Originally published at: Mindshare Elections: Interview with Emma Kidney (ekidney) – Fedora Community Blog
This is a part of the Mindshare Elections Interviews series. Voting is open to all Fedora contributors. The voting period starts today, Tuesday 20th May and closes promptly at 23:59:59 UTC on Monday, 2 June 2025.
Interview with Emma Kidney
- FAS ID: ekidney
- Matrix Rooms: Fedora Design, Fedora DEI, Fedora Badges
Questions
What is your background in Fedora? What have you worked on and what are you doing now?
I have been involved in Fedora for almost four years and primarily work on the Fedora Design team. My past and current projects include:
- Fedora website redesign: mockups for each edition’s page
- Creative Freedom Summit
- Assets for various community events such as Flock, release parties, Week of Diversity, and Appreciation Week
- Logos for community projects and SIGs
- Fedora Design team documentation
Currently, I am preparing assets and designs for Flock Prague 😀
Please elaborate on the personal “Why” which motivates you to be a candidate for Mindshare.
I’m passionate about free and open-source software (FOSS) and a strong advocate for open design. To me, open design means making design accessible to everyone — both in the final product and in how it’s created. It’s about sharing knowledge openly and encouraging community participation.
I think Fedora really reflects those values, and I’d love to be more involved in the leadership behind it. The work that Mindshare does to support community outreach and contributor engagement is important. It’s essential to have representation from all parts of the community, and I believe I can bring a different perspective as a non-technical contributor.
How would you improve Mindshare Committee visibility and awareness in the Fedora community?
Being a key member of the Design team would be beneficial to Mindshare’s Digital Ambassadorship. I can integrate this into the Design team’s workflow and help lead the content creation process by making sure our branding and messaging is consistent in any visuals we may want to use. This would help make the Mindshare Committee and make our visual identity more recognisable.
What part of Fedora do you think needs the most attention from the Mindshare Committee during your term?
We should probably focus more on keeping contributors around in the non-technical SIGs. Technical contributions are key for Fedora, but non-technical SIGs are just as important.
This really fits with the Mindshare Committee main responsibilities outlined on their docs page. I’m especially interested in helping boost involvement in the quieter parts of our community.
I’ve already started doing this with the Design Team by creating onboarding docs, and I’m planning to document more of our resources and how we work.