As many of you know, OpenMRS Inc. is a non-profit organization designed to support the continued growth of the OpenMRS community. One element of the non-profit is a Board of Directors (BoD). The purpose of the Board is to provide guidance to the organization and ensure that we adhere to the mission, vision, and values of OpenMRS. At this time, we need nominations from each of you for people you feel would best represent the OpenMRS community. What does this mean? Basically, who are people that you all feel bring real world perspectives and fresh thinking to our collective work? Who are people you know would be committed to OpenMRS’ long term success and would be comfortable holding the rest of us accountable to do the same? Who are people with the insights that will lead us toward the real needs within the resource-poor environments throughout the world?
“The goal of the OpenMRS community Board seat is to maintain a strong connection between the Board of Directors and the OpenMRS community. My work on the Board of Director has included attending the monthly Board Meeting, representing the viewpoint of the community at large, and following up on action points from those meetings. That has included making introductions to people who could help OpenMRS, helping write and review documentation and talking with other community members to ask for their input on specific topics. It has also meant being involved with other Board members and with those in leadership positions in OpenMRS, to see about how to advance the community or resolve problems. Since this was the first experience of OpenMRS with a Board of Directors, there have been growing pains, and I’ve also been involved in community discussions such as how to have a new leadership and governance model. I’ve been fortunate to attend most of the OpenMRS Implementers meetings which has been a great way to meet new and old members, and also to read and sometimes participate in the conversations in OpenMRS Talk.
There has been other work that is not directly related to the Board position, but helps to stay involved in the community. For me that has included co-leading the OpenMRS Service Provider objective and my full-time position at ThoughtWorks with Bahmni seeing those implementations and creating the partners program." - Joaquin Baya
We want your thoughts on people that would serve on the OpenMRS Board in the capacity as a BoD Community Member. You may nominate yourself if you feel prepared for this role! The Community Member should attend all BoD meetings virtually; the volunteer time commitment will be up to 4 hours/month. To submit your nomination fill out the form below, or here. Please let us know before the end of December, 2016. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Theresa Pritchard at tpritchard[at]openmrs.org