Dear Foundation members,
I’m announcing my candidacy for the GNOME Foundation board of directors. My corporate affiliation is Canonical.
I’ve been a long-time GNOME contributor and Foundation member, but never served on the board. I got started as an end-user of GNOME more than 20 years ago and got involved as a contributor with GNOME Journal in 2004. Around the same time, I joined the GNOME marketing team as well as the GNOME Love project. I traveled to conferences and numerous LUGs around the US giving talks on GNOME, specifically GNOME Love, and how new contributors could get involved. During this time I was also the maintainer of the GNOME live isos as well as the GNOME Developers Kit.
For the past 12 years, I’ve been on the Ubuntu Desktop team at Canonical, and am now managing the desktop team. I think my position at Canonical gives me a valuable perspective on what OEM partners and enterprise customers are looking for in a commercial offering.
Also, for the past 7 years, I’ve been a volunteer at Kramden Institute, serving on the Volunteer Leadership Team where we refurbish computers for underprivileged children as well as provide computer literacy programs for those families. At Kramden, we provide GNOME as the desktop environment on the computers we award to children in need. I think my service at Kramden gives me an interesting perspective on the use of GNOME in educational environments.
I would be honored to serve the GNOME Foundation, leveraging my experiences to help GNOME continue to grow and thrive.
Thanks,
Ken VanDine
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