Board of Directors Elections 2014 - Candidacy - Marina Zhurakhinskaya

[Marina Zhurakhinskaya <marinaz redhat com>]

Name: Marina Zhurakhinskaya
Emails: marinaz redhat com and marinazik gmail com
Affiliations: Community Engagement Lead at Red Hat, Advisor and Director at the Ada Initiative
Blog: http://blogs.gnome.org/marina

Dear Foundation,

I'm running for a second term on the board to lend my organizing skills and my interest in reaching out to 
people to the Foundation and ensure its growth. We have an amazing community and high quality technology. My 
interests as a board member are to enable face-to-face work, development in the areas of interest to donors 
and advisory board members, and better external visibility of GNOME. Most recently, I've been helping 
organize sponsorship materials and process for GNOME.Asia and GUADEC, and contacting prospective sponsors.

Running the Outreach Program for Women, in which 30 Free Software organizations have participated so far, has 
helped me connect with and learn about the work and community of these organizations. Knowing how other 
organizations advance Free Software is helpful in charting our own course. For GNOME, organizing the Outreach 
Program for Women allows us to be a leader in advancing the inclusivity of all Free Software. I'm also on the 
board of directors for the Ada Initiative, an organization dedicated to promoting women in open technology 
and culture, which gives me insights into how another well-managed non-profit is run.

My other accomplishments in the last year include improving the way we keep track of incoming and outgoing 
payments related to the Outreach Program for Women, reviewing all the Google Summer of Code applications 
GNOME received, and running several GNOME newcomers workshops.

Thanks,
Marina