The election of Bobby Shabangu to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is a historic milestone for the Wikimedia movement, as it marks the first time an African serves in this senior governance role. Diversity in representation remains an important lesson we continue to learn as the human race, as it makes it easy for members of any society to take responsibility for that society’s endeavour when one can identify themselves with those at the highest echelons of such organised activity. Shabangu’s election marks a real step towards a geographic diversity within the leadership of the nonprofit that provides an anchor for Wikipedia and its sibling projects, including Wikidata, Wikimedia commons, Wikisource and others.
These projects collectively form the largest repositories of open human knowledge ever assembled by volunteer contributors from around the world. The Wikimedia Foundation was established as a nonprofit organisation in 2004 and is governed by a Board of Trustees with ultimate responsibility for the organisation’s mission, legal and regulatory compliance, long-term strategy and fiduciary oversight. Working in close partnership with the Foundation’s executive leadership and the global volunteer community, the Board helps create and sustain the conditions under which Wikimedia projects can thrive.
Through this stewardship, the Board must ensure that the foundation’s resources that are largely generated through public donations, the policies and programmes further the core mission of making knowledge freely accessible to everyone. As a result the composition of such a board should be representative of the movement it serves and Shabangu fits the bill. Shabangu’s is a typical South African story.
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He was born and raised in Mbombela which is nestled in the heart of Mpumalanga province to a not-so-well-to-do family. His early education started at Duma primary school and culminated in his matriculation at Lihawu secondary school. In 2006 he applied for and was awarded the Darmasiswa Cultural Exchange scholarship which took him to Padang Panjang college of Indonesian arts in Sumatra where he studied for a diploma in Music theory and Indonesian language.
He recently graduated from Unisa with a Bachelor of Arts Honours in Communications and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Information Technology Management with the same institution. His professional engagements outside the Wikimedia movement have complemented his community leadership. Shabangu has worked at organisations including the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and is currently a Knowledge Manager at the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), contributing to research, communication and knowledge management initiatives.
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