Former Advisory Council
Abir Ghattas
Information Security Technologist
Abir works with Human Rights Watch as an Information Security Associate Director Abir works with Human Rights Watch as their Associate Director for Information Security. Prior to that, she was the communications and outreach director for Raseef22 a PAN Arab independent media platform, and also the outreach director for Majal, a network of digital platforms […]
Alix Dunn
Executive Director and Co-Founder, The Engine Room
Alix is a specialist in organisational development and strategy, and technology for social change. She advises partners on how to use data and technology effectively, responsibly and impactfully. She is a leading trainer and advisor in data and technology for partners ranging from activists to international and local CSOs to foundations. Alix is the Executive […]
Anthony D. Joseph
University of California at Berkeley
Anthony D. Joseph is Director of Intel Research Berkeley, and a Chancellor’s Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Joseph holds a Ph.D. and S.M. in Computer Science from MIT and a B.S. in EECS from MIT. His research includes adaptive techniques for: cloud computing, distributed network monitoring and triggering, network […]
Arthur Gwagwa
Since 2015, Arthur has worked on various OTF-funded projects across sub-Saharan Africa including awareness raising on censorship and circumvention tools. Coming from a traditional human rights background in countries with a low uptake of technologies, he has collaborated with Africa’s grassroots and emerging internet freedom communities. This has shone a light on technology’s evolving role […]
Berhan Taye
Berhan is a researcher who investigates the relationship between technology, society, and social justice.
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a “security guru” by The Economist. He is the author of 12 books – including his latest best-seller Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Survive – as well as hundreds of articles and essays, and many more academic papers. His influential newsletter “Crypto-Gram,” […]
Carrie Winfrey
Design Strategist and User Experience Designer
Carrie is a Design Strategist and User Experience Designer whose work generates excitement. She operates a freelance business, providing services in design strategy and user experience. Carrie is the co-founder of Okthanks, a design partnership located in Lubbock, Texas. She holds a MFA in Interaction Design from the School of Visual Arts in New York, […]
Cory Doctorow
Author, Journalist, and Activist
Cory Efram Doctorow is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the weblog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licenses for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital […]
Dan Blah
Co-Founder Emeritus
Dan co-founded OTF in 2012 and was the organization’s inaugural director until 2019. Before directing the Open Technology Fund, Dan was a senior producer and technologist for the Al Jazeera Network based in Doha, Qatar. Leading up to and during the Arab Spring, he modernized traditional investigative journalist toolkits with safe communication technology to protect […]
Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Senior Staff Technologist, ACLU
Daniel Kahn Gillmor is a Senior Staff Technologist for ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, focused on the way our technical infrastructure shapes society and impacts civil liberties. As a free software developer and member of the Debian project, he contributes to fundamental tools that shape the possibilities of our information-rich environment. As a participant in […]
Emily Ratliff
CTO of Security Intelligence App Modernization at IBM
Emily Ratliff is the CTO of Security Intelligence App Modernization at IBM. Emily has a long history devoted to open source security at IBM, AMD, Canonical and the Linux Foundation. Emily is especially interested in the transition from computer security as a feature to cybersecurity as a product and the implications that this transition has […]
Gunnar Hellekson
Chief Strategist, Red Hat
Gunnar Hellekson is the Chief Technology Strategist for Red Hat’s US Public Sector group, where he works with systems integrators and government agencies to encourage the use of open source software in government. He is co-chair of Open Source for America and one of Federal Computer Week’s Fed 100 for 2010. He is also an […]
Gustaf Björksten
Technology Director, Access
Gustaf has been gaining professional experience as a technologist and information security specialist since 1994, most recently in the area of surveillance technology. He has worked in many different ICT environments and reckons he has seen just about everything. He has worked for dot com startups, led from the front during the internet boom, and […]
Jac sm Kee
Jac sm Kee is a feminist activist working at the intersection of internet technologies, social justice and collective power. Jac sm Kee is a feminist activist working at the intersection of internet technologies, social justice and collective power. Jac’s activism includes sexuality and gender justice, feminist movement building in a digital age, internet governance, open […]
Jantine van Herwijnen
Programme Coordinator, Safety
Jantine van Herwijnen is working for Free Press unlimited in the Gender, Safety and Accountabillity team. As Safety Coordinator at Free Press Unlimited Jantine is managing the Emergency Support and Legal Defense Fund for journalist. Furthermore she works on safety and security training and programme development. Jantine has been living in the Middle-East for 5 […]
Jennifer Henrichsen
Jennifer R. Henrichsen is a Visiting Fellow at Yale’s Information Society Project at Yale Law School and a Ph.D. candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Jennifer R. Henrichsen is a Visiting Fellow at Yale’s Information Society Project at Yale Law School and a Ph.D. candidate at the Annenberg School […]
John Adams
Independent Security Advisor
John Adams is an independent security advisor, focusing on information security, user privacy, and secure distributed systems. As one of the earliest engineers at Twitter, he spent the last seven years building Twitter’s Information Security team and ensuring secure operations at scale. He now advises and assists early-stage companies (and non-profits) in developing solid information […]
Karen Renaud
Usable Security; Privacy Lead, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Karen leads the Security Science Cluster and coordinate the Human-Centred Security Research Group. She is interested in the interplay between users and security in the context of societal and industrial use. Karen wants to work towards creating a natural easy yet secure interaction between humans and devices. Her work has a strong development, experimental and […]
Katharine Jarmul
Head of Product at Cape Privacy
Katharine Jarmul is Head of Product at Cape Privacy, an encrypted machine learning platform. She is a passionate and internationally recognized data scientist, programmer, and lecturer. Previously, she held numerous roles at large companies and startups in the US and Germany, implementing data processing and machine learning systems with a focus on reliability, testability, privacy […]
Leigh Honeywell
CEO at Tall Poppy
Leigh is the founder and CEO of Tall Poppy, where she helps organizations protect their employees from online harassment. She was previously a Technology Fellow at the ACLU’s Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology, and also worked at Slack, Salesforce.com, Microsoft, and Symantec. She has co-founded two hackerspaces, and advises several nonprofits and startups. Leigh […]
Marcin de Kaminski
Marcin de Kaminski was a Policy Specialist at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), with a specific focus on ICT and digital development. He coordinated large parts of Sida’s efforts within the digital sector, including accessibility issues, technology, and innovation. Marcin was also part of the team at Sida organizing the Stockholm Internet Forum, […]
Matt Mitchell
Senior Cyber Security Program Manager, Ford Foundation
Matt is a security researcher, operational security trainer, and data journalist who leads CryptoHarlem, impromptu workshops teaching basic cryptography tools to the predominately African American community in upper Manhattan. Previously, he worked as a data journalist for The New York Times and as a developer for CNN, Aol/Huffington Post, and other news organizations. Matt currently […]
Mohamad Najem
Advocacy and Policy Director, Social Media Exchange (SMEX)
Mohamad leads and assists in various campaigns throughout the Arab world, mainly around digital rights. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant for a diverse range of NGO’s and civil society groups in the Arab region, he has initiated and contributed to several successful online campaigns, such as #stopthislaw and Protect Privacy, and is currently focused […]
Mohammed Al-Maskati
Digital Security Consultant, Front Line Defenders
Mohammed al-Maskati is a Bahraini human rights activist and digital security consultant working with Front Line Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa region. He is the founder and former president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR), a group that organizes training workshops, monitors and documents human rights violations and participates […]
Nicolas Sera-Leyva
Nicolas leads community management at the Center for Digital Resilience, where he grows and supports vibrant communities of human rights defenders by facilitating trust-building, knowledge sharing, and strategic collaboration. He previously managed digital security training programs at Internews; helped establish the first global community of digital security trainers as director of the LevelUp project (https://www.level-up.cc); […]
Paola Villarreal
Self taught data scientist and software engineer with more than 20 years of experience working with governments, NGOs and tech companies in public interest projects
Wojtek Bogusz
Digital Security Consultant
Wojtek Bogusz is a digital information and communication security consultant, providing training and support to human rights activists on how to increase the privacy and freedom of communication in repressive environments. He currently works for the Dublin-based Front Line Defenders, an international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders (www.frontlinedefenders.org). He is the co-author […]