Local organizing committee

I am Lourie, currently a final year student at Stellenbosch University studying laser physics. I am intimately involved in all aspects of the project since inception, but mainly focus on the technical aspects and currently sits on the Wikimedia ZA board as a director. Additionally I put much effort into assisting Maarten with connecting with governmental organisations for their support and Dumisani with the social development component of the project.

I am an Electrical Engineer by profession and has been a wikimedian since 2008. I can be contacted for any discussions around sponsorship negotiations and any potential community development opportunities that this competition can assist in.

Wiki Loves Monuments will be conducted in all South African Provinces. This will give Wikimedia-ZA an opportunity to interact with communitities and individuals from different walks of life. My job is to ensure that all the communitites we come into contact with benefit from this competition in some way. This national exercise will require a lot of funding to make it a success, we have and are busy in engagements and discussions with natural stake holders with regards to partnerships and joint ventures.

I am Maarten, a Belgian civil engineer. I moved to Cape Town for my current employer, a green energy firm. I have been an editor since 2003, mainly on the Dutch Wikipedia. In Belgium and the Netherlands I organised multiple events, including last year's WLM competition in Belgium, and during my stay I'm trying to do the same in South Africa.

My job within the team is to connect with governmental agencies and organisations and to get their support.

Isla is currently employed by the Africa Centre (www.africacentre.net), a non-profit organization based in Cape Town, as the marketing and communications manager. She is also the Project Manager for WikiAfrica (www.wikiafrica.org), which is an international collaboration aimed at redressing and increasing the amount of African content on Wikipedia. Wikimedia ZA and WikiAfrica are collaborating on the launching and preparation of this competition.

If you have any media enquiries or press release questions please contact her on the following e-mail address.

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Director of Wikimedia South Africa, Senior Candy Scientist at Kraft Foods South Africa.

Blessing Chataira is a Programme Officer at ITOCA and is also the head of the Continuing Educationand Professional Development (CEPD) programme. She holds a Science Honors degree – Information Science. Amongst many roles,Blessing has specialized in developing modules, reports writing, research, training, monitoring and evaluation of projects, and building professionals’capacity in various fields in the information management and ICTs sector.

In this project she is responsible for event planning and management. This role may include aqcuiring and confirming bookings for public facilities that are earmarked for upload marathons and edit-a-thons.

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