Small biography in English

Florence Devouard is a consultant in Collaborative Media. She served as one of the elected wikimedia community representative to the Board of Wikimedia Foundation* during four years and is formely Chair of that Board (2006-2008). She is now member of the Advisory Board of Wikimedia Foundation. She is also a founding member of Wikimedia France.

Florence was born in Versailles (France). She grew up in Grenoble, and has been living since then in several French cities, as well as Antwerpen in Belgium and Tempe in Arizona, USA. She holds two masters, one in Agricultural Sciences (a 5-year degree in agronomical engineering (Diplome d’Ingénieur Grande Ecole) from ENSAIA and the other a postgraduate degree (DEA) in Genetics and Biotechnologies from INPL. She has been working in public research, first in flower plant genetic improvement, and second in microbiology to study the feasability of polluted soil bioremediation. She was employed until 2005 in a French company, to conceive decision-making tools in sustainable agriculture. She joined the Wikipedia adventure in February 2002 and is known as a contributor under the pseudonym Anthere. On May 16 2008, she was made a knight in the French National Order of Merit. She is the co-author of the book "Wikipédia : découvrir, utiliser, contribuer" published in January 2009.

Florence is 41, and lives in Clermont Ferrand with her husband Bertrand and their three children, Anne-Gaëlle, William, and Thomas.

* The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a nonprofit, charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of its wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. It operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world’s 10 most-visited websites.

* Photos * Florence Devouard Speaking Website