[HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[Heather Leson]

Morning from Kenya,

I've been reading all the threads related to the HOT election. Thank
you, first off.  This is one of the healthiest conversations about
governance I have seen in a long time. I've watched Mozilla Rep
community go through this too in the last year. (Their model is
different, but the common questions stand. There discussion was also
very global and healthy.)

Truly, I would be honoured to serve you as a member, board member,
supporter, advisor, friend or what ever capacity the HOT community
determines best. It is refreshing to think about how I can help and
humbling to think about the limitations.

After re-reading the strategy document and reviewing all your notes, I
think there are a few things to be nailed down this year:

1. Membership policies, election format and growth strategy

2. Targeted Community mentorship and leadership training

(I agree that the board composition should be global. One thing that I
have told Ushahidi as staff is that I would like to put myself out of
a job. This is a true measure of success.)

3. Defining the roles and responsibilities for a Board vs Advisory
council. I think that Ubuntu does this really well.

4. Funding models for the future.

Again, thank you.

Heather

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 7:44 PM, Pierre Béland <infosbelas-gps at yahoo.fr> wrote:
> I am also sad to see that some people deeply involved in Activations were
> not selected to be Team members. I hope that we will soon have the
> opportunity to correct this situation.
>
> And I invite all the team members to participate to this election, to Vote!
>
> HOT already have a few successes even if it is a young organization. After
> Haiti earthquake, we showed our capacity to deploy in various countries and
> support local communities. Projects in Haiti, Indonesia and Africa also
> contributed to the structuration of HOT. In coordination with various
> partners, these deployments gave the opportunity to develop various tools
> and learning material. This also gives to HOT members the opportunity to
> work with GIS specialists,  to develop their skills and learn to better
> coordinate.
>
> The UN agencies now recognize the capacity of the Virtual technical
> communities (VTC) like HOT to collaborate to humanitarian relief. We are
> invited to various international conferences and establish various
> collaborations on the ground.
>
> The Humanitarian Activations is one aspect of HOT where I think we all agree
> that we should make more efforts to structure and coordinate with various
> organizations.  We need to extend our network of collaborators in the field
> of humanitarian activations to be more effective in activations such as in
> RDC. Imagery is also an important aspect of these activations and we should
> have the capacity to obtain aerial imageries more rapidly.  And finally, we
> have to assure that more team members have the capacity to take the
> responsability to coordinate such actions.
>
> While being in Canada, I am of french culture. I am not a GIS specialist.
> Since 2010, I participated as a mapper, coordinator of various activations.
> I participate often to HOT discussions including about development of
> softwares.
>
> If you think that I am a good asset for the organization, I will be pleased
> to participate to the board.
>
> Pierre
>
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>



-- 
Heather Leson
Director of Community Engagement
Ushahidi
hleson at ushahidi.com
www.ushahidi.com
@heatherleson