First Pole in Wikimedia board of trustees

Professor Dariusz Jemielniak has garnered the highest number of the community vote in the election for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. More than 5,000 community members coming form over 180 home wikis participated, more than in any past board election. Jemielniak will join the Wikimedia Foundation as a trustee after he is officially appointed by the Board at Wikimania in July. He is the first Pole and the first person coming from outside the US or Western Europe to hold the post. "Thanks to being on the board, I will be able to co-decide about the fate of Wikipedia, which is now the largest online encyclopedia in the world. Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees takes part in designing long-term development strategy of Wikipedia, it also decides on selecting the foundation's head and manages the foundation's budget, which annually amounts to tens of millions of dollars," Dariusz Jemielniak told Polish Press Agency (PAP). Jemielniak is a full professor of management, the head of the Center for Research on Organizations and Workplaces, and a founder of New Research on Digital Societies group at Kozminski University. Within Wikimedia movement, he is involved in the Polish Wikipedia, where he serves as an admin and a bureaucrat, as well as globally as one of the stewards. Previously he served one term on the Wikimedia Ombudsman commission. Although he has never held any roles or functions at the Polish chapter, he is its member.