Who is the core team behind the SELF project? Let us introduce ourselves:

ISOC.NL - Wouter Tebbens

Wouter is the founder and general coordinator of the SELF project. Although technology has been his focus from an early age, he is particularly interested in its impact on society. He achieved a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. He has been working in project management functions in various organisations and has more than ten years experience in internet projects and Free Software in the Netherlands, Spain and Latin America. In 2002 he founded the Barcelona based company xlocal.com, that offers solutions in Free Software web applications.
Wouter has participated in different initiatives to promote the use of free technologies from within Internet Society Netherlands. He is the founder of the expert group on Free Software in ISOC.nl and in September 2005 he headed the committee to hand over a petition to the Dutch Parliament to demand the use of Free Software and Open Standards.
Wouter is currently working as the SELF project coordinator. He aims to bring together interested parties, funders, team members and volunteers and make a self-sustainable, long-lasting effort out of this. He finds it especially motivating to work together with inspiring people that have inspiring ideas and that make inspiring initiatives happen by worldwide collaboration.

ISOC.NL - Hinde ten Berge

Ms. Hinde ten Berge is the Coordinator Netherlands of the SELF Project. She has a background as producer of events on the cutting edge of technology and their implications on society and politics since 1997. Prior to joining the SELF Project, Hinde was a member of the Tactical Technology Collective and coordinated regional and continental workshops in Asia and Africa designed to advance computer skills and information handling using Free Software.

Previous other projects include several conferences on privacy and cryptography in De Balie, Amsterdam. In 2002 she organised the exhibition and conference program 'World-Information.Org', in co-operation with Public Netbase/t0, Vienna, and Waag Society, De Balie and Montevideo/TBA, Amsterdam. Hinde also produced 'No Escape' (2003) and its follow-up 'Databodies' (2006), a series of related events at the Paradiso theatre dedicated to safety, surveillance, biometric verification and databases, presented with the use of art projects and installations. Hinde serves on the Board of Directors of the International Financial Cryptography Association (Anguilla, BWI), formed to advance the theory and practice of financial cryptography and related fields.

UOC - David Megias

Dr. David Megías achieved the PhD in Computer Science in July 2000, the Master Engineering degree in Computer Science (Advanced Automatic Control) in October 1996 and the Engineering degree in Computer Science in July 1994, all of them by the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB). He has made research stays at the Department of Engineering Science de la University of Oxford (with a grant by the Comissionat per a Universitats i Recerca de la Generalitat de Catalunya) and at the Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática de la Universidad de Valladolid, in both cases as an invited lecturer.
He was an assistant lecturer at the UAB from September 1994 to October 2001. Since October 2001, he is a lecturer at the UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) with a permanent position. Since October 2002, he is also the co-director of the International Master Program in Free Software which is currently offered at the UOC. His current teaching activities are mostly related to free and open source software and has participated in several forums and conferences concerned with this field.
His current interests include Free Software and Open Source Software, security and copyright protection schemes, and process control. He has published several research papers in different international conferences and journals. He has participated in several national joint research projects both as a contributorand as a manager (main researcher). He has also experience in European projects, such as the European Network of Excellence of Cryptology (joint group with the Universidad de Vigo) of the FP6.

UOC - Rafael Macau

He holds a degree in Computing from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia; a degree in Journalism (Information Sciences) from the Autonomous University of Barcelona; and a degree in Mathematics from the University of Barcelona.
Before joining the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), he worked as Head of Computing at the Centre de Telecomunicacions i Tecnologies de la Informació de la Generalitat de Catalunya (CTTI), where he was responsible for all corporate computer management.
He had previously been responsible for the Computer Systems of the Organising Committee of the Olympic Games Barcelona '92 (COOB 92) and a member of the International Olympic Committee in charge of elaborating the INFOTECH report, which summarised the experience of the Olympic Games concerning technological aspects. He had previously worked as Head for Catalonia, Aragon and the Balearic Islands of INDRA; as Director-General of the Centre Informàtic de la Generalitat de Catalunya (CIGESA); and as Head of Computing at Nelson-Taylor-Sofres.
He has lectured at the Computer Faculty of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and at the Institut Català de Tecnologia. He has taken part in various information technologies forums for a number of years.

UOC - Jordi Serra

Jordi Serra achieved the Master Engineering degree in Computer Science (Advanced Automatic Control) in September 2001 and the Engineering degree in Computer Science in September 1997 by the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB).

He was an assistant lecturer at the UAB from September 1997 to July 2001. Since October 2001 he is a lecturer at the UOC (Open University of Catalonia). Since October 2002, he is teacher of the International Master Program in Free Software which is currently offered at the UOC, and since September 2007 he is the director of the Master in Information Security at the UOC. His current teaching activities are mostly related to Free and Open Source Software, network administration and information security.

His current interests include Free Software and Open Source Software, administration networks, security and copyright protection schemes. He has published several research papers in different international conferences. He has participated in several national joint research projects both as a contributor. He has also experience in European projects, such as the European Network of Excellence of Cryptology (joint group with the Universidad de Vigo) of the FP6.

UOC - Hannah Margrett

Hannah is British, and has been living in Catalunya for 4 years. She is responsible for the migration of materials to ATutor, and thereafter, to the platform itself.

UOC/ISOC.nl - David Jacovkis

David Jacovkis (Barcelona, 1977) studied Physics in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and has a Master Degree in Materials Science (UAB) and in Systems and networks Administration with Free Software (UOC).

In the last years he has worked as a systems engineer, ICT consultant and editor of educational materials. Nowadays he collaborates with the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the ISOC.nl as a Learning Materials facilitator for the SELF Project. He recently co-funded the Free Knowledge Institute in Amsterdam, where he lives since 2006.

FSFE - Georg Greve

Georg Greve is the Legal Policy Coordinator. He is iInitiator and president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe). Georg studied physics at the University of Hamburg, Germany, where he finished in January 2001 with an interdisciplinary computer-science and physics diploma thesis in the nanotechnology area. Since 1998 he has been busy as European speaker for the GNU Project; an activity which also led him to write the Brave GNU World, a monthly column about Free Software that is published in up to 10 languages on the web and printed in several magazines around the world. During his work for the FSF Europe Georg Greve has (among other things) participated in the Commission for Intellectual Property Rights in the UK and gotten particularly involved in the long-term and strategic issues of Free Software in the social, legal and economic area. He participated as member of the German governmental delegation to United Nations (UN) conferences on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) as representative of the WSIS coordination circle of German civil societies and is also the person responsible for the AGNULA (IST-2001-34879) project in FSF Europe.

GU - Mathias Klang

Mathias Klang is a lecturer and researcher in legal informatics at the School of Economics and Commercial Law at the University of Göteborg, where he teaches courses in electronic commerce, computer ethics and IT law. He has a diverse teaching background with teaching areas such as introduction to Swedish law, EU law and hospitality law. Mathias is an online tutor at the University of Strathclyde, Dean of Studies at the Department of Informatics and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research interests are primarily in the areas of democracy, human rights and ethics in relation to technology and cyberspace. Mathias is currently working on the completion of his PhD thesis on freedom of expression in digital environments, while at the same time carrying out research on surveillance, civil disobedience and theories of science.

GU - Jonas Öberg

Jonas Öberg has a background from software engineering, organisations and economics. He has taught courses in as diverse areas as philosophy and assembler programming. Jonas has also developed and taught two courses on Free Software at Göteborg University; Free Software: theory & practice, and Free Software: political science, courses that he intends to follow up with and develop further into a masters degree programme on Free Software. His research interests are currently the publics right to official documents and how it relates to Free Software and computers in general, where more and more official documents are stored and accessed through a computer, which sometimes make automatic decisions and rulings on behalf of the governments.

GU - Henrik Sandklef

Henrik has worked as a software consultant since 1997 and has extensive knowledge of software development and testing. As a member of the GNU Evaluation Team, he has overseen and evaluated many software projects, both from a technical and licensing point of view. He has participated in courses and given seminars and lectures on software development and tools, as well as the philosophical issues related to Free Software. Henrik is currently, among other things, working to bring to fruition, a year long course on software development and testing using Free Software.

ISOC Bulgaria - Veni Markovski

He is the founding chairman of the Board and President of Internet Society – Bulgaria. He is currently advising the chairman of the Bulgarian Agency for information technologies and communications on international projects.
Before that he has been managing the UNDP project for Southeastern Europe on using Free and Open Source Software on the municipal level.
Before that Markovski has been leading the Bulgarian part of the international Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI). Previously, for nine years (1993-2002) he has been CEO of the second Bulgarian Internet Service Provider – BOL.BG . Among many activities, he has:

• Been a legal expert to the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Telecommunications;
• Helped to draft and pass two Telecommunications Acts (2001, 2003, 2006);
• Helped to draft and pass The E-Document and E-Signature Act (2000);
• Helped to draft and pass the Computer Crimes chapter in the Penal Code (2002);
• Helped to draft the Free and Open Source Software Usage in the State Administration Act;
• Implemented first ever legal strategy to successfully eliminate legal barriers to free Internet access (1999 );
• Been helping the Bulgarian government to define positions on the WSIS and other Internet-related policies

He's member of the Boards of ICANN and ISOC, and chairs the Bulgarian President's IT Advisory Committee. Markovski has a MSc degree in Law from the St. Kliment Ohridski Sofia University.

ISOC Bulgaria - Dessi Pefeva

Ms. Dessi Pefeva is coordinator within the Internet Society Bulgaria. She is working on initiatives for Poverty reduction through ICT and support to e-Government initiatives based on free/open source software (FOSS) for the South-eastern Europe. She is actively participating in the work of the TOSSAD and FLOSSWORLD Projects, funded by the EU FP6 Program. Ms. Pefeva organized the 2005 edition of the Bulgarian Big Brother Awards for government and private sector organisations which have done the most to threaten personal privacy in their countries. Dessi Pefeva is voting member of ISOC.org, and member and contributor to European Digital Rights (EDRI).
Since October 2004, Dessi Pefeva is the Project Lead of Creative Commons Bulgaria initiative. She is founder of the Bulgarian creative commons blog and a co-founder of the Bulgarian portal for Creative Commons content – Open Culture.net.
Dessi Pefeva is a contributor to the EPIC Annual Privacy and Human Rights Report 2005. She has publications in Bulgarian newspapers and magazines about Creative Commons, and she is Creative Commons and Free/open source software presenter.

Prior to joining the Internet Society, she was working on the development of the Bulgarian E-Government Strategy and Action Plan at the Coordination Center for Information, Communication and Government Technologies.

HBCSE, TIFR - Nagarjuna G.

Dr. Nagarjuna G. is an M.Sc. in Biology, M.A in Philosophy from Delhi University, and Ph.D in philosophy of science from Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur in India. He joined Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research as a postdoc in 1995 and is working as a regular faculty.
Currently he is the head of the computer lab and principal investigator of the knowledge lab carrying out research and development in the area of cognitive science and information technology. His current areas of research are semantic web, knowledge organization, AI, philosophy of science, biological roots of knowledge and modelling complex systems with specific interest in cognitive development. He is coordinator of the gnowledge.org project, a community portal, which is to be launched before the end of 2006. His lab produced a knowledge distribution system, specially crafted for science and mathematics education. He is the author of the system GNOWSYS, which is recognized as an official GNU project by Free Software Foundation, since December 2004. He is a well known advocate of free software and is serving as a Chairperson of Free Software Foundation of India. As an advocate of free software for education and research, he travelled around the country and gave more than 120 speeches/workshops/keynotes during the last eight years. He works with engineering students, who join his lab as interns (final year thesis projects) and do a number of developmental and experimental projects with them every year contributing to development of free software and training. He teaches several graduate courses in philosophy of science, conceptual dynamics and cognitive development.

HBCSE, TIFR - Meena Kharatmal

Ms. Meena Kharatmal is working as a scientific officer in Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India since April 1996. She has acquired a graduate degree in Zoology and a post graduate degree in Marine Science from University of Mumbai.

At present, she is working in the research area of knowledge organisation in biology education, and also registered for Ph.D. The research work entails to develop an expert's knowledge base of cell biology by classifying the concepts and assigning valid and authentic semantic relations by applying the knowledge representation formalisms. The knowledge base of cell biology is build using GNOWSYS as an application for knowledge representation. The research work is of relevance in science education in terms of indentifying and comparing the students' knowledge structure and eventually leading to align it with that of an expert's knowledge structure.

HBCSE, TIFR - R.S. Patwardhan

Mr. Ravindra S. Patwardhan is a B.Sc. in Physics (Mumbai University), Diploma in Computer Management (DATAPRO), Advance P. C. Maintenance (Maharashtra State Technical Board). He is working with Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education for the last 10 years as a scientific officer. His responsibilities in the centre include system administration of the computing infrastructure at the centre, and also takes interest in training by participating in teacher and student orientation courses, workshops and teacher training programmes conducted by HBCSE. He is conversant with the programming in C++ and Foxpro, Unix and Windows OS, maintenance and setting up of networks.

FVL - Federico Heinz

Federico Heinz's trajectory as a software developer and IT manager is longer than he likes to admit. He is president of Fundación Vía Libre, an Argentina-based NGO that addresses issues related to the social, political and economic impact of information technology, using Free Software as the quintessential tool for a democratic society in the digital age. He was also a co-founder of the Free Software Foundation Latin America (in formation) and an official GNU speaker for the FSF (Free Software Foundation). He has advised legislators all over the subcontinent, is author of a number of papers on social implications of information technologies and Software Libre, as well as frequent contributor to news media and public fora and highly regarded speaker in conferences and universities of the Americas and Europe.

FVL - Beatriz Busaniche

Beatriz Busaniche has earned Licenciature in Social Communication from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, and has vast experience in the preparation of online training materials in various subjects. She works with Fundación Vía Libre, and as a teacher at Social Sciences in the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was a founding member of Free Software Foundation Latin America. She coordinated the Civil Society Caucus for Education at the World Summit on the Information Society, and participated in the Academia, Education and Research, as well as in the Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks caucuses.