Digital Impact was created by the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS and was managed until 2024. It is no longer being updated.
We form a network of people and organizations who champion the safe, equitable, and effective use of digital resources.
78 community members found.
Esra'a Al Shafei is the founder and executive director of Majal.org, a network of digital platforms that amplify under-reported and marginalized voices. She is a Director's Fellow at the MIT Media Lab and serves on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. Previously, she was a Senior TED Fellow, Echoing Green Fellow, and Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow. Esra’a is the recipient of the “Berkman Award” from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society for "outstanding contributions to the internet and its impact on society over the last decade", the Monaco Media Prize, which acknowledges innovative uses of media for the betterment of humanity, and the "Most Courageous Media" award from Free Press Unlimited. In 2014, she received the Human Rights Tulip Prize, awarded annually by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to organizations or individuals that support human rights in innovative ways. She is the 2018 recipient of the Global Trailblazer Award from Vital Voices.
Sian Basker is a social entrepreneur passionate about the role of data and digital technology for making the world a better place. Her primary focus is on helping nonprofit organizations become more data-driven and achieve greater impact. In 2015, in partnership with DataKind UK, she led Data Orchard’s pioneering national research on data in the nonprofit sector. Data Evolution explored the organizational journey towards ‘mastery’ and created the 2017 data maturity framework to measure progress. Sian became a ‘data champion’ following over twenty-five years of exploring new frontiers in digital technology and bringing the benefits to the nonprofit sector. She developed services to promote awareness and build digital technology capabilities in four UK regions, and was chair of the national ICT hub from 2004 to 2008. Sian has held senior roles in digital strategy and management with local, national, and international charities. She’s also worked in impact measurement, business development, and trustee roles. Sian’s roots are in digital access and inclusion. She helped create the UK’s first public Internet access programs in the early 1990s and co-founded the first women’s online resource center. Since then she’s helped numerous marginalized and disadvantaged communities to have a voice and get online. Sian has an MSc in Data Science and Analytics and a BSC Hons in Mathematics and Science & Technology Policy.
Jos Berens is Data Policy Officer at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Centre for Humanitarian Data in The Hague. The Centre’s mission is to increase the use and impact of data in the humanitarian sector. The Data Policy work stream is focused on developing processes and practices for how OCHA handles data as the coordinator of humanitarian response. Prior to joining the Centre, Berens organized the International Data Responsibility Group from the Centre for Innovation at Leiden University. He has collaborated and published with various international organizations, universities and think tanks. Berens’ work revolves around the ethical and legal considerations associated with the use of digital data for crisis-affected people. Berens holds an LLM in Public International Law from Utrecht University and a BA in Philosophy of a Specific Discipline from Groningen University.
Lucy Bernholz is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS) and Director of the Digital Civil Society Lab. She has been a Visiting Scholar at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the Hybrid Reality Institute, and the New America Foundation. Lucy is the author of numerous articles and books, including the annual Blueprint Series on Philanthropy and the Social Economy, the 2010 publication Disrupting Philanthropy, and her 2004 book Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets: The Deliberate Evolution. She is a co-editor of Philanthropy in Democratic Societies (2016, Chicago University Press) and of the forthcoming volume Digital Technology and Democratic Theory. She writes extensively on philanthropy, technology, and policy on her award winning blog, philanthropy2173.com. Lucy studied history and has a B.A. from Yale University, where she played field hockey and captained the lacrosse team, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Rahul Bhargava is an educator, researcher, designer, and facilitator who works on data storytelling and technology design in support of social justice and community empowerment. He is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Art + Design at Northeastern University, where he founded and leads the Data Culture Group. Rahul’s builds collaborative projects to interrogate our datafied society, with a focus on rethinking participation and power in data process. He has created big data research tools to investigate media attention, built hands-on interactive museum exhibits that delight learners of all ages, and run over 100 workshops to build data culture in newsrooms, non-profits, and libraries. Rahul has collaborated with a wide range of groups, from the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil to the St. Paul library system and the World Food Program. His academic work on data literacy, technology, and civic media has been published in journals such as the International Journal of Communication, the Journal of Community Informatics, and Digital Humanities Quarterly. His museum installations have appeared at the Boston Museum of Science, Eyebeam in New York City, and the Tech Interactive in San Jose. Rahul has led workshops and made presentations at meetings such as Data for Black Lives, the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, IIIT New Delhi, the United Nations World Data Forum, TICTeC and the Designing Interactive Systems conference.
Julie became Director of Ariadne in June 2016. Prior to that, she was Director of Programmes at the Sigrid Rausing Trust. She worked at the Trust for seven years in a number of capacities, most notably Head of Human Rights, before becoming Director of Programmes in 2014. Before joining the Trust she was Programme Director at the CEELI Institute in Prague, where she was responsible for conducting rule of law-related trainings for judges and lawyers from countries undergoing transition. Previously, she was a Programme Manager for Central and Eastern Europe with the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative, and a Programme Associate at the Henry M Jackson Foundation in Seattle.
Sam is currently the Program Lead at Doteveryone focused on creating a Responsible Technology model for technology professionals. Before Doteveryone, Sam worked in the financial tech industry in Canada, where she worked with C-suite technology executives to implement organizational strategies and transformations driven by new technologies and changing customer and business needs.
Natalie Cadranel is a Non-Resident Fellow at Stanford's Digital Civil Society Lab. Natalie is an archivist and ethnographer working at the nexus of human rights, design, and technology. She is the Founder and Director of OpenArchive, a free, open-source tool that offers at-risk groups more agency over their sensitive mobile media. Additionally, she is a consulting archivist for the Investigations Lab at UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center and DocNow and has worked extensively in the non-profit sector with a focus on preserving at-risk media, worldwide. Using participatory research methods to collaborate closely with archivists, activists, and citizen journalists, she builds on contemporary archival theory and practice through the lens of human rights advocacy. Wedding theory and praxis, she created this mobile-to-archive preservation ecosystem, which ethically collects and preserves media captured by groups at risk of persecution and censorship. OpenArchive seeks to protect its users – and their media – from efforts to chill free speech through content takedowns, privacy breaches, and data loss, while preserving it for legacy access. Natalie has written and spoken in academic and industry venues like RightsCon, National Forum on Ethics and Archiving the Web, Internet Freedom Festival, National Council on Public History, Aaron Swartz Day, Association of Moving Image Archivists, and the University of Auckland. Natalie complements her work with a strong theoretical background, having earned a Masters of Information Management and Systems from UC Berkeley’s School of Information where she focused on human computer interaction, cryptographic usability, and ethical archiving. She serves on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive.
David Callahan is founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy. He has written extensively on trends in philanthropy, as well as American culture, public policy and business. David is author, most recently, of The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age. Before launching Inside Philanthropy in 2014, David co-founded Demos, the national think tank, where he held various leadership positions and conducted research on a wide range of issues related to economic and political inequality, as well as writing on moral values, professional ethics and business. Previously, David was a resident scholar at the Century Foundation and managing editor of the American Prospect, the public policy journal.
Stuart Campo is the Team Lead for Data Policy and Senior Fellow at the UN OCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data in the Hague. Stuart is also a Senior Fellow at the NYU Governance Lab (GovLab), where he advises on issues related to data responsibility in public service delivery for children. In 2017 and 2018, Stuart worked as a Researcher with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative's Signal Program on Human Security and Technology. In this capacity, he conducted translational research on humanitarian technologies, standards and ethics. Prior to his work with HHI, Stuart served as the Senior Innovation Deployment Specialist with UNICEF's Global Innovation Center. In this capacity, he led globally on remote and in-country support to UNICEF and partners in the strategic adaptation and deployment of a range of innovative solutions, including real-time information platforms like RapidPro and U-Report. During his tenure at UNICEF (beginning in 2010), Stuart held extended assignments in Madagascar and South Sudan, and supported the design and activation of innovation initiatives in over 35 countries. Stuart has extensive experience supporting the deployment of innovative solutions that bridge the humanitarian-development divide—supporting national system-strengthening for improved decision-making and results for children at scale. Prior to joining UNICEF, Stuart worked with Straight Talk Foundation—a leading health and development communication NGO in Uganda. Stuart studied Politics at Princeton University, and is currently based in the Netherlands.
As Director of Evidence and Learning, Alison helps GlobalGiving generate evidence, share learning, and build networks of peers to explore key topics in philanthropy and development. This work includes primary research to understand and support community-led change, and a collaborative project among philanthropic platform leaders to address the ethical challenges of neutrality. In her former work as GlobalGiving’s Director of Marketing and Communications, she helped develop GlobalGiving’s brand voice and ethical storytelling principles. A Colorado native, Alison studied communication at Pepperdine University and received graduate degrees in community development and monitoring and evaluation from South Africa's Stellenbosch University. Outside of work, Alison is a mom and wife focused on supporting maternal health organizations and advancing collective giving models like the Giving Project at Chinook Fund in Denver.
Kelly Church is an international development practitioner specializing in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). Kelly's data initiatives work includes the development of Responsible Data policies and redesign of an information management system in Azraq Refugee Camp; her ICT4D expertise includes consultations with peer organizations with expertise in technology in programs used to create key recommendations for CARE's ICT4D strategy. Kelly served as Project Director at SIMLab from 2014 to 2017. She led project management and implementation of our DFID-funded mobile money project in Kenya. In 2015, Kelly returned to Washington, DC, where she provided technical advice on SIMLab's implementation portfolio, most recently redesigning an Early Warning System in Kenya. Her work centers around effective community and organizational interactions, such as creative two-way communications and feedback mechanisms, and creating methodologies for evidence-based design. Kelly is currently pursuing a MA in Law and Diplomacy at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Kevin Clark is a philanthropy consultant, product manager, and composer working to help artists thrive. He served as the Director of Platform at New Music USA, where he continues to consult. Kevin speaks and writes on arts economics, technology in the arts and non-profit worlds, and philanthropy. His compositions use theater, comedy, and digital platforms in combination with acoustic instruments. He serve as a board member for the Live Music Project in Seattle, the Exapno new music community center in Brooklyn, and Con Vivo music in Jersey City. Kevin is a member of Dance/USA‘s technology committee and advises CASH Music.
Rod Clark joined Prisoners' Education Trust (PET) as its CEO in 2013. Prior to that he built a highly successful career in the Civil Service, including a spell as principal private secretary to the Alistair Darling MP. He was involved in planning the merger of the National Offender Management Service into creating the Ministry of Justice, and was Chief Executive of the Civil Service’s internal training organisation, the National School of Government. Rod sat on the expert panel for Dame Sally Coates' review of prison education and also sits on the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3).
Krysten Crawford is a freelance writer and editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Asha Curran is CEO of GivingTuesday, the global generosity movement. She was formerly Chief Innovation Offi
Catherine D'Ignazio is an Assistant Professor of Civic Media & Data Visualization in the Department of Journalism at Emerson College, a Senior Fellow at the Emerson Engagement Lab and a research affiliate at the MIT Center for Civic Media/MIT Media Lab. Catherine is currently running the Data Culture Project with Rahul Bhargava to help nonprofit organizations kickstart their data literacy, writing a book about feminist approaches to big data and AI with Lauren Klein, and recovering from the 2018 Make the Breastpump Not Suck Hackathon at MIT (which included the Make Family Leave Not Suck Policy Summit.
Rhodri Davies is Head of Policy at Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) and author of Public Good by Private Means, a book on the history of British philanthropy published in 2016. Davies leads Giving Thought, CAF’s think tank focusing on current and future issues affecting philanthropy and civil society.
Chris Delatorre is a communications consultant working in science, tech, and philanthropy to advance digital rights and social equity through the use of ethical tech. Chris is Editor at Digital Impact, and the writer and host of Digital Impact 4Q4, a podcast that covers emerging trends in social sector data. He is currently leading the relaunch of the Digital Impact community. At George Mason University, Chris managed editorial for a multimedia resource that earned a model program award from the US Department of Education. At WINGS, a global information broker, he launched a communications program for a network of 20K organizations in 40 countries. Later, at TechSoup, he led a team of experts to position the forum as a global resource for the sector and a content partner for brands like Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco, and Box. Chris has contributed to a range of publications, including Singularity Hub and Vogue, and worked with the United Nations to advance ethical tech worldwide.
Bill Densmore is executive director and founder of the Information Trust Exchange Governing Association (ITEGA). Densmore developed the idea for ITEGA as a Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) fellow. A career journalist, publisher and tech entrepreneur, Densmore has been an editor/writer for The Associated Press in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco and co-owned and published The Advocate newsweeklies for the Berkshires/southwestern Vermont. Densmore founded Amherst, Mass.-based Clickshare Service Corp. , which provides user registration, authentication, content access control and transaction services to Internet web content sites and publishers. He is co-founder of Taxonometrics Inc., a New York-based company incubating a news- and information-personalization service called LifeStream®️. He’s a founding member and director of Journalism That Matters and also served eight years on the board of the New England Newspaper & Press Association and four years on the board of Shires Media Partnership, Inc.
As a policy analyst, Natasha works on data privacy, surveillance, and cybersecurity issues. She is focused on making sure that digital decision-making and surveillance systems promote social justice, civil liberties, and equality. During law school, Natasha worked as a legal intern for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Natasha holds a J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she served on the North Carolina Law Review Board of Editors, and an M.A. in Mass Communication from the UNC School of Media and Journalism.
Alix Dunn is a Non-Resident Fellow at Stanford's Digital Civil Society Lab. Alix works as a consultant and advisor to organizations big and small. She has extensive experience facilitating diverse groups to tackle complex data and technology challenges, and to advance a shared understanding of how technology can and should shape our world. Her consulting firm Computer Says Maybe works with industry to build business process for ethical decision-making in technical development and deployment of emerging technology. She works with global philanthropic institutions to shape strategic investment in technology and to anticipate the impact that technology can and will have on society. She co-founded and directed The Engine Room, a leading organization leveraging data and technology to make the world a better place. She sits on the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court, the Advisory Council of the Open Technology Fund, and the Boards of Syrian Archive and Open Data Kosovo. Formerly, she was a fellow at Open Society Foundations, and sat on the Technology Advisory Council at Amnesty International and the board of HURIDOCS.
The Engine Room strengthens the fight for social justice by supporting civil society to use technology and data in strategic, effective and responsible ways. Since 2011, the nonprofit has supported more than 500 organizations, big and small, from every corner of the globe. The Engine Room works to shape the ways civil society uses and thinks about technology and data, in spaces like social justice movements, digital rights advocacy and humanitarian spaces. The organisation also supports individuals practitioners, especially in areas like responsible data and organisational security. With funding from a 2016 Digital Impact grant, The Engine Room joined the Center for Democracy & Technology, SIMLab, and Future of Privacy Forum to create the Good Data Collaborative.
Virginia Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor; Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age; and co-editor, with Alethia Jones, of Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith. Her writing about technology and social justice has appeared in Scientific American, The Nation, Harper’s, and Wired. For two decades, Eubanks has worked in community technology and economic justice movements. She was a founding member of the Our Data Bodies Project and a 2016-2017 Fellow at New America.
Chantal Forster is the Executive Director of the Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG). As a veteran management consultant, she has led community-driven technology initiatives for public and social sector clients and developed collaboration programs for data and knowledge sharing since 2008. Previously, Chantal held positions as Digital Director for the Bioneers, Digital Manager for the City of Albuquerque, and Senior Information Architect for SPSS (an IBM Company).
Vera Franz is the Information Program’s deputy director, overseeing the program’s interrelated portfolios working to confront the threats to our civil liberties created by technology. This includes work on limiting government surveillance, challenging the use of discriminatory data profiling practices, and holding to account powerful Internet platforms such as Google and Facebook. Previously, Franz helped to launch the global access to knowledge movement, including the successful campaign for the Marrakesh Treaty for the Blind adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2013. Franz is a certified data protection officer and from 2012 to 2017 represented the Open Society Foundations on the advisory board of Ariadne, the European network of funders for human rights and social change. Before joining Open Society, Franz held a research post with the Techno-Z Centre for Innovation & Technology, and was external lecturer at Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg. She has also worked for local NGOs in the Western Balkans. Franz holds an MSc in media and communications from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MPhil in political science from Salzburg University, Austria.
Alix is the CEO of GlobalGiving, the first and largest charitable giving platform connecting nonprofits, donors, and companies in more than 170 countries. Prior to GlobalGiving, he co-founded an educational technology company, LearnZillion (acquired in 2019). His previous work experience includes consulting in McKinsey & Company’s Education Practice, teaching middle school and high school mathematics and working in the public finance department at Citigroup. His awards include the NewSchools Venture Fund Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013, FastCompany’s Most Innovative Education Company in 2014, and DC’s Top 40 Entrepreneurs Under 40 in 2016. He currently serves on the board of Candid (formerly GuideStar). Alix has a Masters in Education from the Stanford University School of Education and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He graduated from Harvard University with an AB in physics and is a proud product of New Haven Public Schools. A first-generation American and child of parents from Haiti and rural Brazil, he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two daughters.
Laura leads communications efforts at The Engine Room, managing our external communications channels, finding the best ways to distill our research and building knowledge externally and internally. Laura is a curious learner and communicator fascinated by technology, international development and grammar rules. Before joining The Engine Room, Laura worked as a consultant to mission-driven organizations, as the Editorial Director of a social enterprise in India, and as program coordinator at the Information Program of Open Society Foundations. You can usually find Laura running around outside, exploring the nooks and crannies of New Orleans or adopting new hobbies.
Tracey Gyateng leads on working with charities to use data (both numbers and words) to support decision making through the use of data science. She also manages strategic projects—with a current focus on data governance and ethics. Previously, she was data labs project manager at New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), helping charities to use government administrative datasets for programme evaluation.
Nick Hamlin is GlobalGiving's Data Scientist. He uses GlobalGiving's data to answer strategic questions, with a special focus on our nonprofit partner data and social impact tracking. In addition to designing and maintaining our GG Rewards algorithm and our fraud protection systems, Nick lives to make GlobalGiving's data accessible, understandable, and actionable for everyone. Prior to joining GlobalGiving through the ProInspire Fellowship, he worked as a reliability consulting engineer for Fortune 500 companies around the world and held NSF research positions in China and Thailand. Nick holds a Masters of Information and Data Science from UC Berkeley’s School of Information as well as a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. in History from the University of Rochester. Outside the office, he is a proud folk music street performer, amateur haiku poet, and worm farmer.
Trista Harris is a passionate advocate for leaders in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. Trista’s work has been covered by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, CNN, Forbes, the New York Times, and numerous social sector blogs. She is also the co-author of the book “How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar” and the upcoming book “FutureGood”. She speaks internationally about using the tools of futurism in the social sector.
Marlena Hartz is the content marketing manager at GlobalGiving, where she fosters, creates, and curates compelling content that informs, inspires, and connects people all over the world. Marlena started telling stories more than a decade ago as a reporter for daily newspapers in New Mexico and Texas. Searching for a way to bridge the gap between her experience in the newsroom and her time in Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer, Marlena earned her master’s degree in International and Intercultural Communications at the University of Denver. She went on to spread the word about nonprofits with solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, including Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking, Tahirih Justice Center and, now, GlobalGiving. When she’s not telling stories, Marlena might be found marveling over the mysteries of nature on a hike or trying to capture its essence with paint and canvas.
Justine has a track record of innovative research and collaboration with public and private partners. She became an economist in order to use science to improve people’s lives and impact the world for good. This is reflected in her work which combines economics and big data to solve social problems. She contributes to research in education, retirement policy, household finance, and health, as well as marketing, competition, antitrust, and environmental regulation. She is the founder and director of Research Improving People’s Lives (RIPL), a new interdisciplinary, research lab model for using data and science to impact policy and improve lives. She has served on the Academic Research Council for the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and on the Council of Economic Advisors to the Governor of Rhode Island. Justine holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Ben Hayes is an international data protection law and policy expert specialized in the protection of vulnerable data subjects, new technologies, challenging processing environments and applied ethics. He has worked as a Legal Advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross, developing data protection frameworks for complex innovation projects, including the ICRC’s Biometrics Policy. Ben also worked for the UN Refugee Agency, where he drafted the organization’s Operational Guidelines on Data Protection and a toolkit for UNHCR operations. He has advised numerous EU bodies and agencies and wrote the Ethics and Data Protection Guidance for the EU's flagship research program: “Horizon 2020”. Prior to joining AWO, Ben ran a niche data protection consultancy, DPSM, providing data protection impact assessment, data protection-by-design and general compliance services to international organizations, NGOs, commercial clients, universities and start-ups. Ben has 20 years’ experience working more broadly at the intersection of human rights and social policy. He has conducted ground-breaking research on inter/national security, counterterrorism, surveillance, border control, technology transfer, financial regulation and climate change, and worked for the Transnational Institute, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the Human Security Collective and Statewatch. Ben received a PhD from the University of Ulster in 2008 for a thesis on EU law, international security and human rights. He lives in Totnes and is a mentor at the Environmental Futures and Big Data Impact Lab, a multi-partner incubator working across the southwest of the UK.
Crystal brings to The Libra Foundation a wealth of domestic and international experience across a broad spectrum of equity-focused issues. For six years, Crystal lived in Singapore where she built bridges between civil society and emerging donors in Southeast Asia to address income inequality and climate change. As managing director of the Aspen Institute’s Environmental Fellowship, Crystal designed a global leadership program focused on the food system’s impact on the environment. Feeding her interest in equitable health care, Crystal was CEO of the Blue Shield of California Foundation where she spearheaded work to achieve universal health coverage. She was also part of the founding team at The California Wellness Foundation where she led a groundbreaking initiative to shift youth violence prevention from a criminal justice issue to a public health effort. She has served on the boards of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Northern California Grantmakers, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, and Grantmakers in Health. Most recently Crystal was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to serve on the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. She has also lived and worked in China and Mexico.
The Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law conducts research on war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. Using evidence-based methods and innovative technologies, we support efforts to hold perpetrators accountable and to protect vulnerable populations. We also train students and advocates to research, investigate, and document human rights violations and turn this information into effective action. We are guided by the need to listen to and support survivors, test innovative ideas, draw from multiple disciplines, use rigorous methods, and collaborate.
Katie Ingersoll is Education Manager at DataArts, formerly the Cultural Data Project (CDP). Katie joined the CDP in 2011 as a Help Desk and User Support Assistant, and stepped into the role of Associate for New York State in 2013. She has worked in a variety of libraries and recently earned a Master of Library Science. The CDP is the perfect environment to satisfy her librarian’s interest in keeping information well organized, as well as serving as a resource to users. Before coming to the CDP she spent a year working with the Prometheus Radio Project on policy advocacy, crunching data and organizing people to create opportunities for more community radio stations. In her free time she dreams of being a writer, and starting her own community radio station someday.
Becky is an international communications strategist with a focus on technology for social good. Since 2016, she has managed communications for the UNOCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data. She has worked in the humanitarian and international development sectors for over 15 years, with the United Nations and many international and grassroots NGOs. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The New School, a Master’s in Gender, Development, and Globalization from the London School of Economics, and a BA from Wesleyan University. She lives in New York with her family.
Poonam Joshi is Director of the Funders’ Initiative for Civil Society (FICS). Prior to this Poonam was the Executive Director of the Sigrid Rausing Trust. Poonam has worked on range of human rights issues as a lawyer, policy advisor and grant-maker, and has established and managed programmes to support civil society in the Middle East North Africa, South Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Balkans.
JustFix.nyc builds technology to support New Yorkers in neglectful housing situations. With funding from a 2018 Digital Impact grant, JustFix.nyc is leading a data coalition whose aim is to further housing justice in New York City. Through their platform, tenants, community organizers, and legal services are able to connect, gather evidence, and take action in order to bring meaningful, well-documented cases into both legal and nonlegal settings. JustFix.nyc is driven by the belief that all NYC residents deserve a dignified tenancy, with access to legal representation, social services, and opportunities to organize while navigating the complex and currently inequitable world of housing.
Dan Kass supports social justice movements through the use of data and technology. He designs and builds tools that investigate social & technical systems, make institutions more accessible, and tell critical stories through digital media. For the past five years, Dan served as a co-founder and Executive Director at JustFix.nyc, a tech nonprofit that supports tenants and organizers fighting displacement and neglectful housing in New York City. For this work, he was named on the Forbes "30 Under 30" list in the law & policy category. Dan also serves on the Open Data Advisory Council for the City of New York, the steering committee for the Housing Data Coalition, and the Emerging Leaders Council for the Legal Services Corporation.
Niki Kilbertus is a doctoral student and researcher at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. Currently a group leader at HelmholtzAI in Munich, he is working toward building socially beneficial, robust, and theoretically substantiated machine learning systems. Niki obtained a PhD in the Cambridge-Tübingen program co-supervised by Bernhard Schölkopf, Carl Rasmussen, and Adrian Weller, and was an Ellis student and member of Pembroke College, funded by the Cambridge-Tübingen PhD fellowship with generous donations from Microsoft. During his PhD, he interned at Deepmind, Google, and Amazon. Niki grew up in Austria, studied Physics and Math in Regensburg, and spent time at Harvard and Stanford during his studies.
Alexa Koenig is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Center (winner of the 2015 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions) and a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches classes on human rights and international criminal law with a particular focus on the impact of emerging technologies on human rights practice. She co-founded the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab, which trains students and professionals to use social media and other digital content to strengthen human rights advocacy and accountability. Alexa is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, co-chair of the International Bar Association's Technology and Human Rights working group, and a member and co-administrator of the Technology Advisory Board for the International Criminal Court's Office of the Prosecutor. Earlier this year, the book she edited with two colleagues--"Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation and Accountability"--was published by Oxford University Press, and quickly hit number one new release in multiple categories on Amazon. She was also a driving force between the development of the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, which the Human Rights Center co-published with the United Nations Human Rights Office on December 1, setting international standards for using social media content and other online information for human rights and war crimes investigations. Alexa has been honored with several awards for her work, including the UNA-SF’s Global Human Rights Award, the Eleanor Swift Award for Public Service, and the Mark Bingham Award for Excellence, as well as identified by Harvard Law School as a 2020 Woman Inspiring Change.
Mari Kuraishi is the President of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, a place-based funder based in Jacksonville, FL. Prior to heading up the duPont Fund, Mari co-founded GlobalGiving with Dennis Whittle, and served as President until 2018. In 2011, Mari was named one of Foreign Policy’s top 100 Global Thinkers for “crowdsourcing worldsaving.” Before GlobalGiving, she worked at the World Bank where she managed and created some of the Bank’s most innovative loans. She currently serves as chair of the board of GuideStar and the board of DataKind, and remains on the board of GlobalGiving.
Heather Leson is driven by the mandate: “Imagine this world if we all lent a digital hand.” As a technologist, she is focused on social impact with human-centered design, social entrepreneurship, and innovation methodologies. She builds partnerships, open governance, strategic organizational change, curates digital spaces, fosters volunteer engagement and delivers training while inspiring systems for co-creation with maps, code and data. At the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent, Heather coordinates global Data Literacy programs and co-leads the Digital Strategy work stream. Together with 100s of contributors from across the globe within IFRC and partners, she curated the Data Playbook (Beta) project to support a data-enabled organization. She is a Board Member of OpenStreetMap Foundation and a past board member (current member) of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Heather is a frequent public speaker and facilitator on topics of digital communities, open source, governance, open data, social impact, humanitarians in a digital age, and open organizations. Heather co-wrote a chapter on the State of Data in Humanitarian Action, a chapter on Open Communities and articles the power of data and digital literacy for the World Economic Forum and Civicus Datashift. Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Combined Political Science and History from Carleton University, as well as a Library and Information Technician diploma from Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology.
Josh Levy is Co-Founder of the Center for Digital Resilience and Founder of the Digital Security Exchange, an initiative that connects civil society organizations to trusted digital security experts who help keep vulnerable data and networks safe from exposure, exploitation, and attack. As an advocacy and campaign director with organizations including Free Press and Access Now, he has helped lead global efforts to protect free expression online, fight for privacy and the right to encryption, secure strong open Internet rules, reign in overreaching government surveillance, and otherwise protect the rights of at-risk Internet users. Josh is a former Non-Resident Fellow at Stanford's Digital Civil Society Lab.
Madeline is a graduating senior from Stanford studying Political Science and Computer Science. She spent last summer interning with digital rights organization Access Now where she had a first-hand look into the impact of initiatives like the Digital Security Helpline. She currently works as a researcher at Stanford Global Digital Policy Incubator where she investigates human rights impacts of AI governance. Passionate about digital rights and civil society, she is excited to be continuing her studies at the Oxford Internet Institute next October where she will be pursuing an MSc in Social Science of the Internet.
As Justice Funders’ Senior Innovation Director, Mario partners with philanthropy and field practitioners to design, pilot and scale both innovation and coordinated action that advances social movements. Mario comes to the organization via Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), where he served as a 2016-2017 Civic Innovation Fellow. He currently holds the position of Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Guidestar, and is the founder of the technology platform, Giving Side. In 2010, Mario co-founded the New American Leaders Project, the country’s first and only organization dedicated to training first- and second- generation immigrants to run for elected office. He has held leadership positions at the Kapor Center for Social Impact, as well as the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation, providing leadership around new and unprecedented philanthropic investments in both integrated voter engagement strategies and for a fair and accurate 2010 census count. He built significant community organzing experience as the National Coordinator of Racial Justice 911 and at CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities in the Northwest Bronx. Mario is a long-time philanthropic and nonprofit consultant, speaker and trainer. He currently is an advisor to the High Net Worth POC Donor Collaborative, Digital Impact and New Media Mentors, and previously served as board member of Resource Generation, American Prospect, and as board chair of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. He is a graduate of Columbia University.
Ian Lundberg is a Ph.D. student in sociology and social policy at Princeton University. He specializes in statistical methods, social stratification, and demography. Ian is especially fascinated by two sets of assumptions required to answer social science questions: untestable identification assumptions and estimation assumptions that may be relaxed. The former include identification assumptions about treatment assignment, survey nonresponse, missingness, etc. These assumptions are the core of social science, require substantive theory, and are often opaque in published papers. The latter include estimation assumptions such as parametric regression models. Ian's research aims to make transparent the identification assumptions which cannot be weakened and to relax parametric assumptions where possible with flexible models targeted toward a particular estimand. Using this methodological framework, he aims to promote substantive research in social stratification that is transparent, accurate, and clear.
Di Luong is a researcher at the Media Mobilizing Project, where she is developing a national database to increase the transparency of predictive policing algorithms. She previously worked as a policy analyst with USAID and USDA in Washington, DC and with UNICEF in Ghana. Luong received an award from Making All Voices Count’s Global Innovation Competition (2015) and the Ford Foundation/Media Democracy Fund Technology Exchange Fellowship in 2017.
The goal of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems is to investigate and understand the organizing principles of intelligent systems and the underlying perception-action-learning loop. The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems combines — within one center — theory, software, and hardware expertise in the research field of intelligent systems. With funding from a 2017 Digital Impact grant, the Institute is developing Fairensics, an online library that collects and makes available advanced tools developed by researchers and private industry for counteracting bias in algorithms. The Tübingen campus of the institute focuses on theory and algorithms as well as human-scale systems covering topics such as machine learning, computer vision, robotics, control, and the theory of intelligence. Research at the Stuttgart campus of the institute covers small-scale robotics, self-organization, haptic perception, bio-inspired systems, medical robotics, and physical intelligence; that is, the embodiment of intelligent behavior in physical, rather than computational, systems.
Sean Martin McDonald is CEO of FrontlineSMS, founder of Digital Public, a founding member of the Frontline Legal, Capture the Ocean, and Feedback Labs projects. FrontlineSMS uses the convenience and reach of messaging to improve the reach, efficiency, and value of digital engagement in more than 140 countries. Sean is also an advisor and affiliate with the Clinton Global Initiative, Harvard's Berkman Center, Digital Democracy, ECPAT USA, TechChange and UNDP. Sean is a former Non-Resident Fellow at Stanford's Digital Civil Society Lab.
Dan Blah (Daniel Meredith), is the Principal Director of the Open Technology Fund, having joined as the inaugural team member in January 2012. In this role, he is accountable for OTF’s day-to-day operations and long-term planning. Over the past decade, Dan has identified as activist, technologist, journalist, and now funder. He is continually exploring those emerging technological changes that affect and transform how we advance human rights, social justice, democracy, transparency, accountability, digital security, and communication policy in our digital age. Before directing the Open Technology Fund, Dan was a senior producer and technologist for the Al Jazeera Network based in in Doha, Qatar. Leading up to and during the Arab Spring, he worked to modernize traditional investigative journalist tool-kits with safe communication technology to protect field reporters and their sources from repressive surveillance, create a privacy-protecting global whistle-blowing and news gathering platform, and produce technology-centric stories for global television broadcast. Prior to Al Jazeera, Dan was a technologist then senior technology fellow at New America Foundation in Washington, DC. He was the Open Technology Institute’s first full-time staff member in 2009, working to operationalize new “code-as-policy” technology projects with global communities of policy makers, journalists, and technologists. While at OTI, Dan honed his focus to create, educate, demystify, and evangelize open, distributed, and decentralized technologies that increase democratic participation, fight censorship, and disrupted authoritarianism globally. Earlier in the 2000’s, Dan was a software developer, network engineer, and volunteer within the Indymedia movement at Urbana-Champgian’s Independent Media Center. Within the movement, he worked with other local organizers to build: Radio Free Urbana, a low-power FM community radio station; the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), a decentralized, community-owned network to foster democratic culture and local content; and, an open-source community web hosting project at Chambana.net.
Wilneida Negrón is a technology fellow with Ford Foundation's gender, racial, and ethnic justice team. Prior to Ford, Wilneida worked as a political scientist-technologist with a national and global perspective, developing platforms to increase access to justice for vulnerable communities, conducting research on the impact of technology and data on political participation in emerging democracies, and mobilizing multi-stakeholder coalitions to address issues arising from our increasing socio-technical world. Wilneida also works with foundations on developing a public interest technology pipeline, providing mentoring and strategic guidance to private sector technologists looking to use their skills for social good. She's an Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice were she teaches courses on human rights and international organizations. She has a PhD in Comparative politics, specializing in social and political implications of emerging technologies in East Asia and Latin America, Masters in Public Administration, and MPhil on International and Global Affairs. She was part of the second cohort of fellows at Data & Society Research Institute and is currently an affiliate fellow there.
Mutale Nkonde is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab. She is currently the Executive Director of AI for the People a non profit that seeks to use popular culture to educate Black audiences about the social justice implications of the use of AI Technologies in public life. She is also a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and prior to this she was an AI Policy advisor and was part of a team that introduced Algorithmic Accountability and Deep Fakes Accountability Acts to the US House of Representatives as well as the No Barriers to Biometric Barriers Act. Her work sits at the intersection of race and technology and she is fascinated by how the ideas that uphold systemic racism in the analogue world are advanced and reproduced through the design and deployment of advanced technical systems. Nkonde’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Fast Company and Harvard Business Review and she speaks widely on these issues.
Data Orchard helps organizations use data for better decisions and greater impact. The organization's values include honesty, quality, collaboration, respect, and openness. With experience from across the public, private, and voluntary sectors, Data Orchard combines skills in research, statistics, and data with a passion for improving the world socially, economically, and environmentally.
María Villalpando believes in the power of Mexican nonprofits to bring dignity to the way people live. In her role as Partnerships Consultant, she helps grow and increase this power to support GlobalGiving’s partners in the region. She graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with a degree in Sociology and a special focus on poverty studies. María loves to travel and has had the opportunity to work on different community development projects in Laos, Fiji, and Costa Rica. In her free time, you can find her kitesurfing, hurrying somewhere, or finding a way to get to the ocean.
Argyri Panezi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab. Argyri’s work explores the effects that disruptive technologies have on citizens, on institutions, and the law. In the Digital Civil Society Lab, she is examining digital civil society interactions with libraries and other cultural heritage institutions, and the relevant legal frameworks incentivizing distributed methods for building a content infrastructure accessible online. Her current work is on digitization and AI. Argyri has previously written on digitization, on copyright issues related to digital libraries, and on the European legal framework applicable to cultural heritage institutions. She is also exploring regulatory challenges for FOSS that form part of critical digital infrastructure. Argyri enjoys topics related to art, sciences and the law, the transformation of institutions traditionally holding infrastructural roles within society and their adaptations to remain relevant to the generations of digital natives. Ultimately her work aspires to illuminate the effects that algorithmic speed and AI might have on domains such as labor and consider policy responses to scenarios of technology dystopia.
Tawana Petty is a Non-Resident Fellow at Stanford's Digital Civil Society Lab. Tawana is a mother, social justice organizer, youth advocate, poet and author. She is intricately involved in water rights advocacy, data and digital privacy education, and racial justice and equity work. She is Director of the Data Justice Program for the Detroit Community Technology Project (DCTP) and co-leads Our Data Bodies (ODB), a five-person team concerned about the ways our communities’ digital information is collected, stored, and shared by government and corporations. Tawana is a convening member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DDJC) on behalf of DCTP, which organizes Data DiscoTechs (discovering technology) fairs and other initiatives to foster media and digital literacy. She recently co-produced with ODB, the Digital Defense Playbook, a workbook of popular education activities and tools for data justice and data access for equity, as well as the report, A Critical Summary of Detroit’s Project Green Light and Its Greater Context, on Detroit’s Project Green Light surveillance program. Tawana is a co-founder of Riverwise Magazine, a quarterly magazine which lifts up community stories by Detroit residents, which might otherwise be misrepresented or underrepresented in local and national media. Riverwise Magazine recently produced a special surveillance issue, Detroiters Want to Be Seen, Not Watched. She is a board member of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership (Boggs Center), a Detroit Equity Action Lab (DEAL) Fellow, and the organizer of an annual art festival and artist retreat in historic Idlewild, Michigan, which convenes over 30 artists, organizers, herbalists and innovators each year to create art, share healing practices and respirit each other and the communities they serve. Tawana is the recipient of several awards, including the Spirit of Detroit Award, the Woman of Substance Award, Women Creating Caring Communities Award, Detroit Awesome Award, University of Michigan Black Law Student Association’s Justice Honoree Award, was recognized as one of Who’s Who in Black Detroit in 2013 and 2015, the Wayne State Center for Peace and Conflict Studies’ Peacemaker Award, and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition in 2018.
The Public Laboratory for Open Technology (Public Lab) is a community and nonprofit democratizing science to address environmental issues that affect people. With funding from a 2018 Digital Impact grant, the Public Lab team is developing a set of management tools for privacy-first, user-friendly data input, archiving, and sharing among social sector organizations. Using inexpensive DIY techniques, Public Lab seeks to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms. Public Lab is made up of activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers who are interested in new ways to promote action, intervention, and awareness through a participatory research model. The Public Lab community began as the Grassroots Mapping project, an effort to produce DIY satellite imagery with balloons and kites, most notably during the 2010 BP oil spill. Public Lab is now broadening its scope to explore new inexpensive and community-led means to measure and explore environmental and social issues.
Linda Raftree is an independent consultant who has worked at the intersection of community development, gender, youth participatory media, rights-based approaches and digital (ICTs) for nearly 20 years, starting in El Salvador where she spent the 1990s. Linda is an anthropologist by degree and a participant-observer by nature.
Zara Rahman is a Non-Resident Fellow at Stanford's Digital Civil Society Lab. Zara is a Berlin-based researcher and writer whose interests lie at the intersection of power, technology and justice. Her most recent work focuses on the role that technology is playing in shaping our identities and our sense of selves and each other, and has written about this through the lens of immigration, refugee rights for the Rohingya in Bangladesh, and more broadly, the limits of digital data in shaping our identities. Over the past decade, her research has focused on supporting the responsible use of data and technology in advocacy and social justice, working with activists and organizers from around the world to ensure context-driven and thoughtful uses of tech and data. She is currently the Deputy Director at The Engine Room, an international non-profit organization supporting civil society to use tech and data more effectively and strategically in their work. She was a 2016/17 fellow at Data & Society, where she worked on creative and artistic ways of boosting critical data and tech literacy, and she recently concluded a 2-year fellowship at digitalHKS at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she worked on understanding the origins of certain identification technologies. Her past work has included campaigning for an access to information law in Spain, investigating the impact of open data in the extractive industries in the Middle East during the uprisings in 2011/12, and supporting data literacy efforts with civil society and journalists across the world with School of Data. She also sits on the Advisory Committee of CREA, a feminist human rights organization based in India, and she writes about digital policy and technology in Bangladesh for Global Voices.
Andrés Felipe Vera Ramírez is the strategic director of El Radioperiódico Clarín. As a media entrepreneur and journalist who majored in business administration, he loves connecting knowledge and people. Andrés majored in business administration.
Rachel Rank is the Chief Executive of 360Giving, whose mission is to support UK grantmakers to publish information on who, where and what they fund in an open, standardized format to build a better picture of the funding landscape and boost its impact. Prior to joining 360Giving she was Deputy Director of Publish What You Fund, where she led the organization’s research and monitoring work. She has researched and written several publications on transparency, access to information and accountability. Rachel has previously held positions with the Commonwealth Secretariat, the UK Department for International Development, consulting firm DAI, Transparency International and the Overseas Development Institute.
Rashida Richardson is the director of policy research at AI Now Institute, where she designs, implements, and coordinates research strategies and initiatives on the topics of law, policy, and civil rights. Rashida joined AI Now after working as Legislative Counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the New York state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she led led the organization’s work on privacy, technology, surveillance, and education issues. Prior to the NYCLU, she was a staff attorney at the Center for HIV Law and Policy, where she worked on a wide-range of HIV-related legal and policy issues nationally, and she previously worked at Facebook Inc. and HIP Investor in San Francisco. Rashida currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project and the Board of Directors of the College & Community Fellowship. She received her BA with honors in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University and her JD from Northeastern University School of Law.
Sona Shah completed her Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University in 2016, and holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Tech. She aspires to combine experience in engineering, global health, and the healthcare industry to help innovate medical technologies that serve low-resource settings.
Rachel co-founded GlobalGiving UK, and she leads programs that help nonprofits, companies and foundations make a genuine and sustained difference in people’s lives. She is passionate about challenging the status quo and exploring new ways of working. Previously, Rachel worked for local government, in marketing in the retail sector, and as an archaeologist. She holds an MA from Cardiff University in Archaeology and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Birbeck University, London. She has been involved in the voluntary sector, with a particular fondness for fundraising, from a very young age—she organized her first fundraising event (a local coffee morning) at age seven!
Gene Takagi is the managing attorney of NEO Law Group, contributing publisher of the Nonprofit Law Blog, and an assistant professor at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. At NEO, Gene has represented over 700 nonprofit organizations on corporate, tax, and charitable trust law matters. Gene is a popular writer on nonprofit legal topics and has been published by The New York Times, The Nonprofit Quarterly, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Nonprofit Times, Taxation of Exempts, EO Tax Journal, and ALI-ABA. He is also a popular speaker who has presented at conferences for Independent Sector, BoardSource, the National Association of Attorneys General / National Association of State Charity Officials, CalNonprofits, Net Impact, the American Bar Association, the Western Conference on Tax Exempt Organizations (WCTEO), Georgetown Nonprofit Governance, the Northern California Planned Giving Council, Social Media for Nonprofits, the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors, and numerous local and regional bar and CPA associations. In addition, Gene has been a regular contributor to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio since 2010. Gene's professional experiences are diverse: corporate attorney for Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, professor of nonprofit law at the University of San Francisco, director of the medical and behavior divisions of the San Francisco SPCA, management consultant for Allders International (specialty retail), and managing director of Suki's International (beauty/education). This background helps him provide clear, understandable legal advice with an appreciation of the relevant business issues. Gene, a graduate of UCLA School of Law and of USF's Master of Nonprofit Administration program, is a recipient of multiple awards for his work, including Outstanding Nonprofit Lawyer (American Bar Association, 2016), Outstanding Barrister of the Year (Bar Association of San Francisco) and Northern California Super Lawyer (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018). He currently serves on the boards of CompassPoint and The Nonprofit Quarterly and the planning committee of the WCTEO. Gene previously served on the boards of Community Initiatives, Net Impact, JCYC, the Barristers Club of the Bar Association of San Francisco, and the public policy committee of Independent Sector.
Maryna Taran has more than five years of multifaceted international experience specializing in community management, cross-cultural communication, crowdsourcing technology and participatory development. Her specialties include communications, participatory international development, open data, data visualizations, crowdsourcing, marketing research, information management, social media, internet advocacy, and product management.
Sarah Telford heads up OCHA's Centre for Humanitarian Data in The Hague which opened in December 2017. In this role, she oversees the Humanitarian Data Exchange platform which brings together data from over 350 organizations. She has worked in the past with the UK Department for International Development, UNICEF, and the International Medical Corps. She began her career with the United Nations as a press officer with the Department of Public Information in New York. Sarah has a master's degree in East Asian studies from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Hofstra University.
Mandeep Tiwana is the chief programmes officer at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He specializes in legislation relating to the core civil society freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Since joining CIVICUS in 2008, Mandeep has engaged in efforts to advance civil society participation in decision making and to protect civil society freedoms globally. He has written extensively on the intersection between civil society, sustainable development and international affairs in this capacity. He currently oversees CIVICUS’s portfolio of work in defending civic freedoms and promoting democratic values. Previously, Mandeep advised the New Delhi Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He has also worked with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, and has published a compilation of landmark Indian Supreme Court decisions and National Human Rights Commission guidelines on human rights and policing and has co-authored modules on human rights for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and a citizen's handbook explaining the mandate and practical functioning of human rights commissions in India. Mandeep has also drafted two annual reports for the Punjab State Human Rights Commission and has worked on projects related to good governance and women's empowerment in India. Mandeep holds BA and LL.B degrees from Panjab University, India and an LL.M in Law in Development from Warwick University, UK.
Helen Turvey (King) has been at the Foundation for almost a decade, driving the evolution from traditional funder to the current co-investment Fellowship model. She is responsible for the Foundations strategic direction and daily executive leadership. Helen was educated in Europe, South America and the Middle East. With 15 years of experience working with international NGOs and agencies, she is driven by the belief that openness has benefits beyond the obvious. That they offer huge value to education, economies and communities in both the developed and developing worlds. As well as holding various board positions, Helen is a lover of musicals, has smallholding ambitions (currently 3 hens and a seasonal veggie patch) and is the winner of all internal bowling competitions.
Working at the intersection of investing and social good, Brian Walsh oversees impact for Liquidnet, a New York-based financial technology company. In 2007, Brian launched Liquidnet For Good, where he is responsible for applying the company's expertise and resources to make a positive impact around the world.
Amy is driven by a belief that the nonprofit technology community can be a movement-based force for positive change. Their prior experience in direct service, policy, philanthropy, and capacity-building organizations has fueled Amy's work to create meaningful, inclusive, and compassionate community engagement and educational opportunities for organizations around the world. As the CEO of NTEN, Amy inspires the NTEN team and global partners to believe in community-generated change. Amy believes technology can help nonprofits reach their missions more effectively and equitably, but doing so takes intention and investment in training, access, and collaboration. Amy has had the privilege to present at conferences around the round, be a guest on podcasts such as Nonprofit Radio, and author contributions in various books and magazines. Amy's second book, Social Change Anytime Everywhere, co-authored with Allyson Kapin, was a Terry McAdam Book Award finalist.
The creator of GrassrootsMapping.org and co-founder and Research Director for Public Lab, Jeffrey Warren designs mapping and civic science tools and professionally flies balloons and kites. Notable software he has created include the vector-mapping framework Cartagen and orthorectification tool MapKnitter, as well as open spectral database and toolkit Spectral Workbench. Jeffrey served from 2015-17 as Vice President of the board of the Open Source Hardware Association, is on the board of alternative education program Parts and Crafts in Somerville MA, and an advocate of open source software, hardware, and data. He co-founded Vestal Design, a graphic/interaction design firm in 2004, and directed the Cut&Paste Labs project, a year-long series of workshops on open source tools and web design in 2006-7 with Lima designer Diego Rotalde. Jeff holds an MS from MIT and a BA in Architecture from Yale University, and spent much of that time working with artist/technologist Natalie Jeremijenko, building robotic dogs and stuff. For more, visit unterbahn.com.
Robin Wilton brings 28 years of industry experience to the role of Technical Outreach Director for Identity and Privacy, in the Internet Society's Trust and Identity Initiatives group. Since 2001 he has specialized in digital identity, privacy and public policy, building a reputation as a thought leader, communicator and translator between different stakeholder groups. Before joining the Internet Society Robin spent two years as a research analyst in Gartner's Identity and Privacy Strategies team, where – in addition to his privacy work - he specialized in public key infrastructure, electronic signature, single sign-on and federated identity. Robin's experience includes: 12 years with IBM in systems engineering, technical support and consulting roles, at the UK and EMEA level; 3 years as Principal Consultant at JCP Trustbase Ltd., a start-up specializing in Java cryptography and PKI-enabling middleware; 8 years with Sun Microsystems in technical pre-sales and the CTO team; 18 months establishing Future Identity Ltd. as an independent consultancy on privacy and digital identity. During his time at Future Identity he was also Director of Privacy and Public Policy for the Kantara Initiative. Robin has an MA in Philosophy and Modern Languages, and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society with Chartered IT Professional status.
Chris Worman is the vice president of alliances and program development at TechSoup. He has been working in civil society since 1998. Initially focused on communications and development for major US NGOs, Chris pioneered several online fundraising and community-building platforms before social media platforms made it so easy. After the systems were up and running, Chris got bored and joined Peace Corps — landing in Romania in 2006, where he started the first community foundation (www.szka.org) and helped lay the groundwork for the ensuing movement. Over the next few years, Chris started a variety of civic-engagement-through-philanthropy processes and social enterprises before drifting back into the online space with TechSoup. Through TechSoup projects Chris has worked to design, millions of citizens across Eastern Europe and the Balkans have been exposed to a discussion about the role of the citizen in nominal democracies. Chris is based in San Francisco, where he coordinates TechSoup’s marketing, communications, and PR; tries to build global alliances for tech and social change; and continues teaching and writing about how to best accelerate web-based social leadership, from beautiful ideas to usable apps.
Kaliya "Identity Woman" Young is a co-founder of the Internet Identity Workshop and of HumanFirst.Tech and an independent expert on blockchain and identity systems who consults with governments, companies and startups. An expert in self-sovereign identity and identity on the blockchain, Young (formerly Hamlin) is the co-author of a Comprehensive guide to Self-Sovereign Identity and is widely known as Identity Woman (its also the name of her blog and her twitter handle). She is committed her life to the development of an open standards based layer of the internet that empowers people. In 2005, Young co-founded the Internet Identity Workshop with Doc Searls and Phil Windley. Five years later she founded the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium to catalyze a network of companies working to give individuals the tools to collect, manage and gain value from their own personal data generated actively and passively as they interact with all kinds of digital systems. In 2016 she began the Identity Ecosystem Map project and collaborating in leading its development. She consults with and advises companies seeking to develop products in this ecosystem. She is the co-founder with Shireen Mitchel of HumanFirst.Tech a project focused the needs of diverse communities and building an inclusive industry. Young has been named one of the most influential women in tech by Fast Company Magazine. She has presented keynotes to the MyData, Identiverse and Gartner’s Identity and Access Management Summit in London. She has spoken at, the K(no)w Identity conference, EMMA’s IEES conference, DWeb Summit, European Identity Conference, Gnomedex, Data Week, Privacy Identity and Innovation, NIST’s IDTrust Conference, SXSW and BlogHer. She has been quoted in a range of media including the New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Business Week, and ReadWriteWeb. Young has worked directly with the US Government (NSTIC & DHS S&T) and the Government of British Columbia, and in 2012 she was honored by the World Economic Forum. She was an active contributor to the WEF Rethinking Personal Data Project for its duration 2010-2014.