At Creative Commons, we value sharing, openness, and gratitude. Over the last few months, we’ve had the privilege of working with a group of global volunteers who embody these values. In order to make the CC Global Summit a reality each year, we enlist the help of dozens of volunteers, many of whom are members of the CC Global Network (CCGN). 

Photo of Claudio Ruiz by Sebastiaan ter Burg (CC BY 2.0) for Faces of the Commons 2017.

This year, we’re pleased to work with an amazing group of volunteers who make up our 2020 CC Global Summit Program Committee. This committee is the backbone of the CC Summit; curating the program, identifying speakers, fielding questions, and exemplifying the open culture. The theme of this year’s CC Summit is “Designing the Commons of the Future: Reflecting on the values that shape the Commons.” This event will be the perfect space for the open community to begin an exercise of internal reflection on how to build a more equitable, inclusive, and accessible world.

As you can imagine, it’s been a particularly challenging year, as we pivot from an in-person event to a virtual event. Therefore, we are so grateful for the hard work, expertise, and vision shown by our Program Committee members this year. 

Meet the 2020 CC Global Summit Program Committee members below!

First, we’d like to introduce our Program Committee Chairs, Susanna Ånäs, and Claudio Ruiz.

• Susanna Ånäs—As the CC Global Network Council representative for Finland, Board member of Open Knowledge Finland, and the GLAM coordinator at Wikimedia Finland, Susanna has worked on Open GLAM initiatives for several years. With Wikimedia Finland, she focuses on serving Saami languages and exploring ways for Indigenous communities to manage their online representations. She also manages other open culture projects like hackathons and tools development for open platforms.
• Claudio Ruiz—As the Director of Ecosystem Strategy, Claudio works to shift Creative Commons to a more open, global, and inclusive organization led by its community. He has experience in free software licensing, as well as advocating for fundamental digital rights and freedom of expression. He is on the board of Derechos Digitales, a nonprofit organization that works to promote, defend, and develop digital rights and civil liberties in Latin America.

Africa

• Kamel Belhamel—A professor of chemistry at the University of Bejaia in Algeria, Kamel is the author/co-author of several scientific papers in international scientific journals focused on open access and open science. Kamel is also the chapter lead of CC Algeria and was a member of the 2018 and 2019 CC Global Summit Program Committee.
• Mary Job—A Philosopher and Open Source Enthusiast. Mary currently works remotely with Paid Memberships Pro and runs How Do You Tech on the side. She teaches digital skills through their village Uwani Hub to women and teenagers in underserved communities and she is passionate about tech for empowerment, jobs, entrepreneurship, and community building. She believes we have a lot to learn from each others’ stories, she runs a personal blog and believes everyone should do too! She is an active member of the WordPress Communities in Nigeria, & Africa, and the global team rep for 2020. She also volunteers for the Netsquared communities in her free time.

Asia-Pacific

• Amber Osman—With over ten years of experience in research and scholarly publishing, Amber is a passionate expert in open science, an award-winning journal editor for advancing the publishing process by adopting innovative research and publishing solutions. She is also serving as a member of renowned scholarly publishing committees, Amber advocates for best practices in open access scholarly content. She currently works for the Law Offices of Osman & Co. in Pakistan.
• Prodip Roy—Prodip Roy is currently a library officer (Monograph and Digital Collections) at RMIT University, Melbourne. He has been serving as Co-Chair (Elect) of the Special Interest Group for International Information Issues (SIG/III) of Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) for 2019-2021. Mr. Roy is a member of the Creative Commons Australia Chapter and the Creative Commons Global Network and leads responsible for Open Ed (Tertiary). 

Photo of Prodip Roy by Sebastiaan ter Burg (CC BY 2.0) Faces of the Commons 2019.

Europe

• Teresa Cardoso—As a member of scientific/editorial committees, a teacher, author, and assistant professor, Teresa focuses on open education, mobile learning, and ICT in educational contexts. By working at Universidade Aberta, an “open university,” they’ve had the opportunity to teach about open licensing to a wide audience including students, fellow professors, and administration officials.
• Louise Hisayasu—Louise M. Hisayasu is an independent researcher based between Sāo Paulo and Berlin. Her master’s research focused on Indigenous protagonism in Brazil, studying the movement through the lens of technology and culture production. Through her work, she is primarily interested in understanding memory, as being both individual and collective, intangible and immortalised in things, as intergenerational and the implications in its institutionalisation, within archives. She currently works at Tactical Tech and was previously a guest researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
• Douglas McCarthy—As an active member of the Open GLAM community, Douglas researches, writes about, and promotes open access to digital cultural heritage. He leads a global survey of Open GLAM with Dr. Andrea Wallace and co-edits the Open GLAM Medium publication with Scann. Douglas is the Collections Engagement Manager at Europeana and lives in the Netherlands.
• Diogo Morais Oliveira—An attorney-at-law based in Poro, Portugal, Diogo works in intellectual property (IP) law for the cultural and creative sector. Currently, he’s the legal advisor of DÍNAMO10, a creative hub based in Viana do Castelo, Portugal,  and the legal co-coordinator of CC Portugal Chapter. He is coordinating the project “CC Local Point” that aims to create contact points at creative hubs in order to support the use of CC licensing and the adoption of open business models.
• André Rocha—Starting their career in 2003 designing products with a group of artisans in southern Portugal, André became interested in the parallel environments of tech, education, and design. Today they are an adjunct professor at ESELx – IPL and Fab Manager / Scientific Coordinator at Fab Lab Benfica (ESELX-IPL); open design lead for Open Product Design; and maker community lead at Creative Commons Portugal. 
• Mahmoud Max Wardeh—With a background in technology and media, Mahmoud founded the Open Connective, a platform that helps open projects build diverse communities of contributors. As an adjunct lecturer at Loughborough University London, he has developed OER for online education platforms. He is the founding member of the CC UK Chapter and was a member of the 2017 and 2018 CC Global Summit Program Committee.
• Brigitte Vézina—As the Open Policy Manager at Creative Commons, Brigitte gets a kick out of tackling the fuzzy legal and policy issues that stand in the way of access, use, re-use and remix of culture, information and knowledge. She worked for a decade as a legal officer at WIPO and then ran her own consultancy, advising Europeana, SPARC Europe, and others on copyright matters.

Latin America

• Marcela Basch—Born and raised in Argentina, Marcela is a journalist, teacher, and activist. Since 2013, she’s focused on collaborative, free, and open systems—and founded El Plan C, the first website in Spanish focused on these issues. She’s also the co-founder of Encuentro Comunes (Commons Conference) with the goal of spreading awareness about those initiatives.
• Scann—Accidentally living in Uruguay, Scann is a longtime contributor to CC. Her main work has been around digital cultural heritage, the public domain, and copyright. Fellow at the Harvard Library Innovation Lab (2018) and International Visiting Scholar at the American University (2019). Currently is working on the Open GLAM initiative for CC.
• Emilio Velis—An industrial engineer based in San Salvador, Emilio explores how sharing knowledge and technology can impact communities. He was recently appointed as the executive director of the Appropedia Foundation, which shares open content to build sustainability.

North America

• Andrew Lih—As one of the world’s foremost experts on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, as well as the author of the book, The Wikipedia Revolution (2009), he has worked with multiple cultural and governmental institutions to advance Wikipedia multimedia content and structured metadata in Wikidata. He currently serves as the Wikimedia Strategist at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
• Jonathan Poritz—As a mathematician, Jonathan has worked in various IT firms, from start-ups to multinationals, doing things like AI, cryptography, and consulting on public policy towards technology. He is currently an associate professor of mathematics and OER coordinator at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He’s also written two OER math textbooks and serves on the state OER Council.

Photo of Marcela Basch by Sebastiaan ter Burg (CC BY 2.0) for Humans of the Commons 2018.

Again, we’d like to thank each and every one of our 2020 CC Global Summit Program Committee members for their hard work. We can’t wait for October!

The CC Global Summit will be held online from 19-24 October 2020. See the latest updates, including when to register, at summit.creativecommons.org!

Interested in becoming a sponsor for the 2020 CC Global Summit? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities by contacting CC’s Director of Development Jami Vass at jami@creativecommons.org.