Facilitators
Ron Braithwaite is the Collaborative Technology Project
Coordinator at Free Geek and leads the collective of consultants
and developers providing Open Source solutions for non-profit organizations
in the Portland area. Ron started promoting public domain software
in 1980 and helped bring Open Source to southern Africa in the
late eighties. He is active in a wide variety of activities centered
around non-violent social change.
Peter Brown is currently the GNU GPL Compliance Manager and Financial
Controller of the FSF. He has previously been a Director of the
non-profit publishing house "New Internationalist" www.newint.org,
and has also worked for BBC Radio and local government in the UK.
Mark Bucciarelli is an independent software consultant, a graduate
of MIT, a free software enthusiast, and founder of Hubcap Consulting.
His programming experience spans eight years and has focused primarily
on the public transit industry. Mark is an active participant in
the free software community, and is the author of RealTime, a group
calendaring application for the small office. He recently represented
the K Desktop Environment (KDE) at the Linux Business Expo in Washington
D.C. and the 2004 Linux World in New York City.
Biella Coleman is a graduate student at the University of Chicago
where she is finishing her dissertation on the ethical dynamics
and political implications of the Free and Open Source Software
Movement. She focused primarily on the Debian project, conducting
over 65 life histories with developers, attending local meetings
and international conferences, participating on the Debian IRC
chat channels, and learning the intricacies of their social organization.
Living for nearly three years in California's Bay Area, she complimented
this research by tracking the work of local FOSS advocates and
the ways in which other social groups such as media activists deployed
FOSS to build, justify, and direct other projects. She has balanced
her own academic work with various forms of activism, in the past
serving on the board of the Online Policy Group and coordinating
volunteers and interns at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She
is currently leading a student group and web campaign at the University
of Chicago seeking to equalize the provision of health insurance
for all graduate students.
Teresa Crawford is an independent consultant who for the last
6 years has worked on technology initiatives in over 20 countries.
She has worked with groups on issues ranging from trafficking in
women to disability rights and from violence against women in war
to minority rights. From 1998 - 2004 she served as the Technical
Director of the Advocacy Project, an organization she helped to
found, based in Washington DC. The Advocacy Project provides information
and information technology support to community campaigners and
human rights activists in countries in transition. Teresa has worked
as both a Circuit Rider (eRider) and Circuit Rider manager. Currently
she provides support for the growing Global eRider movement by
helping to develop new eRider projects, and manage www.eRiders.net.
She also serves on the board of the IPKO Institute - a non profit
technology training organization based in Prishtina, Kosovo.
Tobias Eigen is the founder of Kabissa, a nonprofit based in Washington
DC dedicated to empowering African civil society organizations
to integrate information and communication technologies (ICTs)
into their work. To this end, Kabissa offers tools and services
tailored specifically for these organizations, including hosting
services, ICT capacity building programs, and online networking
and information sharing tools. Tobias Eigen has been involved in
Internet in Africa since 1992, when he set up and developed a regional
Fidonet e-mail network for the USAID Famine Early Warning System
(FEWS). Before Kabissa, he worked with a number of international
organizations and agencies, including Transparency International,
UNESCO, Volunteers in Technical Assistance, and oneworld.net, developing
Web site and e-mail strategies and systems for geographically dispersed
organizations.
Stacy Gildenston M.A.
has worked in Human Resource Development for Fortune 100 companies
as well as Mom-and-Pop shops in Information Technologies, Transportation,
Publishing, Franchise Development, Retail Sales, Universities,
and the Service and Restaurant Industries. Currently the Linux
Professional Institute's Director of Certification, she has developed
several certification programs worldwide, and is intimately familiar
with Adult Education, having spent the better part of a decade
traveling the world as a consultant. Recently speaking in places
as diverse as Jamaica and Geneva, Stacy has presented papers and
workshops on a myriad of HR concerns and technology-based educational
systems. Clients and former employers include General Electric,
Office Depot, Enterasys/Cabletron, USWEST, Thomson Publishing,
USENIX/SAGE, Quizno's Subs, PBS, Greenwich Technology Partners,
Colorado State University, to name a few. She now focuses on Non-Profit
Development work utilizing technology for Gender Equity. In her
off-duty time, she rehabilitates and educates with Birds of Prey.
Jeff Herron is
a co-founder and principal of Beaconfire. He serves as the liaison
for vendor partnerships and evaluations of technology
available to nonprofits in the marketplace. Mr. Herron’s
background is in Project Management and implementations of Web-centric
applications for large nonprofits and corporations. Having worked
for and with nonprofits for the last 8+ years, Jeff brings an understanding
of the business decisions that all nonprofits face when making
decisions about choosing technologies, partners and solutions when
building or expanding their online presence. Mr. Herron has also
been a featured speaker at the national and regional level on Internet
issues and Web development strategies for associations in particular.
Mr. Herron has been the Principal Consultant on several recent
client engagements where Beaconfire has helped clients through
this decision making process. Before co-founding Beaconfire, Mr.
Herron was a senior project manager at Commerce One/AppNet. Previously,
Mr. Herron served as Manager of Online Services for the American
Chamber of Commerce Executives, a pioneering national professional
association. In this role, Mr. Herron spearheaded a representative
and cross-functional team in the development of online Web initiatives.
Mr. Herron has a B.S. in International Relations and a B.A in Russian
Studies from University of Maryland at College Park. Amanda Hickman is a Circuit Rider with the Welfare Law Center's
Low Income Networking and Communications (LINC) Project, where
she works with low-income grassroots groups that want to use technology
strategically to advance campaigns on economic security issues
and build their members' leadership and technology skills. Amanda
also teaches a course on Digital Activism at NYU's Gallatin School
and teaches HTML and maintains servers with the InterActivist Network,
an activist technology skills share, media and communication project
housed at ABC no Rio. Current technology interests include using
open source software, especially GNU/Linux, with organizers and
integrating databases into organizing work. Amanda is also a writer,
artist, community gardener and environmentalist. She is currently
helping design and build a rainwater catchment system, which will
supply her community garden with water year round. Tea Kharitonashvili (Taya)
works for Open Society - Georgia Foundation as an eRider (ICT Consultant).
The Foundation has completed one
project, "ICT for Civil Society", and is now planning
to do another entitled "ICT and Capacity Building" which
will focus on F/OSS implementation in Georgian NGOs. Taya has a
real penguin-like 4-year-old daughter named Tiko.
Todd Koym is a program officer for the Edgerton Foundation, a
family foundation out of Los Angeles. Before joining the Edgerton
Foundation, he was part of the Circuit Rider program at the W Alton
Jones Foundation where he helped the foundation's grantees make
better use of information technology. In addition to his foundation
experience, he has worked in the nonprofit realm as a program associate
at Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and in the corporate
world as a systems engineer at EDS. He earned an MA in Public Affairs
from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, with a concentration
in Technology, Energy, and Environment.
Scott Lamberton is Director of Communications for the Linux Professional
Institute (LPI). Scott has close to 18 years experience in fundraising
and communications for non-profit organizations and social justice
causes. Before joining LPI he led a number of open source technology
projects at an international development NGO. LPI is globally recognized
as the premier open source IT certification program and which is
created and sustained by open source volunteers from around the
world. LPI, a non-profit organization itself, is seeking new opportunities
to reach out to the wider non-profit community and civil society
to find projects of mutual interest.
Oso Martin is the founder and Organizational Coordinator of the
Free Geek Community Technology Center in Portland, Oregon. In his "spare" time
Oso also volunteers with the City Repair Project, a local community
commons advocacy non-profit and Portland's annual Earth Day Celebration.
Michelle Murrain, Vice President for Technology of Database Designs
Associates, Inc. received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Case Western
Reserve University, and taught at Hampshire College from 1989 through
1999. Michelle has been involved in software development since
1978, and developing content and applications for the web, specifically
for research and educational purposes, since 1994. In 1995, Michelle
started a consulting practice that serves the non-profit and educational
sectors, primarily in the areas of developing database-driven web-sites,
the implementation of Linux, and strategic technology planning.
She is the primary developer of the open source web application
development environment, XINA, and she is on the steering committee
of the Non Profit Open Source Initiative (NOSI), and on the board
of Aspiration.
Tom Panzarella is a Software Engineer
for the Fund for the City of New York where he leads software development
efforts. He has
held senior-level positions in systems engineering and software
engineering for organizations in the scientific computing, manufacturing,
financial, and nonprofit industries. Tom has been working with
open source technology since 1996. He "speaks" fluent
C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, PHP, sh/bash, and SQL. Tom is also
well versed in UNIX/Linux, TCP/IP computer networks, database systems,
and emerging Internet technologies such as XML and web services.
Most recently, he and his partner are launching their own nonprofit
organization, dotorganics, Inc., which will be dedicated to providing
commercial-quality open source applications and technology services
to NGOs worldwide. Tom earned a BS in Business Administration at
Villanova University, an MS in Internet Engineering at Marlboro
College, and an MS in
Computer Science at Villanova University. He lives in Brooklyn
where he spends his "free time" cooking vegetarian meals,
blogging on nonprofit open source issues, mixing computer music,
and traveling the world with his fiance.
Dan Robinson has almost 20 years of IT experience. At various
times in his career he has worked in operations, as a programmer,
technical architect and director of engineering. In addition he
has significant experience in quality assurance and documentation.
Currently Dan is the CTO of the E-Volve Foundation where he works
to identify and develop technologies that foster civic engagement
on the Internet and in our "real-world" communities. Dirk Slater has been Circuit Rider for the Welfare Law Center's
Low Income Networking and Communications (LINC) Project since May,
1998. In his current role as Senior Circuit Rider, Dirk oversees
the project’s work, helping low-income led organizing groups
across the nation increase their capacity to conduct advocacy,
public education, and membership and leadership development by
utilizing technology. Working with a team of talented Circuit Riders
at the LINC Project, Dirk has launched initiatives to integrate
databases more deeply in organizing work, utilize free/open-source
software and develop peer-learning based workshops on technology
use for grassroots groups. Dirk serves on the steering committee
for the Western Regional Welfare Activist Network, a coalition
of low-income led organizations in the Northwest, and on board
of directors for Media Jumpstart, a worker-run collective that
acts as a technology resource for grassroots groups in New York
City, and for the Progressive Technology Project, an organization
that provides training, technical assistance and grants to develop
the capacity of grassroots organizing groups through the use of
information technology. Besides working in the economic justice
area, Dirk has also had experience working on environmental justice,
voter rights and queer issues.
Mark Surman is a senior partner at The Commons Group, a technology
strategy and research firm supporting civil society networks, capacity
builders and funders. Mark has been actively exploring the connections
between civil society and open source for at least six years. He
played a lead role in the initial APC ActionsApps project, visioning,
raising funds and managing a global team of developers to create
an open source content syndication system for non-profits. He has
also provided business planning training and support to dozens
of small organizations providing technology support to non-profits,
many of which are starting to see that open source can play a key
role in creating sustainable social enterprises. Mark has written
widely technology issues, with both 'Appropriating Technology for
Social Change' (SSRC) and 'Commonspace: Beyond Virtual Community'
(Financial Times Press) pointing to open source as a solid model
not only for software development but also for collaborative social
change making and social entrepreneurship. He has also written
a number of practical resources aimed at helping non-profits use
open source including 'Choosing Open Source'.
Peter Trudelle first came to computers in the keypunch/cardreader
era, but couldn't stand using them until they became interactive.
For the past 17 years, he has been building applications and services
for consumers and enterprises and tools for developers. His teams
were most recently responsible for developing the UI in Netscape
Messenger, and participating in Mozilla.org to create the XUL & XBL
languages and the browser used in Mozilla and Netscape 7.0.
Usha Venkatachallam, Solutions Architect at Beaconfire Consulting,
has been providing technical expertise to nonprofit and non-governmental
organizations for nearly a decade. She helps nonprofit organizations
creatively apply Internet technologies to advance their mission
through designing, configuring, and implementing online solutions
for content management, fundraising, advocacy, and email marketing.
She has worked with innovative organizations such as NARAL Pro-Choice
America, Heifer International, Planned Parenthood Federation, Easter
Seals, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Human Rights
First (formerly Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights), and International
Food Information Council. Prior to joining Beaconfire, Usha worked
in Commerce One's Nonprofit Practice where she worked with clients
such as Audubon Society, Asia Society, World Wildlife Fund (International),
and Vital Voices Global Partnership. |
