Olivier Bringer is Head of Unit at the European Commission, in charge of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative and internet governance policy. Before working on NGI, Olivier held various positions in the European Commission, dealing with policy development and implementation in the area of cybersecurity, telecom regulation and competition law. Prior to joining the Commission, Olivier worked as a consultant in the fi eld of telecom. He is an engineer by training.

Twitter: @DSMeu

Elena Calistru is the Chair and Founder of Funky Citizens, a Romanian-based NGO that builds research-based, data-driven advocacy tools. Their tools aim to be educational and actionable, encouraging citizens to engage in accountability and government responsibility initiatives. Elena has over 10 years of experience in civil society projects, both at national and international level. Her expertise is mainly in the area of good governance, transparency, public fi nance and advocacy. She strongly believes that data and online tools can empower citizens to infl uence public sector reform.

Twitter: @FunkyCitizens | @MadamadePica

Karolis Granickas, Senior Programme Manager at Open Contracting Partnership, leads their engagements in Europe and works directly with governments and others striving for a positive impact of opening up contracting data. Before joining the Open Contracting Partnership, Karolis worked with Transparency International Lithuania, focusing on citizen engagement using ICT. He also contributed to global open data advocacy efforts, together with the Epsi platform, Open Knowledge International, Open Data Institute and others. From 2014 to 2016, he was a national researcher within the Open Government Partnership Independent Review Mechanism.

Twitter: @opencontracting | @Granickas

Prior to her role as Team Leader at the EPSC, Ruby Gropas was a Global Governance Research Fellow at the EUI’s Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. She is a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and a Lecturer in International Relations at the Law Faculty of the University of Thrace. Ruby has held posts at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, McKinsey, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Center for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Her research has focused on migration, European integration, foreign policy and human rights. She holds degrees from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, University of Maryland, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Cambridge University.

Twitter: @ECThinkTank | @RubyGropas

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Elisa Lindinger is the Director of the Prototype Fund, a funding program that is aimed at supporting software developers based in Germany to create and improve digital tools in civic tech, data literacy, privacy and digital infrastructure. The Prototype Fund is a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research.

Twitter: @prototypefund | @elizab0t

Geoff Mulgan has been Chief Executive of Nesta since 2011. Nesta is the UK’s innovation foundation and runs a wide range of activities in investment, practical innovation and research. Under his leadership it moved out of the public sector to become an independent foundation; greatly expanded its work, partly through creating new units, centres and funds in fi elds ranging from evidence and impact investment to challenge prizes and skills; and complemented its work in the UK with work in dozens of countries around the world.

Twitter: @nesta_uk | @GeoffMulgan

Susana Nascimento is a Policy Analyst/Researcher at the Joint Research Centre. Prior to joining the EC, she worked as researcher in CETCOPRA Centre d’Etude des Techniques des Connaissances et des Pratiques, CIES-IUL Center for Research and Studies in Sociology and Vitruvius FabLab. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a PhD in Sociology from ISCTE-IUL University Institute of Lisbon. Specializing in science and technology studies, her recent focus is on future oriented approaches, blockchain and DLTs, transdisciplinarity, codesign for policy, open science and technology, and citizen engagement.

Twitter: @EU_ScienceHub | @sfnohohon

Rebecca Rumbul, Head of Research at mySociety, holds a PhD in politics and governance, and was responsible for the development and establishment of mySociety’s research agenda. Rebecca is an authority on the civic tech fi eld, and has authored several respected reports and published in a number of peer-reviewed journals. Rebecca currently serves as Co-Chair of the OGRX Editorial Board, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. She is a regular political commentator in Wales, providing expert analysis to BBC Wales and ITV.

Twitter: @mysociety | @RebeccaRumbul

Fabrizio Sestini is Senior Expert in Digital Social Innovation at DG CONNECT. He leads the multidisciplinary initiative CAPS, and in the framework of NGI initiative he has launched a new area of techno-social research on distributed architectures for decentralised data governance. Before joining the EC, he collaborated with the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and worked for 7 years with RAI, the Italian broadcaster. He holds a PhD in Information and Communication Engineering and has published some 30 scientifi c papers. As an IEEE Senior Member, he has often served on boards organising scientifi c conferences. Fabrizio is an Internet Policy Fellow of the University of Cambridge.

Twitter: @DSMeu | @100fabrizio

Marleen Stikker is founder of Waag, a social enterprise that consists of a research institute for creative technologies and social innovation and Waag Products, that launched companies like Fairphone, the fi rst fair smartphone in the world. She is also member of the European H2020 Commission High-level Expert Group for SRIA on innovating Cities/DG Research and the Dutch Academy of Technology & Innovation. Marleen adheres to the Maker’s Bill of Rights motto: “If You Can’t Open It, You Don’t Own It”, is actively involved in the Open Design and Creative Commons movement, and believes that society needs open technologies that meet societal challenges.

Twitter: @waag | @MarleenStikker

Karel Vanderpoorten worked in the past for the European Social Fund in the social inclusion section. Currently Karel is a Policy Offi cer in the Social Economy, Cluster Policy and Entrepreneurship Unit of DG GROW. In this position, Karel focuses mainly on the following themes: the use of digitization and new technologies within the social economy, scaling up social business models and the creation of business partnerships between traditional and social economy enterprises, fi nancing opportunities for social economy companies and social innovation.

Twitter: @EU_Growth

movement, and believes that society needs open technologies

Nat Whalley is the CEO and Founder of Organise, a technology platform that helps people team up to get better rights and benefi ts at work. Organise is the UK’s workplace campaigning site aiming to get one million people organising to improve their workplace by 2020. Our users have had big wins at Ted Baker, ITV and Tesco.

Twitter: @organisehq