2019 Community Board Member Candidates

Read more about the community board member election & process.

Candidates

Stephen Musoke

I am Stephen Senkomago Musoke, based out of Uganda where I am working with METS program to support the design, development and rollout of a UgandaEMR, one of the national electronic medical system in partnership with the Uganda Ministry of Health. I started actively participating with the OpenMRS community in 2015, where I began contributing as a dev/null culminating in dev/4 in 2017. I was part of the team that lobbied for Uganda to host the 2016 OpenMRS Global Conference in Uganda, as well organize what is probably the largest conference to-date.

At the same conference I was asked to take on the role of Reference Application Lead, which I started from January 2017. I contribute code to OpenMRS core and reference application modules, participate in design forums, support training activities within Uganda to help grow the local community.

I believe that I would be a good choice for community member on the board since I have multiple perspectives as an implementor (using the outputs of the community for UgandaEMR rollout), developer (contributing code), guide (growing and managing a local country specific community), and leader (strategy and future direction).

Mike Seaton

It is humbling to be considered for this role.  I did not seek it out, but would be honored to serve if I am a good fit for the community.  My hope is that many of you already know me - either having met me in person or virtually.  For those of you who don't, I have been around OpenMRS for a long time and my position directing Informatics work at Partners In Health offers me the opportunity to focus much of my energy every day to OpenMRS.  It also offers a very broad perspective across the OpenMRS ecosystem.  At PIH we actively develop against 1.x and 2.x versions of the platform, implement OpenMRS in 10+ countries, work in partnership with several governments and funding agencies, implement both Reference Application and Bahmni-based distributions, and support everything from single-laptop deployments at remote health clinics to extensive point-of-care systems at large hospitals.  In this context I have a lot of experience with many of OpenMRS' greatest successes, challenges, and opportunities, and am personally and professionally invested in the growth and success of the software and community.  My goal in this role would be to bring this experience and commitment to the board, and to ensure that the needs of the community are represented in this forum.

Steve Wanyee

Dear friend,

I seek your support to represent you on the OpenMRS Community Board of Directors. OpenMRS is to you and me many things, and in all that diversity of purpose and differential experience that it represents, is a common public good founded on a web of rich and meaningful relationships that emerge from conversations and weave into a community. Every strand of these relationships is the soul of OpenMRS.

I have been in OpenMRS for more than a decade, seen and experienced many wonderful moments; from discovering this wonderful community and the technology that is OpenMRS, establishing relationships, making new friends, learning new skills and building my competencies around OpenMRS from architecting, developing, implementing to using it - and it never ends! Always so much more to learn. Most importantly in all this, are the opportunities I have been fortunate to be part to contribute towards improving and strengthening delivery of healthcare services in multiple countries particularly in Africa. I’ve done this while in employment and now as an entrepreneur. I've seen real impacts on healthcare because of this collective commitment, effort and investment that is OpenMRS. Looking back now, I wish I did a better job at meticulously journaling every little juicy detail of those moments...I would be effortlessly writing a book now! Now that's something we all need to do better! 

Most of my OpenMRS life has been spent where the "rubber hits the road"...in implementation and I love it because that is where OpenMRS is most strongly felt. That space is by no means for the faint hearted. It can get really murky and distressing and at times, dangerous...but in all that, it is the most beautiful and not to miss experience when healthcare workers finally fully embrace, own and use OpenMRS everyday as they go about their daily work of serving their patients, using the information generated, managed and presented through OpenMRS to make that very important care decision. With resilient determination and effort, every implementation eventually gets there. But its not easy. One thing that makes that part of the process all the lot easier is that as the front line implementer, you know you are not alone. You have an entire community behind you ready, available and always willing to back you up particularly when things really complicated, as they surely do. 

I would like to spend my time at the Board contributing to achievement of the following;

1. Ensuring that the rapidly emerging "rock bottom OpenMRSers", whether as new for profit businesses, social entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, particularly the very local ones, are brought to the centre and front. Let us leave no one behind even when all they are is just curious about OpenMRS.   
2. Strengthen OpenMRS a lot more at the "local" level through encouraging a lot more local "OpenMRS Community action". We need to truly empower through solidarity, local OpenMRS, this is the sustainability lifeblood of OpenMRS. 
3. Improve the visibility of the Board to particularly the local happenings that sometimes go unnoticed, and strengthen the communication between the local Community and the Board, increasing the transparency and work of the Board and ensuring that the local Community fully experiences the "open door" policy of the Board. 

It makes all the difference that most of us in OpenMRS are users of it. We know to scratch where it itches because we use OpenMRS and we are it...we don't just build for others, but for ourselves too, and that's what makes OpenMRS so personal!

I am truly humbled by this nomination and I promise to stay true in service as I have shared above if given a chance to sit at the Board.

Herbert Yiga

From an early age I have always been interested in saving lives using technology. Having been introduced to openmrs by around 2016 this sparked off my interest. After completing my degree in computer science in 2016, i picked up to fully involve myself in openmrs activities to now. I have been fully around the community trying to know on how, why and what could work with openmrs.This has been very nice and amazing. Interacting with the community on talk is too awesome .I just love the great numbers of people who keep their eyes around openmrs talk to make sure that problems are solved. The irc channel were I have also got a chance to be the scrum master comes out with great positive impact too. I find irc as my home on a daily basis because its where I timely interact with other members of the community.Also,i have attended the openmrs calls and I am glad that they also get things solved. This has been through the different calls on the openmrs calendar and some other self-organized calls of working on openmrs issues with some community members. Having been at the community for some good time and as a full particpant,I have also faced some challenges that I also believe when I get on board and they get solved, they will have a great positive impact on openmrs and also have more lives saved. I also look towards having more ground interaction with the community members that are fully dedicated on having openmrs on the next level because I surely know what takes place there.Wow,I want to also get so much involved on brain storming and pushing for ways of seeing openmrs rolled out in more and more countries as a beneficiary to the openmrs organization and also see that more lives can be saved. I am able to communicate with people at all levels and get them to visualize my intensions. I always enjoy a challenge and can work well under pressure; my other strengths are a strong commitment to my work, services and attention to detail. I am highly motivated and enjoy challenges within a new or existing role and feel am flexible enough to meet the needs of any degree of course. I will end by saying openmrs for life!!!

Voting FAQ

Who can vote? Any member of the OpenMRS community with an OpenMRS ID will be sent a ballot and can vote.

Who will see my results? All submitted ballots remain anonymous. Only the final result of which nominee received the most votes will be made public.

How many ballots can I submit? Each individual who votes may only submit one ballot.