About Open KnowledgeOur mission -- We want to see enlightened societies around the world, where everyone has access to key information and the ability to use it to understand and shape their lives; where powerful institutions are comprehensible and accountable; and where vital research information that can help us tackle challenges such as poverty and climate change is available to all. We envision a world where: * knowledge creates power for the many, not the few. * data frees us to make informed choices about how we live, what we buy and who gets our vote. * information and insights are accessible – and apparent – to everyone. This is the world we choose. We want to see open knowledge being a mainstream concept, and as natural and important to our everyday lives and organisations as green is today.To reach these goals, we need to raise the profile of open knowledge and raise awareness of how important it is. We need to change cultures, policies and business models at large organisations to make opening up information acceptable and desirable. We need to build capacity in understanding information, sharing, finding and using data, across the population and the world. We need to create and encourage collaborations across government, business and civil society to use data to rebalance power and tackle major challenges. We need tools (technical, legal, and educational) to make working with data easier and more effective.Open Knowledge FoundationOKFN_34457b2b-b203-4aab-859f-37fe4bce750bThe Open Knowledge Foundation, trading as Open Knowledge, is a not-for-profit organisation. It is incorporated in England & Wales as a company limited by guarantee, with company number 05133759. VAT Registration № GB 984404989. Registered office address: Open Knowledge Foundation, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS, UK.OKFN Board of DirectorsThe Board of Directors provides the formal governance of Open Knowledge as a whole.Karin ChristiansenBoard Chair -- Karin Christiansen is General Secretary of the Co-operative Party. She is one of the founders and former Managing Director of Publish What You Fund. Before setting up Publish What You Fund, Karin worked as a Policy Manager at ONE and for many years as Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in the Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure. She joined ODI having worked as an Economist at the Rwandan Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture. Prior to that, Karin worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2011 Karin was named as one of the Devex London 40 Under 40 International Development Leaders.Paula Le DieuBoard Member -- Paula Le Dieu is a new media executive and advisor. Paula has worked with the BBC, Guardian, Fairfax, Ofcom and Creative Commons as well as online content and activism communities such as iCommons and the international documentary community. Her experience spans advising on the future of public service media, open culture theory and practice, the role of archives in the digital age, leading international communities of volunteers, building e-commerce solutions and sitting on the executive board of the leading European Documentary Festival - Sheffield Doc/Fest...amongst other things..Jane SilberBoard Member -- Jane Silber is CEO of Canonical. Canonical produces Ubuntu, the leading open source platform for client, server and cloud computing. Canonical also provides services to the IT industry to bring Ubuntu-based products to market, and to enterprise and consumer users to maximise their Ubuntu experience. Before becoming Chief Executive Officer in 2010, she served as Canonical's COO and has helped lead the company through periods of dramatic growth. Jane has over 20 years of business development, strategic leadership, operations and software management experience. She holds an MBA degree from Oxford University, an MSc degree in Management of Technology from Vanderbilt University, and a BSc degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Haverford College.Helen TurveyBoard Member -- Helen Turvey (King) is CEO of the Shuttleworth Foundation. She originally joined the Shuttleworth Foundation to define international relations for the organisation, before moving into her present role where she is responsible for all of the Foundations strategic and operational elements. Helen was educated in Europe, South America and the Middle East. With 15 years worth of experience working with international NGOs and agencies, she is driven by the belief that open technologies, content and processes have vast benefits and value to offer education, economies and communities in both the developed and developing worlds.Dr. Tim HubbardBoard Member -- Dr. Hubbard is responsible for the bioinformatics groups that carry out analysis and annotation of the vertebrate genome sequence produced by the Sanger Institute. He is joint head of the Ensembl genome annotation project, which is the leading database and access point for the human genome sequence. Following the controversy surrounding the ownership and access to the human genome sequence, he has become a leading advocate of the benefits of openness in science and in society as a whole. He is involved in a number of NGO/Industry forums regarding the world patent system and access to essential drugs, including the plan by Medecin Sans Frontieres to set up a public domain drug development industry, DNDi.OKFN Advisory CouncilThe Advisory Council is an informal group who are consulted on various matters to do with Open Knowledge activities, strategy and operations, but hold no legal responsibility for the organisation. The Advisory Council exists to advise Open Knowledge team members as appropriate, and individual members may get involved with specific projects or challenges. The advice is available both on request and also by Advisory Council members proactively contacting Open Knowledge team with ideas, leads or opportunities. The Advisory Council is a group of advisors, rather than a group which aims to form consensus or decisions.Sören AuerAdvisory Council Member -- Dr. Sören Auer leads the research group Agile Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web at Universität Leipzig. His research interests are semantic technologies and knowledge representation aspects of open knowledge environments. Sören is founder of the open-source, adaptive knowledge engineering framework !OntoWiki, founding member of the DBpedia project and chair of the first Social Semantic Web conference.Panagiotis BamidisAdvisory Council Member -- Prof. Panagiotis Bamidis, Assist. Prof. of Medical Education Informatics, is leading the working group of Medical Education Informatics. He has been the co-ordinator of large European projects - including www.meducator.net and www.longlastingmemories.eu - as well as the principal investigator for a number of national and international funded projects (more than 20 in total). His research interests are within technology enhanced learning in Medical Education (web2.0, semantic web, serious games, virtual patients, PBL) and Affective and Physiological Computing and HCI. In 2009, he was awarded the Prize of the AUTH Research Committee for the Best Track Record in funded research projects among AUTH young academic staff. He has been the Chairman/Organiser of six international conferences (iSHIMR2001, iSHIMR2005, MEDICON2010, GASMA2010, SAN2011, MEI2012) and the Conference Producer of the Medical Education Informatics Conference and Spring School Series. Prof. Bamidis represents the OKF Greece Chapter on the Advisory Council.Pieter ColpaertAdvisory Council Member -- Pieter Colpaert believes a lot of frustration today is caused by data not being accessible (when does my train leave, how long do I have to queue, where does my money go, and so on). His goal is to increase your life quality by contextualizing data into information without you even noticing it. Apart from being a co-founder of Open Knowledge Belgium, he coordinates the Open Knowledge Open Transport Working Group and pursues a PhD on Linked Open Data at the University of Ghent. Pieter represents Open Knowledge Belgium on the Advisory Council.Christopher CorbinAdvisory Council Member -- Christopher Corbin is an independent researcher and advisor on the information society and the knowledge economy with specific interest in policy and its implementation with respect to public sector information. He is an openly selected expert advisor on Europe to the UK Advisory Panel for Public Sector Information (APPSI). Recent project involvement with respect to public sector information policy has included the European Union eContentplus funded ePSIplus Thematic Network (2006-2009), the Geographic Information Network in Europe (GINIE) (2001-2004). He has also contributed to the OECD initiatives on Public Sector Information policy principles.Daniel DietrichAdvisory Council Member -- Daniel Dietrich is the Chairman of the Open Knowledge German Chapter. His is interested in emancipation and empowerment through open knowledge to make the world a better place. He is author of several studies on the political, technical and legal aspects of open data, open government and transparency. From 2011 to 2013 he worked as editor of the European Commission funded platform on public sector information, the ePSIplatform.eu. Until 2011 he worked as a research associate at Technical University Berlin, Department of Internet and Society. Before 2011 he worked several years as project manager & consultant in the IT business. Daniel represents the Open Knowledge Germany Chapter on the Advisory Council.Hannes GassertAdvisory Council Member -- Hannes Gassert is an entrepreneur, activist, developer, author and curator at the intersection of media, technology and culture. As a co-founder of Opendata.ch, the Open Knowledge Swiss Chapter, and of the web technology agency Liip, the Swiss CKAN partner, he has continuously been at the forefront of the Swiss Open Knowledge movement for over ten years. After a short stint in media arts with etoy, Hannes is now building the social dating game Skim in Zürich, curating at Lift Conference in Geneva and continues to build communities and put transparency, innovation and participation on the political agenda in Switzerland. Hannes represents the Open Knowledge Swiss Chapter on the Advisory Council.Jordan S. HatcherAdvisory Council Member -- Jordan is a lawyer, academic and entrepreneur working on Intellectual Property and Internet law issues in the UK and worldwide. He concentrates on international IP, copyright and trademark, open data, open content, free and open source software (FOSS), and anything where digital technology and the law meet. Jordan is a former board member of Open Knowledge, and co-founder and principal drafter of a set of international open data licenses at OpenDataCommons. As to other formal qualifications, Jordan is a licensed and practising attorney, and is active in various organisations related to technology and intellectual property. Find out more at his LinkedIn page.Becky HoggeAdvisory Council Member -- Becky Hogge has been involved with Open Knowledge since 2008, sitting on the Board of Directors until 2013. She started her career as a journalist reporting on the alternative side of new technology and bringing the world of computers and communications to the attention of a political audience. She has written columns for the New Statesman on and off since 2006, and her writing has been published in the Guardian, Atlantic, Index on Censorship, Prospect and Dazed and Confused. For two years she led digital civil liberties campaigners the Open Rights Group as their Executive Director. Her first book Barefoot into Cyberspace was published in July 2011.Benjamin Mako HillAdvisory Council Member -- Benjamin Mako Hill is a technology and intellectual property researcher, activist, and consultant. He is currently working full time on research into the application of technologies and lessons learned in free and open source software toward the production of other types of creative works a graduate student at the MIT Media Laboratory. He has been an leader, developer, and contributor to the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community for more than a decade as part of the Debian and Ubuntu projects.Glyn MoodyAdvisory Council Member -- Glyn Moody is a UK based technology journalist and consultant covering the Internet since March 1994, and the free software world since 1995. His most recent books are "Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution" and "Digital Code of Life: How Bioinformatics is Revolutionizing Science, Medicine and Business".Peter Murray-RustAdvisory Council Member -- Dr. Murray-Rust leads a research group in the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge University. Co-creator of the Chemical Markup Language (CML), he has long been a pioneer of data exchange and information-mining in the chemical sciences. Firmly committed to promoting openness and data availability throughout the discipline, he recently started the world-wide molecular matrix, the largest open online repository of molecular information in the world.John NaughtonAdvisory Council Member -- John Naughton is Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University, and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, where he is Director of the Wolfson Press Fellowship Programme. He is also the Observer's Internet columnist, with a weekly column in the Business section of the paper. He co-founded www.livingwithoutmicrosoft.org and is a long-time advocate of open source software. His other commitments include chairmanship of One World international, membership of the Public Advisory Board of Creative Commons UK, and a co-founder of the Ndiyo project.Hans RoslingAdvisory Council Member -- Hans Rosling is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet and Director of Gapminder Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden. His research has focused on poverty and health in rural Africa, but as Director of Gapminder he now mainly works on promotion of a fact based world view through free access to socio-economic and environmental statistics in understandable and interactive animations. His goal is that data on the major global trends should not only reach the eye but pass on into the brain and affect how actions are decided.Nigel ShadboltAdvisory Council Member -- Nigel Shadbolt is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton, and is the Head of the Web and Internet Science research group. He is a Director of the Web Science Trust and of the Web Foundation. Both organisations have a common commitment to advancing our understanding of the Web and promoting the Web’s positive impact on society. Since 2009 he has been advising the UK Government on its Open Data strategy. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of the Open Data Institute. He was President of the British Computer Society in its 50th anniversary year (2006-7).Andrew StottAdvisory Council Member -- Andrew Stott was the UK’s first Director for Transparency and Digital Engagement. He led the work to open government data and create data.gov.uk; and after the 2010 Election he led the policy development and implementation of the new Government's commitments on Transparency of central and local government. Following his formal retirement in December 2010 he was appointed to the UK Transparency Board to continue to advise UK Ministers on open data and e-government policy. He also advises other governments on Open Data both bilaterally and through the World Bank and the World Wide Web Foundation. He is an expert adviser on Open Data strategy to the EU Citadel On The Move programme and co-chairs the Open Knowledge Open Government Data Working Group.Peter Suber Advisory Council Member -- Peter Suber is a Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Senior Researcher at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and the Open Access Project Director at Public Knowledge. He is the author of the Open Access News weblog and the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. He was the principal drafter of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and sits on the Steering Committee of the Scientific Information Working Group of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, the Publishing Working Group of Science Commons, and several other groups devoted to open access, scholarly communication, and the information commons. He has been active in promoting open access for many years through his research, speaking, and writing.Mark SurmanAdvisory Council Member -- Mark Surman is currently the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, with a focus on inventing new ways to promote openness and opportunity on the Internet. On the side, Mark convenes conversations about 'open everything' in his home town of Toronto and around the world. Before joining Mozilla, Mark was an open philanthropy fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, looking at new ways to apply open source thinking to social innovation.Nat TorkingtonAdvisory Council Member -- Nat Torkington ran the first production web site in New Zealand back when you had to convince people to use "the World-Wide Web" instead of the more popular Gopher. This led to ten years in America before moving back to NZ in 2005. He cowrote the bestselling Perl Cookbook, was a trend-spotter for O'Reilly Media, and ran many conferences including OSCON and Where 2.0. He runs Kiwi Foo Camp and started Open New Zealand, an organisation that develops and hosts projects around transparency, participatory democracy, and making central and local government useful to citizens and businesses.Jo WalshAdvisory Council Member -- Jo has been involved with Open Knowledge since 2005, focusing on open geodata and software development. These days she is is managing geospatial web services at the EDINA National Data Centre based at the University of Edinburgh. Her software career has involved media art, the semantic web, neogeography, community wireless networks, and all sorts of metadata. She was a founding director of the Open Source Geo-Spatial Foundation and co-author of O'Reilly's Mapping Hacks.Carolina RossiniAdvisory Council Member -- Carolina has more than 13 years of experience in international law, transactions and policy, with a specific focus on internet, telecom, intellectual property and human rights. In February 2014 she joined Public Knowledge, where she is leading their international work. Previously Carolina was a Project Director at New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, the International Intellectual Property Director at Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF), a fellow at the Berkman Center at Harvard University, and has consulted for organisations like Wikimedia Foundation, Freedom House, UNESCO, USAID, UNDP and more. Alongside her work as a Global Partners Digital Associate, Carolina is an advisory board member of Open Knowledge in Brazil and of Saylor Foundation in the USA. She is also a strong advocate for open access to research, open data in government and science and open educational resources, and has founded and lead the Open Educational Resources Project in Brazil with concrete legislative and policy change results already in place and grants from the Open Society Foundation. She is a Brazilian lawyer and before moving to the US about 7 years ago, she worked at the Center for Technology and Society at FGV-Rio and as a transactions attorney for Telefonica’s ISP in Brazil, Terra. She has an LL.M. on IP from Boston University (US), an MBA from Instituto de Empresas (Spain), an MA in International Economic Negotiations from UNICAMP/UNESP (Brazil), and a JD from USP (Brazil).Mayo Fuster MorellAdvisory Council Member -- Mayo Fuster Morell is board member of the Open Knowledge Spanish Chapter (since the first board elections of 2012). She was also advocacy board of the Open Knowledge Festival 2012. The Open Knowledge Spanish Chapter is composed of more than 200 subscribed members, celebrates an annual Open Knowledge Award and is very active, particularly on open government (such as with the campaign data census), open universities and collaborative production, and the fields of data journalism with an annual conference among others. Additionally, Fuster Morell has a PhD on governance of digital commons, directs a research group on Internet, policy and commons at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and is fellow at the Berkman center on Internet and society (Harvard University). She coordinates the research of the European project “Techno-social platform for sustainable models and value generation in commons-based peer production”, developing among others, a directory of collaborative production in collaboration with Open Knowledge - Spain.Denis ParfenovAdvisory Council Member -- Denis Parfenov is a civic entrepreneur, founder of the Open Knowledge Ireland and Ambassador for Open Knowledge. Denis is passionate about empowering citizens to make informed choices by making information (data) available and accessible through open source technologies. He organises fora and runs regular Open Data Ireland events with a view to opening Ireland’s data infrastructure and influencing policy at the highest political level. Denis initiated, planned and successfully executed a civic campaign which resulted in the Irish government's commitment to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). He has actively participated in the co-creation of the first Irish OGP National Plan which led to Ireland becoming a full member in July 2014. He holds a Masters Degree in International Business from University College of Dublin and a Masters Degree in International Relations from Dublin City University.OKFN Partners & FundersThe Open Knowledge Foundation and its projects have been funded with the generous support of many funders and partners. Since our founding in 2004, Open Knowledge (previously, the Open Knowledge Foundation) has been funded through the generosity of many different trusts, foundations, governments, international organisations and individual donors. We are extremely grateful to all those who fund us, and for their continued support of Open Knowledge.Knight FoundationThe William and Flora Hewlett FoundationNational Endowment for DemocracyShuttleworth FoundationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationOmidyar NetworkOKFN Leadership TeamPavel RichterCEO -- Pavel Richter is Chief Executive Officer. He was Executive Director of Wikimedia Deutschland, and pioneered the internationally acclaimed Wikidata project which is now the fastest growing project for open structured data; Wikimedia Deutschland today supports thousands of volunteers in Germany, advocates nationally and internationally for access to knowledge, and partners with universities and cultural institutions. Pavel is in on the Advisory Board of Transparency International Germany and Code for Germany. He holds a Masters Degree in Political Science, History and Constitutional Law. He worked for 12 years as a management consultant in the IT and banking industry, before he started to focus on managing non-profit organisations. Pavel is married, has one child, and likes to cook, sometimes in public (see #whatpavelcooks on Twitter).Rufus PollockPresident and Co-Founder -- Dr Rufus Pollock is President & Founder. He’s engaged with our strategy, fundraising and our commercial-style work. He also helps oversee key governance and overall health of the organisation. He was a member of the Board of Directors for Open Knowledge from its founding in 2004 until 2013, when he stepped down as a Director but continues to act as Board Secretary. Rufus was a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and the Mead Fellow in Economics at Emmanuel College, University of Cambrige; he is an Associate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge. He has worked extensively as a scholar and developer on the social, legal and technological issues related to the creation and sharing of knowledge. More information can be found on his home page.Arturas VerbickasBusiness Development Manager -- Based in London, Arturas works with governments, NGOs and companies from around the world helping them build platforms for managing and publishing their data.Cassandra WoolfordAccounts Administrator -- Cassandra is the Open Knowledge accounts administrator and book-keeper.Michelle HeydonOperations Director -- Michelle is an administrative operations all rounder. Having spent the first part of her career as a Systems Administrator, she was part of a small group from the Xerox Reseach Centre Europe who spun out a new software start-up. Although that one didn't take off, she went on to be at the birth of a further 3 IT start-ups, where she did "everything but the software" during the first few years of rapid growth. As well as being Operations Director at the Open Knowledge Foundation, she is also a director of Digital Economy Consultants and administers the Press Fellowship Programme at Wolfson College, Cambridge.Nigel BabuSenior Systems Administrator -- Nigel is a a system administrator and web developer working out of Delhi, India. He loves open source as it enables him to contribute to an ever-growing intellectual pool of knowledge. When he isn't writing code for Open Knowledge, he likes to cook, play with his Raspberry Pi, or contribute to Mozilla. In the past, he's worn various hats, including a CKAN Developer one. Nobody is sure if he actually ever sleeps.Cecile LeGuenProject Manager -- Cecile joined Open Knowledge in 2015 and is coordinating EU-funded projects related to Open Government and Open Science, such as building a financial transparency platform for public administrations - aiming at participatory budgeting, data journalism and corruption prevention - and also the Route to PA project, aiming at improving citizens' awareness and engagement through the use of digital tools and open data by the public sector. She is also in charge of the coordination of the Open TDM (Text and Data Mining) project whose objective is to implement an open information approach to scientific research and publications. Cecile has a professional background in project management for a data analysis SaaS software as well as several years serving as Policy Officer for University and Scientific Cooperation at the French Embassy in Athens, Greece.Cédric LombionCommunity Manager and Trainer, School of Data -- Cédric is based in Bordeaux, France, and joined Open Knowledge as Community Manager. He supports the School of Data community along with managing the external communication of the project. Before joining the team Cédric has been working as a project and community coordinator for Open Knowledge France, and is still active there as volunteer. He discovered School of Data there and has dedicated his time to the project ever since, working with the community and facilitating data workshops. He studied Public and Political Communication with a focus on Open data and Digital public services.Emma BeerSenior Project Manager -- Emma Beer is Senior Project Manager for Open Knowledge, managing OpenTrials, and European projects. Previously, Emma worked as a consultant for the digital content and digital publishing sectors, for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) communicating Green Growth and Private Sector Development, and also managed Press & Communications for a high-tech music company. She has an MA in Historical Research from Birkbeck, University of London.Jo BarrattProject Manager -- Jo Barratt is a project manager at Open Knowledge working with the Technical Team. He has 6 years experience project working in graphic design, branding and digital projects. More recently he has worked as a multi-sensory brand consultant, specialising in use of the sense of smell. Jo also has an MA in Radio and continues to work in this field often telling stories about technology, social innovation and new academic research.Jonathan GrayDirector of Policy and Research -- Jonathan coordinates policy and advocacy activities to expand the open knowledge commons and helps to catalyse new projects and collaborations that use this commons to improve the world. He has helped to start numerous initiatives at Open Knowledge, including the Data Journalism Handbook, Europe’s Energy, the Open Data Challenge, OpenGLAM, OpenSpending, the Panton Fellowships and The Public Domain Review. He is also Doctoral Researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, Research Associate at the Digital Methods Initiative, University of Amsterdam and Research Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University.Katelyn RogersProject Manager -- Katelyn is the Working Groups Community Manager. She grew up in California and is currently based in London, after a four year stint in the southwest of France. Prior to joining Open Knowledge she worked at Wateraid on WASHwatch, an online platform for monitoring governments on their delivery of water and sanitation commitments. She holds a BA in Philosophy and French from UCLA and an MSc in Public Policy and Management from KCL where she wrote her dissertation on open government data policies in the Global South.Lieke PloegerOpenGLAM Community Manager -- Lieke is the Community Manager of the OpenGLAM initiative, promoting free and open access to digital cultural heritage data. She currently leads the work on the Open Content Exchange Platform being developed in the eSpace project aimed at increasing and enhancing the creative industries’ use of online collections of digital cultural content. Before joining Open Knowledge, she worked at the National Library of the Netherlands, where she was involved in several large-scale European research projects in the areas of digitisation and digital preservation. She holds an MA in Modern Western Literature and Translation Studies and lives and works in Berlin. In 2014 she co-founded the independent project space SPEKTRUM | art science community, where she works as community builder.Marco Túlio PiresProgramme Manager, School of Data -- Marco is School of Data's Programme Manager. He's based in São Paulo, Brazil, and works closely with the coordination team and steering committee to manage and strengthen School of Data's network, governance, vision and fundraising strategy around the world. Prior to joining Open Knowledge, Marco studied Electrical Engineering and Journalism. He was a Production Coordinator for Globo TV and science news reporter for VEJA, the biggest weekly magazine in Brazil. Marco was also an associate-fellow at the Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, focussing on programming and information visualisation. He took part of the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program at Georgetown University where he looked into social entrepreneurship and ways to close the gap between society and governments. While he worked in the government of São Paulo as an advisor for transparency, technology and innovation for the Social Development Secretary, he coordinated School of Data in Brazil (Escola de Dados), running a series of training workshops for data-journalists around the country.Meg FoulkesFoundation Administrator -- Meg studied English at Cambridge. Since then, she has worked as a librarian, private tutor and lawyer in Asylum and Immigration. She also works for the Freedom Movement for Syria and is a published poet. Meg is very happy to now be working for Open Knowledge.Milena MarinProject Coordinator and Trainer, School of Data -- Milena is based in London and joined Open Knowledge as Project and Workshop Coordinator for School of Data. Among others, she will be working with and supporting local partners, building the School of Data network around the world, and organising events, workshops and trainings. Before joining us, she worked for over 4 years with Transparency International (TI) as Data and Technology Coordinator.Mor RubinsteinInternational Community Manager -- Mor is a community coordinator / occasional researcher at Open Knowledge, based in Oxford, UK. Prior to her work at Open Knowledge she used to work as a community coordinator at the Israeli Open Data NGO The Public Knowledge Workshop (in which she still volunteers in even today). She also spent two years in Johannesburg South Africa as a community worker. Mor holds a BA in Politics and Jewish History from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a MSc. in Social Science of the Internet from the Oxford Internet Institute, where she focused on civil society organisations and open government measurements in EuropeNaomi LillieStaffing & Communications -- Naomi has been working for Open Knowledge since 2011. She supports operations, projects, staff and the community network, particularly through events and communications. She has a diverse professional background, including project management and coordination in both public and private sectors, and has worked in academia where the closed nature of information was a source of much frustration. Naomi is based in Edinburgh (UK) and still considers herself an English Literature graduate, although these days she reads for fun.Sander van der Waal Projects Director -- In his role as projects director at Open Knowledge, Sander oversees grant-funded projects in various areas of Open Knowledge ranging from Open Government Data to Privacy & Open Data, Open Education and Open Access. Sander ensures that projects will benefit optimally from cross-fertilization with other related initiatives across the wider Open Knowledge global network by building specialist working groups. Sander is a computer scientist with a strong background in the open source world, having advised academic projects on open source software development at OSS Watch, a national UK advisory service based at the University of Oxford. He has contributed to projects at the Apache Software Foundation and co-organised several big and smaller open source events with OSS Watch and the ASF.Tony HirstData Storyteller, School of Data -- Tony Hirst works part time for the School of Data in shaping the materials, masterminding the blog and running workshops. He'll also be out and about on site visits to learn more about how organisations use data "in the wild" to help build on and shape the courses. When he's not with us, he's a Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Systems at The Open University, Visiting Senior Fellow in Networked Teaching and Learning at the University of Lincoln, and regular blogger at OUseful.info. With a background in electronics and artificial intelligence, he has authored on OU courses ranging from robotics to information skills, and most recently a course on computer game design and appreciation. He is passionate about open and lifelong education, and is actively involved in developing course models to support informal as well as formal education.Paul WalshHead of Technical Product -- Paul holds a BA with Honours in Anthropology from the University of Western Australia, 9 years commercial experience working in startups in the highly competitive Israeli Hi-Tech industry, and several years experience as a volunteer and contractor working with open data and open source at Israeli NGO The Public Knowledge Workshop. He considers himself a generalist who feels equally at home writing code, working on product strategy, and managing teams. Outside of work, Paul is an avid music fan and a keen urban gardener.Adrià MercaderSenior Developer, CKAN Technical Lead -- Adrià lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and is a software developer focused on the Web and Open technologies in general, and the geospatial field in particular. Before joining the CKAN team he built and managed several geo-related projects for different organizations, ranging from online map viewers to spatially enabled services and APIs.Brook ElgieDeveloper -- Brook lives near the south coast of England and specialises in development of CKAN and other Commercial Services projects. Brook spent many years working for museums, libraries and archives creating websites and interactive installation activities for museums such as the Science Museum London, and The Churchill Museum. With a keen interest in typeface design, Brook helped create Photo-Lettering.com, previously nominated for the London Design Museum Design of the Year.Sam Smith UI/X Designer -- With a background in design agencies, where he spent the first seven years of his career, Sam is a graphic designer experienced in design for both on and offline media. Sam has good all round design knowledge but specialises in digital design, with a hands on approach to HTML and CSS. You can see what Sam has been working on recently on his website.... a world where information helps deliver a balance of power; where we are free to make our own choices, with key information and insights available to all._893c0e5a-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce11To raise the profile of open knowledge and raise awareness of how important it is_893c12c4-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce11Collaborative WorkWe believe open knowledge can empower everyone, enabling people to work together to tackle local and global challenges, understand our world, expose inefficiency and challenge inequality and hold governments and companies to account.OpennessWhat it means to be open -- We set the standard for genuinely free and open sharing of information with the Open Definition. Although we can express this succinctly, there are more technical and legal forms which help people use it day to day where licensing and legal matters must be considered. 'Open knowledge' is any content, information or data that people are free to use, re-use and redistribute -- without any legal, technological or social restriction. We detail exactly what openness entails in the Open Knowledge Definition. The main principles are: * Free and open access to the material * Freedom to redistribute the material * Freedom to reuse the material * No restriction of the above based on who someone is (such as their job) or where they are (such as their country of residence) or their field of endeavour (including whether they are working on a commercial or non-commercial project) Open knowledge is what open data becomes when it's useful, usable and used -- not just that some data is open and can be freely used, but that it is useful -- accessible, understandable, meaningful, and able to help someone solve a real problem.EmpowermentSo open knowledge is empowering -- it helps us effect change and improve the world.AdvocacyOur values -- We are a worldwide network of people passionate about openness, and we use advocacy, technology and training to unlock information so everyone can benefit from open knowledge.TechnologyTrainingCross-DisciplinarianismOpen Knowledge is a cross-disciplinary endeavour and needs people with diverse skills and experience, and so we collaborate internally and externally to deliver the best results. A core strength of Open Knowledge is that we can work well with both deeply technical and deeply specialist groups and bring them together with shared understanding for strong collaborations.SkillsExperiencePracticalityWe work in the open wherever possible and practical, and all our tools and materials are released openly.ImpactAlthough we strive to be open in our work for reasons of efficiency, when being open conflicts with our ability to get things done we may not always choose to be open - it is more important that we have a positive impact through our work.ParticipationWe try to be pragmatic in our work; not everyone will believe equally in all parts of our vision, but the open knowledge network is a "big tent" where participants are welcome regardless of their specific motivations.EnthusiasmWe are enthusiastic, collaborative and inclusive.InclusivenessEngagementWe are engaged, not complacent.DoingWe are not just thinkers - we are doers, making things happen, building, investigating, training and learning, writing and analysing.NetworkingThe Open Knowledge network is not ours. It belongs to the people who form it.DiversityWe acknowledge this with community governance structures and a carefully "light touch" from Open Knowledge Central in how we support the network, respecting its diversity and expertise. The network is a space where any and all open projects and communities are welcome to find a home - by contrast, Open Knowledge Central may have more specific focus to its direct activities.Open KnowledgeAll our activities are connected to open knowledge. The Open Definition sets out what this means:SharingOpen means freely shared for anyone, anywhere, to use for any purpose.CommunitiesWhether we are convening communities, developing tools, creating open material, or seeing it used to effect change, open knowledge should be at the heart of what we do.ToolsCommitmentWe hold firmly to the Open Definition as the defining concept at the heart of the open movement, and will call out attempts to weaken or misuse this definition, and strive to maintain this clear, shared definition of open.ClarityRespectRespect and tolerance are pre-conditions for all our work, and essential to working as a collaborative community. Respect others and their capabilities and capacities. Recognise differences as a creative force: when discussed openly and without aggression, they allow us to find the best way forward.ToleranceCollaborationCollaboration not control -- To achieve our vision we cannot work alone. Collaboration, both across our teams, the network and outside it, is central to how we operate. Whilst we must remain mindful of our aims and values, we do not seek to control the activities of others. Our collaborative projects are often jointly-lead. Our Chapters and other groups in the network can pursue open knowledge in whatever way they see fit, without control from the Central organisation (except in that we share a vision, and require that they adhere to these values).PragmatismPragmatic not fanatic -- We are strong believers in "open" but our commitment is animated by a desire to make change, not to establish our moral superiority. Though we will never create closed knowledge we must recognise that others may do, and that, for example, being most effective may sometimes involve the use of non-open tools.Creative TensionMaking & talking -- We value making and talking equally and thrive on their creative tension. Advocacy through thought leadership, evangelism and convening ensures open material becomes available, is valued and is effectively used by others. Direct involvement in making use of open knowledge and making change with it (for instance, by building services or analysing data) ensures we remain aware and engaged with real challenges and real needs.Change-MakingWe want to see change in the world and we want to make this happen today not tomorrow. We are focused on important societal problems, challenges and opportunities. Our approach may be indirect -- working to improve knowledge flow and use -- but it is always in the service of solving real problems and addressing real needs.NetworkSupport, encourage and coordinate an international network of individuals passionate about openness and active in making, training and advocating_893c14b8-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce111_893c168e-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce11Information OpennessOpen up information_893c18a0-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce112AdvocacyAdvocate and campaign for open release of key information, particularly at national or large scale_893c1a6c-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce112.1MonitoringMonitor the level of openness worldwide_893c1c1a-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce112.2Impact[Achieve] impact through information_893c1e36-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce113Learning & SkillsHelp people learn about openness and gain data skills_893c200c-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce113.1PartnershipsPartner with change-making organisations aligned with our key themes to help them use open data to accelerate their work, creating positive change towards our goals, stories and case studies_893c21d8-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce113.2Change-Making OrganisationsStewardship[Provide] a home for projects and communities_893c23e0-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce114nurture and support efforts to open up data and see it used for positive change_893c2598-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce11Services & ConsultingOffer commercial technology services, consultancy and training to help openness reach its full potential_893c282c-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce115_893c2a3e-d5d8-11e5-b524-d123103dce112016-02-17https://okfn.org/about/OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net