language projects

• Chapter development support (including grantmaking/funding). This might include:

• Generally be a resource to the chapter and the community
• Provide funding or organizational support for Wiki Academies, competitions and other outreach by the chapter
• Enable geographic spread of the chapter
• Provide funding or organizational support Wikimedia India-wide meetups and conferences

• Facilitate Indian developer community and WMF technology team in understanding and tackling technology challenges that are particular to Indic languages and the general technology needs of India (e.g., mobile platforms, lower bandwidth solutions, offline, etc.)
• Work with Wikimedia's global offline volunteer community and staff to develop and distribute offline product partnerships that provide wide reach in India
• Support the creation of partnerships with mobile service providers and mobile application developers within India to help expand participation and reach
• Raise funds and build relationships that support India-wide activities in partnership with the India chapter and the Wikimedia Foundation development team
• Build and manage a small team to execute on the mission with the goal of transitioning the activities to a stable and well funded (independent of the WMF) organization that could be folded into the chapter or operate in close partnership with the chapter within 3-5 years
• Serve as part of the Global Development leadership team of the Foundation working with peers in other Countries and Directors of Mobile/Offline business development, Global Development Research and Communications

Reports to

Chief Global Development Officer

Position characteristics:

• High energy for, drive and commitment to the Wikimedia mission: Deeply believes in the value of Wikimedia in the Indian context, exudes enthusiasm for the mission and can powerfully embody and communicate the mission
• Intellectual curiosity and flexibility: Enjoy tackling difficult, ambiguous problems and able to incorporate new knowledge into how one approaches situations and generates solutions; loves learning from others and expanding intellectual horizons
• Open and transparent: Comfortable working in a highly transparent fashion, open to input and feedback, proactive candid communicator who wants people to know what she/he is doing and isn't afraid to bring others in when things are off-track or when you need help
• Community builder: Essential that the leader see her/himself as a catalyst for growth and health of the Wikimedia community in India
• Strong cultural competency: Ability to bridge cultures and geographic differences within India and the sub-continent; Strong understanding of Indian history and cultural diversity; Able to navigate in a global movement
• Proficient manager: Able to design and execute on a range of initiatives; build, organize and manage a team of people; responsible use of resources (financial and human)
• Effective organizer: Creates a range of opportunities/approaches/events that bring people together to strengthen the Wikimedia community in India; willing to experiment with new ideas
• Data-driven: Is on top of the data about the projects in India; subjects her/his own approaches and activities as well as those of the team to rigorous analysis; willing to stop doing things that prove to be ineffective based on the data
• Partnership developer: Able to initiate, negotiate and operate partnerships that advance the Wikimedia mission in India with a wide range of institutions across the public, NGO, philanthropic and private sector
• Willing to travel: Regular travel within India to engage Wikimedia communities and conduct outreach activities; Periodic international travel (2-4 trips per year)
• Willing to flex schedule to operate within a global team: Be available for limited number of conference calls or email exchange between 2000-2300 on some evenings weekly

Candidate background:

• At least 10 years of professional experience with a strong track record of success in high performance organizations (significant proportion of professional experience within India)
• Masters degree or equivalent with strong academic results from a highly-regarded university
• Strong understanding of the Internet and the forces that underpin the success of Wikipedia
• Active participation as a Wikimedia volunteer would be an asset, though not a prerequisite
• Demonstrated experience working in a global, multi-cultural team; leading a team; serving as a public representative of an organization
• Experience as a leader or organizer in a collaborative community or organizational setting
• Fluent in English and at least one widely-used Indian language
• Experience in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented environment

Location

The position is based in India. The location of the office will be in New Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore.

Compensation

Competitive, as per international non-profit norms.

Apply

Please send a CV and cover letter to wikimediaindiaezi.net before October 29, 2010. Please put the position title (National Program Director, India) in your subject line.

Applications that do not include a cover letter will not be considered.

Please copy and paste the text of your CV into the e-mail, in addition to attaching the file.

Due to the volume of applications we receive, we regret that only those selected for an interview will be contacted.