= Heiki Lõhmus takes over FSFE vice-presidency from Alessandro Rubini =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20161031-01.en.html ]
Alessandro Rubini has stepped down as Vice-president of the FSFE. Alessandro, an electronic engineer with Ph. D. in a computer science, brought invaluable insight to the internal discussions within the FSFE and has worked tirelessly to push the Free Software envelope in Italy and the rest of Europe.
Alessandro has left the vice-presidency to concentrate on his work with the Free Software community in Italy, but he remains an active member of the FSFE and continues contributing his time generously to the organisation.
Taking over from Alessandro is Heiki Lõhmus, a student of aeronautical engineering from Estonia. Heiki started collaborating with the FSFE when he "discovered some Estonian-language gibberish on fsfe.org purporting to be a translation of an English original, which it definitely was not". He quickly became involved in the translation process and became the translation coordinator.
He also represented the FSFE community in its board from 2013 to 2015. During his time in the post, he managed the transition to a new way of valuing contributions, ensuring volunteers and paying members of the organisation enjoy the same benefits for their contributions.
Beyond his work at the FSFE, Heiki has actively lobbied the Estonian government to publish the software used for the Estonian elections as Free Software. "Estonia is the only country in the world where it is possible to vote over the Internet" says Heiki, and relying on proprietary software to do so is a security risk and does not inspire much trust. Heiki works along with other activists to get the software published under a free license.
Heiki is an enthusiastic member of the FSFE and we are sure he will carry on Alessandro's excellent work.