Dear BID community,

Having read the nice introductions from María and Jean I thought I would also introduce myself. I work at the Botanic Garden Meise in Belgium where are work on various projects related to information technology and botany. I’m particularly interested in biogeography and plant invasions. I volunteered to be a mentor because I’m enthusiastic about the GBIF project and would like to encourage researchers from all over the world to contribute. Ultimately it is only through cooperation that we can hope to understand and conserve the diversity of life on earth. So far I have published two data papers and I have other miscellaneous datasets published to GBIF. I am also a subject editor for the Biodiversity Data Journal. This work has made me quite familiar with the Darwin Core standard and many of the potential errors than can be made. I would like to help others publish their data to GBIF, without making some of the same mistakes I’ve made. My institution has a long history of working on the taxonomy of African plants, but I’m afraid I have little experience myself. I hope to team up with some enthusiastic botanists who know a lot about their local plants and I can help them with the technical aspects of sharing their data.

Regards

Quentin