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Carlos Prieto del Campo, Director, Museo Reina Sofia Study Centre

Activist in European social movements, Carlos Prieto del Campo has a PhD in Philosophy from the Complutense University of Madrid, and is an expert in accounting and public sector auditing after having worked as a civil servant for the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance between 1989 and 2010. He is also an independent editor and activist in the field of culture, and has been editor of the Spanish version of New Left Review since 2000, director of the publishing projects Cuestiones de antagonismo (1999–2012) and Prácticas constituyentes since 2013. He has held different management posts in Spain’s public sector and was dean of the Quito Institute of Higher National Studies (2013–2014) and an adviser to the Ecuadorian government. He is Director of the Study Centre at Museo Reina Sofía and is a member of the editorial board of L’Internationale Online.


francesca_bria_200x200Francesca Bria, Technology and innovation policy advisor, D-CENT Project Coordinator, Nesta

Francesca Bria is a Senior Researcher and Advisor on information and technology policy. She has a PhD on innovation economics from imperial College, London and an MSc on digital economy from University of London, Birkbeck. She is the EU Coordinator of the D-CENT project, the biggest European project on direct democracy and digital currencies. She also leads the DSI project on digital social innovation in Europe. She has been teaching in several universities in the UK and Italy and she has advised Governments, public and private organisations and movements on technology and information policy, and its socio-economic impact. Bria is an adviser for the European Commission on future internet and innovation policy.



Fabrizio-Sestini_200x200Fabrizio Sestini
, Senior Expert, Digital Social Innovation, European Commission DG Connect

Fabrizio Sestini is Senior Expert in Digital Social Innovation with DG CONNECT of the European Commission. He is leading the multidisciplinary initiative “Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation”, which aims at stimulating bottom-up innovative ideas for collaborative platforms exploiting network effects to include citizens, grassroots organisations and civil society in participatory social innovation processes. He is also pioneering a new area of research on distributed architectures for decentralised data governance, aiming at creating a level playground for new privacy-by-design applications exploiting the full potential of open data. In his career with the European Commission he has enjoyed launching and managing several research initiatives related to different aspects of Internet research, policies and developments. He has a PhD in Information and Communication Engineering and has published some 30 scientific papers. He is an IEEE Senior Member and has served on boards organising several scientific conferences. Sestini is an Internet Policy Fellow of Cambridge University.


Raquel-Rolnik_200x200Raquel Rolnik, Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of São Paulo

Raquel Rolnik is an architect, urban planner and Professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo. She was special reporter of the UN Human Rights Council on the Right to Adequate Housing, for two terms (2008-2011, 2011-2014). Among many professional and educational activities related to urban and housing policy Raquel was director of Planning of the City of São Paulo (1989-1992), Urban Planning Coordinator of the Polis Institute (1997-2002) and National Secretary of Urban Programs of the Ministry of Cities (2003-2007). She is the author of “The City and the Law”, “What is the City” and “Folha explains: São Paulo”. Rolnik also writes biweekly on Wednesdays in Yahoo! Columnists, and on Mondays, in the daily news section of the Folha de São Paulo.


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Manuela Carmena, Mayor of Madrid

Manuela Carmena is a retired Spanish lawyer, emeritus judge of the Spanish Supreme Court and Mayor of Madrid since 13 June 2015. After graduating law school in 1965, she became a defender of the workers and detainees during Franco’s dictatorshi, and co-founder of a labor law office where the1977 Massacre of Atocha took place. As a judge she began an almost solitary fight to prevent corruption in existing courts. In 1986 she received the National Human Rights Award. She was a member of the general Council of the Judiciary, and a founder of the progressive association Judges for democracy.


Paul-Mason_200x200Paul Mason, Journalist, The Guardian

Paul Mason is a freelance journalist and film-maker. His documentary #ThisIsACoup told the story of Syriza’s clash with the Eurozone and IMF in 2015. His latest book is Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future. He is a participant in the New Economics project organised by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.


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Julian Assange, Founder, Wikileaks

Julian Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, and activist. He is the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, which he co-founded in 2006 after an earlier career in hacking and programming. He is the author of Cypherpunks, OR Books 2011; When Google met Wikileaks, OR Books 2014. His last book is The Wikileaks Files, Verso Books 20015.


Franco-Bifo-Berardi_200x200Franco Bifo Berardi, Writer and philosopher

Franco Bifo Berardi is a contemporary writer, media-theorist and media-activist. He founded the magazine A/traverso (1975-1981) and was part of the staff of Radio Alice, the first free pirate radio station in Italy (1976-1978). Like others Involved in the political movement of Autonomia in Italy during the 1970’s, he fled to Paris, where he worked with Felix Guattari in the field of schizoanalysis. During the 1980’s he contributed to the magazines Semiotexte (New York), Chimerees (Paris), Metropoli (Rome) and Musica 80 (Milan). In the 1990’s he published Mutazione e Ciberpunk (Genoa, 1993), Cibernauti (Rome, 1994), and Felix (Rome, 2001). He is currently collaborating on the magazine Derive Approdi and teaching social history of communication at the Accademia di belle Arti in Milan. He is the co-founder of the e-zine rekombinant.org and the telestreet phenomenon.


evgeny_Morozov_200x200Evgeny Morozov, Author and editorialist

Evgeny Morozov is the author of To Save Everything, Click Here (2013) and The Net Delusion (2011) and a columnist for a number of international publications. He’s written extensively about technology and politics for publications such as The New Yorker, London Review of Books, Financial Times, and others.


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Pablo Soto, Councillor for Citizen Participation, Transparency and Open Government, City of Madrid

Pablo Soto is a software developer and Councillor for Citizen Participation, Transparency and Open Government in the City Council of Madrid with Ahora Madrid. He was a member of the 15-M and the founder of MP2P Technologies. Soto developed the .MANOLITO protocol, and Blubster and Piolet, two peer-to-peer file sharing. He was co-creator of the ICP (Iniciativas Ciudadanas Populares) participatory platform system.


Adam-Greenfield_200x200Adam Greenfield, Writer and urbanist

Adam Greenfield is the founder of Urbanscale and a writer on the interaction between networked information technology and urban place. He has taught at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, was 2014 Senior Urban Fellow at the LSE Cities Centre, and currently teaches in the March Urban Design programme at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Greenfield wrote Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing (New Riders Publishing, 2006), co-authored the pamphlet Urban Computing and its Discontents (The Architectural League of New York, 2007). His new book is The City is Here for You To Use (forthcoming, Verso, 2016).


Trebor-Scholz_200x200Trebor Scholz, Associate Professor of Culture and Media, the New School; founder of Platform Cooperativism

Trebor Scholz is a scholar-activist and Associate Professor for Culture & Media at The New School in New York City. His book Uber-Worked and Underpaid. How Workers Are Disrupting the Digital Economy (Polity, 2016) develops an analysis of the challenges posed by digital labor. It introduces the concept of platform cooperativism as a way of joining the peer-to-peer and co-op movements with online labor markets while insisting on communal ownership and democratic governance. His edited volumes include Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory (Routledge, 2013), and Ours to Hack and to Own: Platform Cooperativism. A New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet (with Nathan Schneider, O/R, 2016). In 2009, Scholz started to convene the influential digital labor conferences at The New School. Today, he frequently presents on the future of work, solidarity, and the Internet to media scholars, lawyers, activists, designers, developers, union leaders, and policymakers worldwide. His articles and ideas have appeared in The Nation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Le Monde, and The Washington Post.


Bruno-Kaufmann_200x200Bruno Kaufmann, Chairman, Democracy and Election Commission, City of Falun, Sweden

Bruno Kaufmann is member of the City of government of Falun in Sweden, where he leads the local work to develop active citizenship and participatory democracy [falun.se|democracy]. He is the co-founder and president of the leading global think-tank on modern direct democracy, the Initiative and Referendum Institute [iri-europe.org] and co-heads the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy [2016globalforum.com], which will have its sixth edition in Donostia-San Sebastian November 16-19. As a journalist Bruno covers democratic affairs for the Swiss Broadcasting Company and is editor-in-chief of its democracy platform [people2power.info]. He is author of the European Unions “Passport on Active Citizenship” (published in 22 languages) [democracypassport.eu].


Schiller_200x200Theo Schiller, Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University Marburg

Professor, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University Marburg/Germany (1974 – emeritus 2007). Teaching and research fields: German and European Politics, Democracy. Director, Centre of Citizens’ Participation and Direct Democracy. Mehr Demokratie e.V., advisory council. Initiative and Referendum Institute (IRI) Europe, council. Vice-President, Philipps University Marburg, 1997-2001. Publications include: “Direct Democracy”, in: Handbuch vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, ed. H. J. Lauth (2016); “Citizens’ Initiatives in Europe”, 2012 (co-ed. with M. Setälä); “Local Direct Democracy in Europe”, 2011 (ed.); Direct Democracy. The International IDEA Handbook (co-author), Stockholm 2008; “Direct Democracy in Europe. Developments and Prospects”, 2007 (co-ed. with Pallinger/Kaufmann/Marxer); “Direkte Demokratie – eine Einführung”, 2002; Direct democracy – research and prospects (co-edited with V. Mittendorf) 2002 (in German). Frequent participant in legislative hearings in German state legislatures.


Andi-Gross_200x200Andi Gross, Director, Atelier pour la Démocratie Directe

Andreas Gross is a Swiss political scientist and politician. After graduation in Basel Andreas Gross studied history at the University of Zurich, then political science at the University of Lausanne. This was followed by working as a journalist, as an assistant at the University of Bern and in 1989 the establishment of private scientific institution of direct democracy in Zurich, since 1998 as Atelier pour la Démocratie Directe in Jura Saint-Ursanne.


Andreas-Karitzis_200x200Andreas Karitzis, Development consultant and independent researcher, HUB

Andreas Karitzis studied engineering and he has a PhD in Philosophy. He has been a member of the Political Secretariat of SYRIZA (responsible for political strategy and planning) and of its Program Committee until April of 2014. He has been a member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA until August of 2015. He was also a member of the Managing Board of Nicos Poulantzas Institute. He has been a member of Synaspismos (the biggest party that participated in the formation of SYRIZA) since 1997 and he was appointed as the spokesman of the party from 2007 till 2009. He is the author of the book «Logic and Method of a Left Government» (in Greek). He is currently working for a funding and development consulting firm and he is also a founding member of the HUB for social economy, empowerment and innovation.


ana_200x200Ana Méndez de Andés, Strategic Planning and International Advisor, Madrid City Council

Ana is an Advisor in the City Council of Madrid. She is an architect and planner who has worked extensively in urbanism and landscape projects in cities such as Amsterdam, London and Madrid and on different scales, from general municipal plans and territorial strategies to the design of small urban public spaces. Ana has also been a professor of urbanism in Madrid and Shanghai. She has coordinated workshops and seminars around themes like the urban commons, public spaces, strategic cartographies, and a radical democratic municipal project, at various universities and cultural institutions. She has participated in collective research projects such as areaciega and Car-Tac and is part of the Observatorio Metropolitano de Madrid. Recently, Ana has been closely involved with the Ahora Madrid project, and she’s now working in the cultural Department of the City hall of Madrid.


Pablo_Gerbaudo_200x200Paolo Gerbaudo, Director, Centre for Digital Culture, King’s College London

Paolo Gerbaudo is the founder and director of the Centre for Digital Culture at King’s College London. Research focuses on the transformation of contemporary politics both with protest movements and political parties, and on the reshaping of personal and social experience in a digital society. Before joining King’s he has been an Adjunct Professor in Sociology at the American University in Cairo and a reporter for Italian daily newspaper il manifesto. He is the author of ‘Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism’ (Pluto/2012) an ethnographic study of the digital communications of the Egyptian revolution, the Spanish indignados and Occupy Wall Street, and of ‘The Mask and the Flag: the Rise of Anarcho-Populism in Global Protest’ (Hurst, OUP/2016), a book exploring the ideology of protest movements and parties in the 21st century. He is currently conducting research on the ‘digital party form’ manifested in anti-establishment parties as the 5 Star Movement in Italy, and Podemos in Spain, and their use of online decision-making platforms.


Miguel-Arana-Catania_200x200Miguel Arana Catania, Participation Project Director, Madrid City Council

Miguel Arana is the Director of the Madrid city council participation project. He has been actively involved in the 15M movement in Spain since its beginning, with an emphasis in the digital tools and the connection of the movement with other countries. Co-founder of LaboDemo, organization dedicated to design, implementation and development of participation strategies and digital tools. He has been working in the participation team of Podemos and Ahora Madrid, defining the participation strategy of the parties, and at the European level designing new tools for the future democracy in the D-CENT project.


Xabier-Barandiaran_200x200Xabier Barandiaran, University Researcher and Lecturer, University of the Basque Country

Xabier E. Barandiaran is a philosopher working on the multidisciplinary crossroad of cognitive sciences and complex systems. He has long been involved in hacktivism, technopolitics, and the (re)production of commons and free knowledge. He is currently lecturer in Philosophy at the University School of Social Work at the University of the Basque Country and a researcher at the IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind, and Society. Xabier is coordinator of the Unitwin Complex System Digital Campus, foundational member of the Retecog.Net (Spanish network of research in cognitive science), co-founder of WikiToki (Laboratory for collaborative practices), and a co-founder of the FLOK Society Project.


Raúl-Royo_200x200Raúl Royo, Mayoral Advisor, Zaragoza City

Raul was born in 1986 in Zaragoza (Spain) where he currently lives. He has a degree in Philosophy and Masters in Edition. Currently working Raul works as consultant in the city of Zaragoza, in the Department of Participation, Transparency and Open Government, under Zaragoza en común. His main interests are political economic philosophy, social transformations, policies and network society, the application of new technologies to strengthen democracy and the political economy of the smart city.


Joonas-Pekkanen_200x200Joonas Pekkanen, E-participation Manager, City of Helsinki, Forum Virium Helsinki

Joonas Pekkanen has been involved in the D-CENT project since its beginning. Last year he was recruited to lead the e-participation functions of the City of Helsinki. His background is in citizen activism and startups. Joonas is a founding member of Open Knowledge Finland, he has founded a civil society organisation called Open Ministry to crowdsource law proposals into parliament and is involved in numerous open data and digital commons projects.


Gunnar-Grimsson_200x200Gunnar Grímsson, CEO, Citizens Foundation, Reykjavik City

On the Internet since ‘92, freelance web design / interface design / teaching at universities / companies / institutions since ‘94.  Activist since 1980 – against war / whaling / exploitation – for – environment / democracy / human rights. Developed democracy processes / software since ‘99. Co-founder / CEO of Citizens Foundation (http://citizens.is) – non-profit org devoted to improving democracy / relations between citizens and administration. Creating frictionless interfaces for citizens to crowdsource priorities / ideas / concepts and best arguments for / against and combine online / offline strengths.


Telle-Pehk-200x200Telle Pahk, CEO, Estonian Cooperation Assembly

I have experience in urban development, citizen engagement and co-creation from the Estonian Urban Lab (www.linnalabor.ee), competence centre for urban thought and action. I was leading the Lab for 5 years until 2014 and am still involved in urban development issues. Now I am mainly working on deliberative democracy issues, I recently set up a web platform www.rahvaalgatus.ee for co-creating and signing collective initiatives targeted to the Parliament of Estonia – this is one of my tasks at the foundation Estonian Cooperation Assembly that I am leading since summer 2015. The foundation operates under the protective wing of the President of Estonia.


Aik-van-Eemeren_200x200Aik van Eemeren, Chief Technology Office, City of Amsterdam

Aik van Eemeren works on city innovation through (disruptive) technology at the Chief Technology Office of Amsterdam and is director of the Dutch organisation for managers in government (local, regional and national). In Amsterdam he is responsible for a wide variety of innovative projects in public space, infrastructure and the governmental organization itself.


David-Miranda-200x200David Miranda, Journalist, Youth House

David Miranda is a privacy activist and journalist who has covered stories based on leaks by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The 28-year-old Brazilian citizen was detained with his partner Glenn Greenwald for nine hours at Heathrow Airport under anti-terror laws on 18 August for carrying files related to information obtained by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden. David is the Brazilian coordinator of the campaign for asylum to Snowden in Brazil (http://www.snowdentreaty.org), raising the pressure on Governments around the world to protect human rights, freedom of expression and information, and the rights of whistleblowers and journalists.


Renata_Avila_200x200Renata Avila, Human rights lawyer and Global Campaign Manager, Web We Want Foundation

Renata Avila is a human rights lawyer specialised in Intellectual Property and New Technologies from Guatemala. She worked as one of the lawyers representing the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum. Involved in Internet and Human Rights research since 2009, she joined Sir Tim Berners-Lee as to coordinate the work of the Web We Want campaign at the Web Foundation, dedicated to preserving and upholding human rights, responding to threats to the future of the Internet. She currently serves as a Board Member of Creative Commons Board of Directors. She is also a member of Courage Foundation advisory board, assisting whistleblowers and sources at risk and in the D-Cent board, exploring the future of decentralised technologies. She is leading the F.A.S.T. campaign to bring a Week of Action to Africa for more and better Internet Access.


sergio_amadeu_200x200Sergio Amadeu de Silveira, Professor, Federal University of ABC

Sergio Amadeu da Silveira is a Professor at Federal University of ABC (UFABC). He received his PhD in Political Science from University of São Paulo (USP) in 2005. He has lead the National Institute of Information Technology from 2003 to 2005, when has participated as a board member of Internet Steering Committee in Brazil. From 2011 to 2013, has been elected to the same board. He is a known researcher of digital networks, privacy and collaborative technologies. He is free software activist.


natalie-fenton_2_200x200Natalie Fenton, Professor and Co-Director, Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths, University of London

Natalie Fenton is a Professor in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is Co-Director of the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre and Co-Director of Goldsmiths Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy. She has published widely on issues relating to news, journalism, civil society, radical politics and new media and is particularly interested in rethinking understandings of public culture, the public sphere and democracy. Her most recent books are Digital, Political, Radical (2016) published by Polity; Misunderstanding the Internet (2012, 2016)  (with James Curran and Des Freedman) Routledge and New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age (2010) (ed.) Sage. She is on the Board of Directors of the campaign group Hacked Off and a founding member of the Media Reform Coalition.


Simona-Levi_200x200Simona Levi, Founder, Xnet

Theatre director, multidisciplinary artist and activist. She is an activist in European social movements dealing with free circulation of knowledge, culture and information, the internet defence and the fight against corruption and has actively taken part in movements for the right to housing and the use of public spaces. In the last few years she has focused on the topics of free culture, digital democracy and the strategic use of digital tools for organization, communication and collective action and democratic renovation. Promotor of projects such as 15MpaRato, which started the trial against Bankia’s heads, the 5th Spanish bank, she organizes platforms to uncover corruption and political responsibility in economic injustices in Spain and Europe. Active participant in 15M movement from Barcelona, she is co-author of several books, among them “Technopolitics, Internet and R-evolutions” – About the centrality of digital networks in #15Mand has also coordinated “Free digital culture – Basic notions to defend what belongs to everyone”, both published in 2012 by Icaria.


Yago Bermejo Abati-200x200Yago Bermejo Abati, Medialab-Prado

Yago Bermejo is the founder of Labodemo.net, an organization focused on Internet democracy. He has been researching for some years how Internet could help society to make policies in a collaborative way with direct and deliberative processes. Labodemo has created in Podemos party an entire strategy involving different tools with hundreds of thousands of people participating. These mechanisms have inspired direct democracy in Madrid City Government. Now he is researching how to improve these new Internet democracy processes. Bermejo has a degree on Physics. He has worked as a teacher, as a musician and entrepreneur. Since he was a student he has been involved in Madrid in different activist movements: self-organised protest against Iraq War, cultural autonomism squatting, critical-mass bike movement, assembly movements, and alternative political parties.


Richard-Bartlett-200x200Richard Bartlett, Co-founder, Loomio

Richard D. Bartlett is one of the cofounders of Loomio, an open source tool for collaborative online decision-making. He’s also a senior member at Enspiral: a decentralised network of people using the tools of business to build the commons. His background is in the arts, creative activism and DIY electronics. His current work is focussed on the missing layer of the sharing economy: collaborative ownership and collaborative governance.


Jinsun-Lee-200x200Jinsun Lee, Founder, WAGL

Jinsun Lee is a founder & CEO of WAGL (We-All-Govern Lab), a politics startup based on Seoul, South Korea. She has been working as a scholar specializing in Internet activism and participatory journalism and activist struggling for social innovation and democratization. Before founding WAGL on August 2015, she has worked as Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University, USA and Vice President of Hope Institute which aims to social innovation and grassroots democracy in Korea. WAGL is committed to promoting bold innovative experiments in media and politics, and changing political landscape by engaging more people in decision-making processes on horizontal networks. WAGL has led a new wave of civic action in Korea by developing online platforms such as filibuster.me and pingkorea.com. and hosting national/international workshops and lectures including Camp by the Crowd in 2015.


Audrey-Tang-200x200Audrey Tang, Contributor, g0v.tw

Audrey Tang, a civic hacker who grew up among Tiananmen exiles, is known for revitalizing the computer languages Perl and Haskell, as well as building the online spreadsheet system EtherCalc in collaboration with Dan Bricklin. In the public sector, Audrey serves on Taiwan national development council’s open data committee and K-12 curriculum committee; and led the country’s first e-Rulemaking project. In the private sector, Audrey works as a consultant with Apple on computational linguistics, with Oxford University Press on crowd lexicography, and with Socialtext on social interaction design. In the third sector, Audrey actively contributes to Taiwan’s g0v (“gov-zero”), a vibrant community focusing on creating tools for the civil society, with the call to “fork the government”.


Diego Arredondo Ortiz, Communication and technology, Wikipolítica

Graduated in Communication Sciences at ITESM. He is one of the founding members of Wikipolítica Jalisco, where he participates on research, development and implementation of collaborative tools, internal and external protocols as well as designing communication strategies and materials. He is also an elected member of Wikipolítica’s consulting council for Pedro Kumamoto’s term as an independent in the state Congress of Jalisco, with a focus on discourse strategies, and he produced the audiovisual material during the 2015 political campaign. His personal work explores the possibilities of interactivity from a multidisciplinary approach to hypermedia and installation. He has exhibited his work in different festivals and cultural centers in Guadalajara, Mexico City and Madrid. He was a scholar for the program UAM-Santander 2012 in Madrid. He has participated and written as well in collaborative spaces like Ambulante Ideas 2015, an encounter between different organizations and initiatives for collective participation, and the independent journalism festival Común, focused on the city as a commons, organized by Territorio magazine.

 

 


Commons technology and the right to a democratic city is organised with the support of the following organisations:

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