User:Anthere
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About me
I was born in Versailles (France). I grew up in Grenoble, and have been living since then in several French cities, as well as Antwerpen in Belgium and Tempe in Arizona.
I am an engineer in Agronomy (ENSAIA and also hold a DEA in Genetics and biotechnologies (INPL). I have spent a while in public research (INRA), working in flower plant genetic improvement, later in applied research, in microbiology, to study the feasibility of heavily polluted soil bioremediation. I spent some time in Tempe University (Arizona), following courses in computer science and civil engineering.
After a break to take care of my first two kids, I joined a small french firm, Quantix Agro, whose activity was related with decision tools, in finances, insurance, agriculture and agri-business. My part was in the agri-business, and I mostly worked to conceive decision-making tools in sustainable agriculture until 2006 when I born a third and last child
I settled as a freelancer in 2008 and have been since then. In 2017, I co-founded Wiki in Africa, a South Africa based association along with Iolanda Pensa and Isla Haddow-Flood.
As of mid 2025, I am 57, and live in Marseille. I work part time at Wiki in Africa as co-ED and I am a Wikimedian in residence at WIPO (since Jan 1st 2022).
My work
I discovered Wikipedia in late 2001 and have been an editor since February 2002.
I first started editing only the English Wikipedia anonymously, then under the pseudonym Anthere. I joined the French Wikipedia when it had possibly 200 stubs. In English, I mostly focused in editing (in particular in Agricultural Sciences), while in the French Wikipedia, I also took a lot of time building the project, its rules, and the community.
I was elected to join the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation, and then served as its second Chair until July 2008. In 2008, I was honored to be made knight in the French National Order of Merit.
I co-founded Wikimedia France in 2004 and was its vice-chair for a while.
I have been a steward for over four years.
Late 2012, I decided it was time to move on. My focus since then has been diversity (or lack there of...). I co-create or participate to projects with the explicit goals of
- getting more African editors and more African-related content onto Wikimedia project or
- projects related to the Gender Gap or
- projects focusing on involving or bringing knowledge to people with poor or no internet connexion
Contact me
- E-mail: fdevouard
anthere.org - Twitter: @anthere
- Website: http://www.devouard.org
- LinkedIn: Devouard
| fr-N | Cet·te utilisateur·rice a pour langue maternelle le français. |
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| en-4 | This user has near native speaker knowledge of English. |
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 | This user is an administrator on Meta-Wiki. (verify) |
 | This user is an administrator on the French Wikipedia. (verify·CA) |
 | This user is a bureaucrat on the French Wikipedia. (verify·CA) |
| This user is an administrator on the English Wikipedia. (verify·CA) |
 | This user is an administrator on Wikimedia Commons (verify). |
| This is a Wikimedia global user page. If you find this page on any site other than a Wikimedia one, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated, and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with the site. The original page is located at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere. |  |
| Anthere | ||||||||||||
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| — Wikimedian — | ||||||||||||
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| Name | Florence Devouard (she/her) | |||||||||||
| Location | Marseille | |||||||||||
| Time zone | UTC+1 | |||||||||||
| Country |  France | |||||||||||
| Contact info | ||||||||||||
| Website | www.devouard.org | |||||||||||
fdevouard anthere.org | ||||||||||||
| Interests | ||||||||||||
Conflict resolution, Gender gap, Africa, IP Rights, Governance | ||||||||||||
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More on my work
As Founder and then co-ED of Wiki in Africa, I launched many different programmes, some of which became pretty notable in the Wikimedia ecosystem, such as
- Wiki Loves Africa, a photo contest across Africa since 2014,
- the WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique, an education project running on Vikidia since 2017,
- the Wiki Loves Women, a capacity building project around Gender Gap since 2016, with several declinations such as SheSaid
- WikiFundi, a software solution to create Wikipedia articles offline since 2016
- Or the c:ISA Tool, a microcontribution tool to add structured data on Commons since 2019
I also work on other topics such as
- the Research:Wikipedia Primary School SSAJRP programme (2015-2017) at SUPSI (applied research on Primary School curricula in South Africa).
My affiliations (as of 2025)
- Main affiliations
- Co-Executive Director of Wiki in Africa (non affiliated association)
- Wikipedian-in-Residence at World Intellectual Property Rights (WIPO)
- Former Chair of Wikimedia Foundation
- Co-founder, former Vice-Chair and currently member of Wikimédia France Chapter
- Member of the Wikimania Steering Committee
- Former treasurer of WikiFranca (hub-to-be for French speaking wikimedia groups) and now member representing Wiki in Africa
- (Contact) member of Wikimedians for offline wikis UG
- Member of the Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network UG
- Financial Auditor and member of m:Les sans pagEs UserGroup (contact member for the affiliate)
- Board member of Open Food Facts
- Vice-Chair of Ynternet.org
- Looser memberships... usergroup I support
 |  Yamaji kite naniyara yukashi sumire-gusa. -- Basho
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Former times
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I have been there for so long... 23 years...
From time to time, I go read back some of the stuff I wrote last year, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago...
- /Année 2005 (my summary of year 2005)
- /retrospective (this, I wrote during the second board elections)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere/Values (written sometime in 2004)
- Incivility - early 2004, when I joined the mediation committee. It became a reference...
- Disarmament crisis of March 2003 (easy to date... I fled the english wikipedia. A poor place to stay at for a french at that time)
- Listening to our garden (old stuff - 2003 ?)
- Future of international Wikipedias as part of the main community -- Wikipedias and cross-fertilisation (digging... this is 2002....)
- What is an anther ?
- systemes
- Reflexions sur la bioethique
- apology
- Dispute resolution
- Source of conflict
- Open and free
- User:Anthere/logos
- Biz Dev Bible