FOSS Backstage 2025

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Ana Jimenez Santamaria

I work as a Senior Project Manager at the Linux Foundation, supporting an open source community spread across four continents with over 3,000 practitioners. I also contribute to research on open source management. Before this, I worked at Bitergia, a Software Development Analytics firm, and completed my MSc in Data Science, where my final thesis focused on measuring the success of #DevRel in open source development communities.

I’m passionate about Open Source, InnerSource, and developer community health metrics. I’ve contributed to several open source projects, including CHAOSS, InnerSourceCommons, OpenChain, TODO Group, OpenSSF, and CNCF.

  • The Value of OSS Management for Risk Mitigation
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Andrea Kao

Advocate for technical documentation and active participant in the Write the Docs community since 2017. Transplanted from Los Angeles to Berlin in 2021. These days, you can find her at a WTD Berlin meetup. Come say hi!

  • Abundant with life: docs beyond the wall
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Andrew Katz

Andrew Katz is a lawyer who has been practising in open source and other open technologies for over 30 years. He is on the core drafting team of the CERN Open Hardware License, drafted the Solderpad Hardware License, and has advised companies, foundations, projects, academia and governments on open source and open technology issues worldwide.

He founded and runs the FOSS consultancy Orcro Limited, as well as continuing his legal practice as a consultant at leading London IP law firm Bristows LLP, where he heads the firm's open source specialist group.

He is heavily involved in the Linux Foundation's OpenChain project, where he heads the UK WorkGroup and the Education WorkGroup. He wrote the OpenChain template Open Source Policy, which has been translated into multiple languages.

He regularly speaks at conferences internationally, and his client base is worldwide. He is a visiting researcher on open technologies and standards at the University of Skövde in Sweden, and is visiting lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London. His work has been published by the Oxford University Press, Springer and the Edinburgh University Press. He is co-author (and lead of the open hardware section) of the major European Commission publication on the Impact of Open Source Software and Hardware on the European Union, published in 2021.

  • OpenChain Capability Model - moving beyond compliance
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Angela Newell
  • How do you measure 'public good' in open source and beyond?
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Angelika Wittek

Angelika Wittek is a self-employed software engineer and architect.
She currently works as a product manager for the openMDM(R) Eclipse Working Group and supports companies
and industry collaborations to implement their open source strategy.
She is active in the Eclipse community and is a member of the OCX program committee.
Angelika holds a degree in computer science from the University of Würzburg, Germany.

  • FOSS, AI and non-code artifacts - what’s new and noteworthy?
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Anna e só

Anna e só (/ˈɐ̃.nɐ e ˈsɔ/) is a Brazilian information systems architect currently living in Goiânia, Goiás. They're one of the Outreachy organizers and an Information Systems undergraduate at Universidade Federal de Goiás. They wear many hats, but their heart is in systems thinking and practice. Over the last decade, they've worked with (and learned from) the Wikimedia community (working on initiatives to improve MediaWiki's technical writing, localization, and internationalization practices), MediaLab/UFG (building Brazilian free and open source projects such as Mapas Culturais and Tainacan), LAPPIS/UnB (translating the Public Money, Public Code expert brochure into Brazilian Portuguese), and Open Collective (revamping and improving their user-facing documentation). They're blind, and they take pride in offering open projects a unique point of view.

  • Anatomy of an open internship program: How we run Outreachy
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Ariane Segelitz-Karsten

Ariane is a Business Development Manager at Cloud&Heat Technologies and has been deeply involved in the community management of ALASCA - Association for Operational, Open Cloud Infrastructures e.V. for over two years. She contributed significantly to the founding of the association and helps oversee its ongoing development. Additionally, she's responsible for member support and various marketing activities.

  • How We Built a New, Neutral Foundation for Our Project
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Ashley Sametz

A semi-professional 40-something woman who does all of the things, to varying degrees of success. A fan of community, academia, and bending things into workable shapes.

  • Commit to Inclusion: Building Better Open Source Culture
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Axel Thévenet

Axel Thévenet is a Policy advisor at OpenForum Europe. He works as part of the Open Source Observatory platform (OSOR) team and produces content related to the use of Open Source in public administration. He has studied law and European policies and has worked in the European Parliament prior to his current position.

  • Progress and trends in the national open source policies
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Batool Almarzouq

I'm an honorary research fellow at the University of Liverpool and a Research Project Manager for AI for Multiple Long Term Conditions: Research Support Facility (AIM RSF) at the Alan Turing Institute. I believe that Open science is fundamentally about  decolonisation by challenging the legacy of settler colonialism, which often marginalised Indigenous knowledge systems, and by promoting the integration and respect of these diverse perspectives in the broader scientific discourse. I lead the Open Science community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA) which introduces and contextualises Open Science practices in Arabic-speaking countries.

  • Right-to-Left, Left-to-Right: Rethinking Multilingual Design
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Bianca Kastl

Bianca is currently working at the public health department of Frankfurt / Main in Germany. Her role right now is tech leader / main product owner of the software project GA-Lotse.
She has been part of various open source software projects in the recent years and does advocate for more open source software in government services and healthcare.

  • Building open digital infrastructures for public health
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Cailean Osborne

Dr Cailean Osborne is a senior researcher at the Linux Foundation, where he leads research projects on diverse open source trends and policy topics, from emerging funding models to open source AI. Cailean has a PhD in Social Data Science from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, and in 2023-2024 he was a visiting researcher at the Open Source Software Data Analytics Lab at Peking University in Beijing, China. Previously, Cailean worked in AI policy at the UK Government and was a UK government delegate at the OECD’s Global Partnership on AI and the Council of Europe’s Committee on AI. In his freetime, he is a contributor to the scikit-learn and CHAOSS communities.

  • Toolkit for Measuring the Impacts of Public Funding for FOSS
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Cassie Jiun Seo

Cassie Jiun Seo is a public-interest technology specialist. Her expertise lies in responsible innovation and sustainable use of opensource within complex, volatile environments and geopolitical settings, particularly in the humanitarian, development, cooperation and crisis/emergency response.

With a focus on the intersection of technology and global challenges, Cassie has advised the World Health Organization on leveraging open source for enhanced pandemic preparedness. Previously, she led the digital unit at the Norwegian Refugee Council, developing critical tools and infrastructure for large-scale humanitarian operations.

  • How do you measure 'public good' in open source and beyond?
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Christoph Ono

I've been contributing as a designer to open-source for 7 years, in various roles from direct project contributions to leading projects to setting up and administering a foundation. And I love it.

  • Open Design Guide
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Cornelius Schumacher

Cornelius Schumacher is a long-time contributor and leader in the open source community. He has worked on a variety of projects, from volunteer-driven to enterprise. Originally a developer, he has moved into topics of governance, open source compliance, and how to run open source projects well. Cornelius Schumacher works as Open Source Steward in the CTO team of DB Systel helping teams to successfully use and contribute to open source.

  • Putting the Railway Industry on the Open Source Track
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Daniel Guagnin

Dr. Daniel Guagnin studied Sociology, Computer Science, and Financial Economics in Freiburg and has been researching the interactions between technology and society in the fields of data protection, IT security, and digitalization since 2010.
In his doctoral thesis (2014-2019), he investigated the interplay between community governance and the nature of collaborative products. Daniel has been a member of FIfF (Forum of Computer Scientists for Peace and Social Responsibility) since 2018.
Since 2022, he has been heading the "Networks and Society" division at the nexus Institute in Berlin. There, he leads research projects on the "ethical" development of AI, data protection, and participation projects such as the Dialogue for Cybersecurity of the German Federal Office for Information Security.

  • How Your Project's Organization Shapes Its Technical DNA
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Daniel Izquierdo

Daniel Izquierdo is a researcher and co-founder of Bitergia and currently holding the position of CEO, he is focused on the quality of the data, research of new metrics, analysis and studies of interest for Bitergia customers via data mining and processing. Daniel earned a PhD in free software engineering in 2012 focused on the analysis of buggy developers activity patterns in the Mozilla community. He is board member at CHAOSS community, the Apereo Foundation, and President of the InnerSource Commons Foundation.

  • The Value of OSS Management for Risk Mitigation
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David Lippert
  • How do you measure 'public good' in open source and beyond?
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Dawn Foster

Dr. Dawn Foster works as the Director of Data Science for CHAOSS where she is also a board member / maintainer. She is co-chair of CNCF TAG Contributor Strategy and an OpenUK board member. She has 20+ years of experience at companies like VMware and Intel with expertise in community, strategy, governance, metrics, and more. She has spoken at over 100 industry events and has a BS in computer science, an MBA, and a PhD. In her spare time she enjoys reading science fiction, running, and traveling.

  • Toolkit for Measuring the Impacts of Public Funding for FOSS
  • Data to Action: Build Healthy & Sustainable OSS Communities
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Dr. Lina Böcker

Dr Lina Boecker is a well experienced lawyer for information technology (IT) law and one of the few experts in the field of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) compliance and Artificial Intelligence (AI) law, advising clients on software compliance, contract law and regulatory issues. She advises a broad range of clients from software developers to international OEMs and public research institutions on all aspects of compliance processes in information technology and contractual implications of such processes.

  • FOSS, AI and non-code artifacts - what’s new and noteworthy?
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Dr. Wolfgang Gehring

Dr. Wolfgang Gehring is an Ambassador for Open and Inner Source and has been working on enabling and spreading the idea within Mercedes-Benz. A software engineer by trade, Wolfgang’s goal is to help enable Mercedes-Benz to fully embrace FOSS and become a true Open Source company. He has a passion for communities, leads Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation’s Open Source Program Office, is a member of the Mercedes-Benz FOSS Center of Competence, and a Director of the Eclipse Foundation.

In his free time, Wolfgang likes to engage in conversations about soccer and is an avid traveler and scuba diver. He calls Albert Einstein’s birth city of Ulm his home in Southern Germany.

  • OSPOs for Good! Achieving the UN SDGs with Open Source
  • From Keynes to Code: Efficiency & Well-being in Open Source
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Emily Omier

Emily Omier is a product strategy consultant for open source companies, the host of The Business of Open Source podcast and the co-founder of Open Source Founders Summit, a conference for founders of open source companies.

  • Product Strategy for Open Source Projects and Companies
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Eriol Fox

Eriol has been working as a designer for 10+ years working in for-profits and then NGO’s and open-source software organisations, working on complex problems like sustainable food systems, peace-building and crisis response technology. Eriol now works at Superbloom design, research, open-source and technology projects.

They are also part of the core teams at Open Source Design (http://opensourcedesign.net/) and Human Rights Centred Design working group (https://hrcd.pubpub.org/) and Sustain UX & Design working group (https://sustainoss.org/working-groups/design-and-ux/) and help hosts podcast about open source and design (https://sosdesign.sustainoss.org/)

Eriol is a non-binary, queer person who uses they/them pronouns.

  • Open Design Guide
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Florent Zara

Florent has been involved (both personally and professionally) in the FLOSS community since 1999. Professionally, Florent has worked for nearly 20 years in a consulting company as an Open Source advisor for large companies, helping them with software quality, Open Source governance, licensing, Innersource, as well as change management. Today, as Open Source Services Team Lead, he's helping (new) Eclipse members and projects better understand, manage and master Open Source. He also participates actively in the OSPO Alliance and the Good Governance Initiative. On his personal side, he's an administrator and board member at LinuxFr.org (reference French-speaking, community-driven website about Free and Open Source software).

  • The Struggle is real, Free of Charge != Cost-Free
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Florian Greinacher

Florian Greinacher is a Senior DevOps Engineer in the code.siemens.com team. As a Social Coding Ambassador, he has been promoting Inner Source and Open Source in various areas of the company for many years. He was instrumental in the publication of the Siemens Open Source Manifesto and manages both the Siemens Open Source Portal and the Siemens organization on GitHub with his team. As a strong advocate of the Upstream First paradigm, he is an active contributor to various Open Source and Inner Source projects.

  • Growing a Social Coding culture, one seed at a time
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Florian Scholz

Florian Scholz is the Director of Open Web Docs. He began volunteer editing MDN Web Docs as a teen in 2009 and previously worked at Mozilla as MDN's Lead Content Strategist, Technical Writer & Documentation Engineer from 2013 until 2020. He's one of the creators of the browser compatibility data (BCD) project and it makes him happy when open source projects collaborate. He lives in Bremen, Germany; not in Berlin. Other than submitting and reviewing PRs on GitHub, he enjoys listening to wave and post-punk music.

  • Project Economics: A case study with Open Web Docs
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Goodnews Sunday Sandy

I am a software developer and open source contributor. I build innovation into systems. I work with diverse stakeholders in the open science community to build projects for greater impact.

  • Right-to-Left, Left-to-Right: Rethinking Multilingual Design
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Gregor Schumacher

Gregor ist Blogger, Autor und Mitgründer sowie Geschäftsführer von cloud ahead, dem führenden deutschen Think Tank für digitale Souveränität.

Mit über 25 Jahren Erfahrung in der Planung, Entwicklung und Umsetzung strategischer Technologieprojekte hat Gregor sein Wissen in verschiedenen Unternehmensgrößen und Branchen vertieft und erfolgreich angewendet. Seine Expertise umfasst sowohl Industrie- als auch Dienstleistungsunternehmen sowie die Entwicklung von Hard- und Software. Auf diesem Weg hat er gelernt, wie digitale Selbstbestimmung funktioniert und wie sie inmitten der Herausforderungen technologischer Entwicklung, Kompetenzmangel, Misskommunikation, Mikromanagement und fehlendem Kapital verloren gehen kann. Mit seinem Gespür für Menschen, Kultur und Führung hat er auch komplexe Veränderungsinitiativen durch die digitale Transformation navigiert.

Über dieses Spannungsfeld schreibt Gregor mit Leidenschaft. Er nimmt dabei die Perspektiven aller betroffenen Funktionen ein, vermittelt zwischen den Disziplinen und baut Brücken zwischen scheinbar gegensätzlichen Interessen.

  • The Future of Open Source: Five Socio-Economic Predictions
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Guilherme Dellagustin

I’m a former software developer (still one occasionally and at heart) and now I work as InnerSource Officer at SAP. In this role I combine my passion for Open Source, knowledge sharing and continuous improvement to drive the adoption of InnerSource in the company and also collaborate with InnerSource practitioners on InnerSource Commons, where I’m also a foundation member.

  • Driving the InnerSource Program at SAP
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Hartmut Obendorf
  • Designing is for GUIs only? CLI Design as a shared practice
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Ijeoma Onwuka

Ijeoma Onwuka is a Community and Program Manager with over two years of experience in nurturing vibrant and sustainable communities for tech startups and non-profit organizations. She began her career as an auditor at KPMG Nigeria before transitioning into the tech industry.

Currently, Ijeoma manages programs at Scandium Systems Inc, Google Developer Groups (GDG) Lagos, and the Cyber Ohana Project, where she fosters engaging environments for developers and tech enthusiasts. Actively involved in open-source projects, she contributes to the CHAOSS and OpenSSF DEI working groups, advocating for diversity and inclusion. Ijeoma is also passionate about mentoring young professionals, empowering them to thrive in their tech careers.

  • Tokenism in Open Source: Diversity or Decoration?
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Jan Ainali

Jan Ainali is an advocate for everything open, with a long history in the Wikimedia movement. His experience crosses the non-profit and the public sector, notably by being a codebase steward at the Foundation for Public Code. He has also been working with the Swedish National Heritage Board on digital dissemination, in the European Parliament advising the Swedish greens on digital issues and was the CEO of Wikimedia Sverige, the Swedish Wikimedia chapter. Currently, he runs Open By Default, a consultancy to help organizations doing open better.

  • Using the Commons without causing a tragedy
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Jarek Potiuk

ndependent Open-Source Contributor and Advisor, Committer and PMC member of Apache Airflow, Member of the Apache Software Foundation, Security Committee Member of the Apache Software Foundation

Jarek is an Engineer with a broad experience in many subjects - Open-Source, Cloud, Mobile, Robotics, AI, Backend, Developer Experience, Security, but he also had a lot of non-engineering experience - building a Software House from scratch, being CTO, organizing big, international community events, technical sales support, pr and marketing advisory but also looking at legal aspects of security, licensing, branding and building open-source communities are all under his belt.

With the experience in very small and very big companies and everything in-between, Jarek found his place in Open-Source world, where his internal individual-contributor drive can be used to the uttermost of the potential.

  • Airflow Beach Cleaning - Securing Supply Chain
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Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire

Jeffrey A. “jam” McGuire is a Partner at Open Strategy Partners, where he helps open source and other B2B tech organizations communicate and grow, finding and telling the stories that connect their technologies with the value they deliver. He builds on nearly twenty years of experience in open source technology, at the intersection of software, business, and culture. His approach to technology marketing is centered on sharing the human context of complex technology solutions. As co-Founder of the German Drupal Association, community-building is close to Jeffrey’s heart. He enjoys celebrating creators’ expertise and combining storytelling and performance to convey information and motivate his audiences. He’s based in Cologne, Germany.

  • How to Explain the Impact of Your Open Source Work
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Jonathan Starr
  • How do you measure 'public good' in open source and beyond?
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Jory Burson

Jory Burson is the VP of Standards for the Linux Foundation, where she helps projects identify opportunities for standardization and collaborate on specifications. She is an open source developer-turned-standards practitioner, who is passionate about bringing the best of open source and standards-making best practices to bear in open projects. With over a decade of experience in the field, Jory has worked with several private and non-profit organizations including OASIS Open, W3C, Ecma International, and the web standards consultancy Bocoup, to name a few. She is known for her expertise in web standards, open source governance, and community management.

  • Project Economics: A case study with Open Web Docs
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Joseph Zikusooka (ZIK)

Joseph Zikusooka (ZIK) is the Founder and Technologist at Jambula Labs, an IT solutions company specializing in Linux-based server products and services.

With a focus on stability and reliability, Zik has assisted numerous organizations and businesses across Africa in maintaining robust Linux and UNIX based systems.

A dedicated advocate for Free and Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), Zik has passionately promoted open source software solutions and shared his expertise by teaching Linux administration and server skills to students in several African countries.

Currently, Zik is the developer of Jambula OS, a custom Linux operating system designed for SoC devices like the Raspberry Pi. Jambula OS is utilized by Jambula Labs to create smart devices such as JambulaTV, a low-cost smart home hub that automates tasks while providing security and privacy.

  • Empowering African Communities using Open Source Software
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Jutta Horstmann ‏‏‎ ‎

Jutta Horstmann is an entrepreneur, visionary leader, and advocate for digital sovereignty, sustainability, and Open Source Software (FOSS). As the CEO of ZenDiS GmbH, Jutta leads efforts to empower public institutions in Germany to achieve digital independence through innovative open-source solutions. With over 25 years of experience in the IT sector, she has successfully scaled organizations and driven transformative change, most notably during her tenure as COO and CTO at eyeo GmbH, where she oversaw the company's growth and technological innovation.

Jutta is a frequent speaker at international conferences, sharing insights on leadership, digital transformation, and the future of Open Source technologies.

  • Digital Sovereignty and Open Source – Shaping an answer to geopolitical instabilities
  • OSPOs for Good! Achieving the UN SDGs with Open Source
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Karsten Samaschke

Karsten is Founder of VanillaCore, Serial Entrepreneur and Architect. Jointly with a diverse set of teams he implements products and solutions around Cloud-Native Technologies, AI, and ESG, with a strong focus on Open-Source, Data Control, and Avoidance of any Vendor Lock. Karsten has been working in the Cloud ecosystem for more than 15 years, loves sharing knowledge and his experiences, and lives the Cloud-Native dream.

  • GovStack: A Global Community for Digital Transformation
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Klaus Mueller

Klaus 'klml' Mueller is Head of the OSPO of the City of Munich, which was founded in 2024. Before that, he and his team built the Kubernetes Platform, a world in which FOSS is already standard. Klaus has been a stable FOSS enthusiast since Linux kernel 2.6.0.

  • Architecting Civic Engagement: Consul Democracy and Munich
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Kola Ojoodide

Kola is a UX Designer at Canonical, and a member of their Open Design Initiative.
With over 6 years of experience, he has helped ship and scale products across Enterprise SaaS, Fintech, Developer tools, and AI.

In his spare time, Kola teaches design with CareerFoundry GmbH, and mentors junior designers for free on ADPList.

  • Bridging the Gap Between Designers & Open Source Communities
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Lea Beiermann

Lea Beiermann is Ecosystem Coordinator at the German Centre for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS), where she fosters strategic partnerships across the public sector and open source ecosystem to promote digital sovereignty through open source software solutions. With an academic background in STS and the history of technology, Lea brings a deep understanding of the social implications of technological transition, informing her current work ath the intersection of software and digital policy.

  • How FR and DE are developing their digital sovereignty
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Leia Ruffini

Leia is a UX designer at Canonical and a member of the Open Design working group. Driven by a mission to create positive societal impact through accessible technology, she advocates for incorporating non-code contributions and user feedback into open-source projects.

  • Bridging the Gap Between Designers & Open Source Communities
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Marco Germanò

Marco Germanò is a graduate student at NYU Law School and a Research Assistant with the Guarini Global Law & Tech team. He holds an LLB from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and master's degrees from Peking University and the University of São Paulo. Before joining NYU, Marco worked with various universities and policy think tanks internationally. His research focuses on the transnational regulation of emerging technologies, the agency of the Global South in shaping digital infrastructure, and the role of law in governing open-source software supply chains.

  • New Legal Developments on Open Source Liability 🛈
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Marie Kreil

Marie is an open source and privacy advocate, campaigner and event organizer. She studied cultural journalism and researched new models for online journalism platforms. Since then, she has worked as a freelance journalist, campaigner, communications officer, infosec trainer and event organizer for various projects in journalism, privacy and open source. She is currently co-director of the Prototype Fund, a German fund for free and open source software.

  • Small seeds – why funding new ideas matters
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Marion Deveaud

Marion Deveaud started at Siemens as a Software Engineer and was nominated as a Social Coding Ambassador due to her contributions to the Open Source and Inner Source strategy.

Recently, she has taken on the leadership of the "Open Source Embedded Systems" team at Siemens Technology and is working with her team of experts on innovations and preliminary development of Linux-based systems for various Siemens business areas.

As a passionate advocate of Open Source culture, she has initiated and organized the internal Siemens conferences "Linux Community Event" and "Inner Source Summit".

  • Growing a Social Coding culture, one seed at a time
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Maryblessing Okolie

Community architect | Open source and DEI Advocate

  • Tokenism in Open Source: Diversity or Decoration?
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Mathias Bolt Lesniak

Mathias Bolt Lesniak lives outside Oslo, Norway, with his Kiwi wife and two kids. He is the official project ambassador of the TYPO3 CMS project and lives to increase the impact of open source through increased cross-community collaboration. He is an experienced and lively public speaker who builds engagement in open source communities by highlighting the connection between code and society at large. He has done numerous conference keynotes and motivational talks centering on topics less commonly addressed — but vitally important to open source success.

  • How to Explain the Impact of Your Open Source Work
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Max Mehl

Max Mehl has been dedicated to Open Source for many years, in various roles and contributing from different perspectives. He deals with all aspects of Open Source at Deutsche Bahn, Europe's largest railway operator and infrastructure owner. In this role, he supports in both using and contributing to Open Source in a professional manner. Previously, he worked for the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), where he coordinated initiatives such as "Public Money? Public Code!" and REUSE.

  • The Burden of Knowledge: Dealing With Open Source Risks
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Michael Downey

Michael Downey leads the Open Source Ecosystem Enabler (OSEE) team at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN's lead international development agency. OSEE is a multi-agency initiative co-led with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to speed countries' progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by organizing their efforts around open source policy and ecosystem activity for public service innovation.

Michael’s career in IT and open source spans over decades in the healthcare and financial services industries, as well as the nonprofit world. At UNDP, he helps the Chief Digital Office build a vibrant and active global open source software community for high-impact digital-focused international development. Previously, he led open source projects at the United Nations Foundation and was director of community for OpenMRS, an internationally-focused health IT platform. As a long-time participant in the digital development community, he is excited about UNDP’s unique opportunity to help build a digital society that serves everyone.

He did undergraduate study in electrical and computer engineering, and PhD research on cross-cultural computer supported cooperative work. A long-time supporter and advocate for free and open source software, Michael has also on various open source project & foundation boards, including GNOME, F-Droid, and LibreHealth.

  • How do you measure 'public good' in open source and beyond?
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Michael Geers

I'm Michael, a software engineer from Osnabrück, Germany, with nearly 20 years in e-commerce. I authored the book "Micro Frontends in Action" on building large-scale web apps. I'm a fan of the open web and standards. I joined evcc in 2020, turning a hobby into a part-time job.

  • More Hearts than Stars: Smart Charging & Community Funding
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Mirko Boehm

Mirko Boehm is a free and open source software contributor, community builder, licensing expert and researcher, with contributions to major open source projects like the KDE Desktop, the Open Invention Network, the Open Source Initiative and others. He has a PhD in innovation economics and is a visiting lecturer and researcher on free and open source software at the Technical University of Berlin. Mirko has a wide range of experience as an entrepreneur, corporate manager, software developer and German Air Force officer. He joined the Linux Foundation in June 2023 as senior director for community development for Linux Foundation Europe, where he focuses on driving engagement and collaboration between all European open source stakeholders. Mirko speaks English and German and lives in the Berlin area.

  • Toolkit for Measuring the Impacts of Public Funding for FOSS
  • Implementing the EU Cyber Resilience Act
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Miruna Muscan

Miruna joined the civic tech community over 3 years ago, driven by a passion for designing processes and solutions that create meaningful impact. She started as a UX Designer, believing that technology has the power to solve real-world social challenges. Inspired by the principles of humanity-centered design, she focuses on understanding users deeply, ensuring that every solution she contributes to is truly beneficial and sustainable.

In her current position, as the Director of Product, she plays a key role in expanding the "Infrastructure for Good," building open-source digital solutions that empower communities and drive positive change. She is committed to making the public good more visible, accessible, and scalable through civic technology.

  • Building Resilience:UX Strategies for Crisis-Responsive Tech
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Nicholas Gates

Nicholas (Nick‘) Gates is a Policy Advisor at OpenForum Europe (OFE), where he leads OFE’s work on the NGI Commons initiative and supports its research, policy, and advocacy efforts. Nick has significant experience in digital government policy and research globally, particularly around open source, public goods, public financial management, and digital service delivery. He enjoys supporting development partners, governments, and international organisations to deliver on their research, advocacy and convening agendas by using applied research to support policy development around best practices in the use of technology for public good, particularly in the public sector. In his spare time, Nick is a film enthusiast, performs improv comedy, and enjoys travelling the world as much as possible.

  • OSPOs for Good! Achieving the UN SDGs with Open Source
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Nicholas Knize, PhD

Dr. Nicholas Knize is a search expert, geospatial technologist, and Apache Lucene Committer and PMC member with over 20 years of experience. As the former Elastic Geospatial Search and Maps Lead and AWS Principal Engineer, Nicholas spearheaded the creation of OpenSearch, a pivotal fork of Elasticsearch. He has decades of experience building and deploying search and analysis systems for Defense and Intelligence industries, designed to operate in resource-constrained and network-starved environments. This deep expertise is now poured into his startup, Lucenia, which advances open source search technology while balancing innovation with the needs of both the community and enterprise.

  • From Forks to Sporks: The Journey Behind Creating OpenSearch
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Nina Rojc

I'm a Senior UX Designer at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, where I also contribute to our Open Design initiative. I began my career as a visual designer and evolved into UX, driven by a passion for solving complex problems and creating impactful user experiences. With over 10 years of experience spanning startups to enterprises, I’ve tackled diverse challenges across industries like hospitality, behavioral data, and compliance and risk management. Beyond design, I’m a curious human who loves exploring new ideas and making a positive impact.

  • Bridging the Gap Between Designers & Open Source Communities
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Nora Hauptmann

Nora is a digital transformation expert dedicated to building inclusive and sustainable technology ecosystems. As partnership lead for GovStack at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), she focuses on global advocacy, sustainability, and open-source digital public infrastructure. She has implemented projects at the intersection of human rights, education, refugee assistance, and digitization in Germany, Jordan, and Uganda.

  • GovStack: A Global Community for Digital Transformation
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Omar Mohsine

Omar Mohsine is a member of the United Nations Office of Digital and Emerging Technologies . He additionally leads the open source team within the UN Office of Information and Communication Technologies and serves as the co-chair of the UN Open Source Community of Practice.
With over 15 years of experience working in various capacities across different continents, Omar has spearheaded numerous projects for the UN, focusing on public-private partnerships and innovation management. He has also designed UN open source competitions aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Omar is deeply committed to building new partnerships with technology stakeholders to support the United Nations’ mandate.

  • OSPOs for Good! Achieving the UN SDGs with Open Source
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Patricia Leu

Patricia is a co-director at Prototype Fund. She is also responsible for the communication of the Prototype Fund. She studied religion and culture in Berlin and did research on medial discourse hegemony. Before joining the Prototype Fund team in 2020 she worked in public relations for various NGOs.

  • Small seeds – why funding new ideas matters
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Paul Sharratt

Paul works as Policy and Research Manager at the Sovereign Tech Agency. He leads quantitative and qualitative research, manages external research collaborations, and advocates for open digital infrastructure policies.

  • Toolkit for Measuring the Impacts of Public Funding for FOSS
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Peculiar C. Umeh

Peculiar C Umeh is a seasoned Open Source Advocate, Android Developer, and Project Manager. She currently leads the CHAOSS Education Project, co-chairs the CHAOSS Project Management and co-leading CHAOSS Metrics New template re-design.

With a strong background in software development, project management, Scrum, and community management, Peculiar has successfully led cross-functional teams, driven innovative solutions, and made significant contributions to open-source projects. She is passionate about mentoring young people and early-career professionals in the open-source community.

  • Data to Action: Build Healthy & Sustainable OSS Communities
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Peer Heinlein ‏‏‎ ‎

For over 30 years, Peer Heinlein has been an expert in secure electronic communication. With a team of 100 members, he educates system administrators at the Berlin Linux Academy and provides reliable email communication for authorities and businesses through mailbox.org, which has been award-winning several times.

His latest venture is OpenTalk: An innovative, scalable, and secure video conferencing solution for Europe, designed as a modern replacement for Jitsi or Big Blue Button and a secure alternative to Zoom, Teams, or Webex. Naturally, it's open source.

And he still has some more ideas in mind... ;-)

  • A community has to do, what a community has to do!
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Philippe Bareille, Ville de Paris

Open Source program officer at the City of Paris' CIO office.

Software engineer and project manager, Philippe Bareille has been the advocate and representative of Paris' signature city services platform Lutece and its new preasembled service packs CiteLibre. Long-time passionate about open source software in the public sector in particular, where public money must contribute to financing public code, he manages the relationships between the internal development teams and the communities of users and contributors.

  • From Lutece to CiteLibre: the City of Paris' journey in OS
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Richie Moluno

Richie Moluno is a Software Engineer and open-source contributor with a passion for improving data science and software development practices. He's on a Masters program in Robotics and Autonomous Systems at Aston University, Birmingham UK. Richie's open-source contributions are notable for their impact and innovation. At The Turing Way, he automated the attribution of contributors and enhanced localization efforts, making the project more accessible. He also played a key role in the Open Innovation Lab. Richie developed JSquarto, a tool for generating JavaScript code documentation, enhancing flexibility and accessibility across multiple languages

  • Right-to-Left, Left-to-Right: Rethinking Multilingual Design
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Ruth Cheesley

Ruth is an Open Source advocate with over 20 years of experience using and contributing to many different projects.

Having served on the Community Leadership Team of the Joomla! project and built a full-service digital agency, she now works as Project Lead for Mautic, supporting the community who build and maintain the world’s first Open Source Marketing Automation platform.

Ruth is a lover of cats, a keen runner and flautist (but not at the same time!) and is based in the East of England.

  • Implementing GitHub's private security issue reporting
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Sachiko Muto
  • OSPOs for Good! Achieving the UN SDGs with Open Source
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Samuel Paccoud

Samuel is currently working for the French government at the Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs, in charge of building La Suite numérique (https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr), an sovereign digital workplace for the French public sector. In this role, Samuel leads a team focusing on developping opensource technologies, in a joint effort with Zendis, their German counterparts.

Before joining DINUM, Samuel headed the technical team at France Université Numérique, where he worked on creating and promoting digital commons for open education. Throughout his career, Samuel has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to open-source software and driving digital transformation in the public sector.

  • How FR and DE are developing their digital sovereignty
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Sascha Pudenz

Sascha Pudenz helps organizations implement governance, processes, and technology for Open Source compliance management and IT asset management systems. He has been advising private and public sector organizations of all sizes for over 12 years. As a team member of Deloitte's Extended Enterprise practice, he identifies, assesses and manages the risks that organizations face from external business relationships, such as license agreements.

  • OpenChain Capability Model - moving beyond compliance
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Shauna Gordon-McKeon

Shauna Gordon-McKeon is a writer, programmer and consultant who works at the intersection of technology and governance. She specializes in working with open communities (think open source software, open science, and open government) to collaboratively build and nourish a rich commons.

  • Relationship Problems in Open Source
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Simon Strohmenger

Director of the Consul Democracy Foundation

  • Architecting Civic Engagement: Consul Democracy and Munich
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Sri Harsha

Sri Harsha is a Test Automation Enthusiast with nearly a decade of experience in automation and development. His expertise lies in testing applications using JavaScript and contributing to open-source platforms. His dedication has earned him roles as a committer for projects like Selenium and WebdriverIO and a member of the Technical Leadership Committee at SeleniumHQ. He is currently working as an Engineering Manager (OSPO) at LambdaTest.

  • The OSPO Playbook: Supercharging Open Source at Scale
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Stephen Pollard

Stephen Pollard – Director & FOSS Management advisor.

Stephen is a director at Orcro Ltd. His skillset and experience are focused on the capabilities needed to put new strategies into action. Stephen advises clients on how to achieve their strategic goals and acts as a partner in helping drive through change. Originally a systems architect Stephen has been a technology management consultant for over 30 years.

He is leading the work in the development of the OpenChain capability model - which is the focus of the presentation.

  • OpenChain Capability Model - moving beyond compliance
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Thomas Streinz

Thomas Streinz is the Executive Director of Guarini Global Law & Tech at New York University School of Law and a Professor at the European University Institute in Florence. He works on digital infrastructure governance, the regulation of the global data economy, and global law and technology.

  • New Legal Developments on Open Source Liability 🛈
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Zainab Daodu

Zainab Daodu is a seasoned Senior Technical Writer with over 6 years of experience across technical writing, software engineering, and DevOps. At her current position, she is driven by a mission to make complex technology accessible through clear, impactful documentation.

Starting her career as a software engineer at Interswitch Group, Zainab discovered a passion for enhancing developer experiences, and her expertise has since contributed to global platforms like Google, Cisco, Tealium, and open-source projects like Jenkins and the Wikimedia Foundation.

As the founder of WriteTech Hub, Zainab formalized her commitment to mentorship and community growth, training over seventy (70) technical writers some of whom now work in top tech companies. She has also led diversity initiatives with She Code Africa, impacting over five hundred (500) African women in tech through programs like Women of Open Source Community Africa (WOSCA) and Contributhon.

Through her work and insights, Zainab continues to shape the future of technical writing and promote diversity in open-source communities.

  • Beyond Words: Crafting User-Friendly Documentation