The FSFE re-elects president, vice president, and financial officer
At this year's General Assembly, which took place in Essen, Germany, on 12 October, the members of the FSFE re-elected Matthias Kirschner as the president, Heiki Lõhmus as the vice president, and Patrick Ohnewein as the financial officer for another two-year term.
Matthias Kirschner has been serving as the president of FSFE since 2015 and working fulltime for the FSFE since 2009. In 1999 he started using Free Software and realised that software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives. Kirschner is convinced that this technology has to empower society not restrict it. He joined the FSFE in 2004 while studying Political and Administrative Science. Kirschner is passionate to help governments, companies, other organisations, and individuals to understand how they can benefit from Free Software -- which gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt, and share software -- and how those rights help to support freedom of speech, freedom of press, or privacy.
Heiki Lõhmus has been serving as the FSFE's vice president since October 2016. Lõhmus first started volunteering for the FSFE in 2011 as a translator and soon after assumed the responsibility for translation coordination. In 2013 he became a member of the FSFE. As a member, his main priority has been to make FSFE more appreciative of its volunteers and their contributions. Over time his focus has broadened to include other strategic questions about the FSFE's community. Though his main focus in FSFE has been and continues to be on people, he holds a Master's degree in aeronautical engineering and is currently pursuing a PhD on remote sensing of the Greenland Ice Sheet. He always welcomes an opportunity to hear from our supporters, volunteers, or potential volunteers, so drop him a line.
Patrick Ohnewein joined the FSFE as a member in 2009 and became its financial officer in 2017. He has been dedicated to building up a Free Software community in South Tyrol since the nineties. He co-founded the Linux User Group Bozen-Bolzano-Bulsan and has served as its board member. He has also been organising the annual South Tyrol Free Software Conference. Ohnewein coordinates mailing lists about software projects and is involved as an IT-expert in various work-groups and committees for Free Software and for the IT-community. In his day job at NOI Techpark in the Italian region South Tyrol he is responsible for coordinating European development and research projects in the fields of tourism, mobility, energy, and food -- promoting an innovation strategy built on top of Open Data, Open Standards and Free Software.
The General Assembly consists of the members of the FSFE e.V., the FSFE's legal body. It is responsible for strategic planning, budgeting, agenda-setting, and the election, exoneration, and recall of the Executive Council and the Financial Officer.