opinion leaders at the forefront of the IT-revolution take place in educational platform SELF

The Hague, April 4 2007

SELF – Science, Education and Learning in Freedom – aims to be the central place where people can share quality educational and training materials about Free Software and Open Standards, based on a world-class technological platform and in collaboration with global communities. Now the SELF Platform, initiated by an international consortium of seven partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America, established the Advisory Board to oversee and guide the goals, form and content of the SELF Platform.

“We are very pleased to announce that the SELF Advisory Board has been established,” says Wouter Tebbens, SELF Project Coordinator. “The members of the Advisory Board represent a variety of organisations that see the strategic benefits for society at large of the use of free technologies, from universities to large governmental organisations and from small companies to multinationals. These people are at the forefront of the IT-revolution in their respective areas. We are honoured that they agree to participate. They will help us to build critical mass for the use of Free Software and Open Standards.”

The SELF Advisory Board members will play a key role in the development and implementation of the SELF Platform. The new board strengthens links with the target groups who should benefit from the SELF Platform and helps with generating ideas to make the SELF project become self-sustainable. The members of the SELF Advisory Board will participate at a strategic level, bringing together communities and knowledge as well as raising awareness. As the target groups consist of several actors and regions, the Advisory Board mirrors these to create an on-going link with individuals and organisations.

The diverse SELF Advisory Board is comprised of the following professionals:

Susan D’Antoni

Susan D'Antoni is currently responsible for the Virtual Institute of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning. In the context of the observation function of the Institute, she undertook a study of the policy and planning issues related to the development of the virtual university and e-learning.

Elmar Geese

Elmar Geese is active in several bodies on national and international levels and founder and CEO of tarent GmbH (Bonn/Berlin). Currently, Mr. Geese is Chairman of the LIVE Linux-Verband (German Linux Business Association), Member of Board OpenForum Europe, ODF Alliance, Open Document Foundation, OASIS SOA and OASIS Office Standardisation Working Groups.

Heather Ford

Heather Ford is the Executive Director of iCommons (www.icommons.org), an organisation incubated by Creative Commons with the broad goal of connecting open content, access to knowledge, open access publishing and free culture communities around the world. She has worked in the fields of Internet policy, law and management in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Masayuki Ida

Masayuki Ida is a professor at the Graduate School of International Management (GSIM), and the School of International Politics, Economics and Business (SIPEB), Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU). His current research interest is mainly in Java technology and related distributed systems.

Lawrence Liang

Lawrence Liang is one of the co-founders of Alternative Law Forum (ALF), a collective of lawyers working on various aspects of law, legality and power. His key areas of interest are law, technology and culture, and the politics of copyright. A keen follower of the Free Software movement in software, Lawrence has been working on ways of translating the Free Software ideas into the cultural domain.

Anne Østergaard

Anne Østergaard is presently a Free Software entrepreneur. She serves on the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors. As a Fellowship member of FSFE, and as member of the Eurolinux Alliance, Anne Østergaard is working against the legalisation of software patents in Europe. She is also working for free and open standards and file formats, Free Software in education, in the health care sector, and Free Software as development aide, privacy on the Internet and more women active in the ICT sector.

Susy Struble

Susy Struble works in Sun Microsystems office for government strategy with the goal of promoting social and economic progress through interoperable IT systems. Technology standardisation is a key tool of her job, as it forms the intersection of competitive strategy, economic growth, law, industry requirements, innovation, public policy and - increasingly - a notion of the common good.