Staff
Heather Ford
Kerryn McKay
Paul Jacobson
Hettie Dreyer
Rebecca Kahn
Daniela Faris
Rosanne Hack
Stephanie Traynor
Anna Berthold
Dave Duarte

Members of the Board
Ronaldo Lemos - Chairman
Catharina Maracke
Joichi Ito
Paul Keller
Tomislav Medak
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Liang
Jimmy Wales
Jonathan Zittrain

Staff

Heather Ford - Executive Director
Heather Ford is a South African who has worked in the fields of Internet policy, law and management in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Heather graduated from Rhodes University with a Bachelor of Journalism degree and has a certificate in Telecommunications Policy, Law and Management from the University of the Witwatersrand Link Centre. After working in the United Kingdom for Greennet and Privacy International, she went on to Stanford University in 2003 where she worked as a fellow in the Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship Program.

Volunteering for Creative Commons while she was at Stanford, she decided to go back to South Africa at the end of her studies to start Creative Commons South Africa and a programme entitled ‘Commons-sense: Towards an African Digital Information Commons’ at the Wits University Link Centre.

Kerryn McKay - Project Manager
Kerryn started her work for the Commons as a researcher on the Commons-sense project at the Wits University Link Centre and as a volunteer for Creative Commons South Africa.

Kerryn holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Rhodes University, majoring in Journalism & Media Studies and English.

She has worked in the advertising and publishing industries, and has also held the position of marketing researcher at an online marketing company which operates within the international e-commerce arena.

Paul Jacobson - General Counsel and Company Secretary
Paul Jacobson is a new media lawyer who practices in Johannesburg. He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a Bachelor of Arts degree (focusing on philosophy and law) and a Bachelor of Laws degree. He worked at a major South African law firm until July 2005 when he founded Jacobson Attorneys.

Paul is an active blogger and podcaster and writes about legal and policy issues as well as new media adoption in South Africa and globally. He has recently re-focussed his activities on the legal issues arising out of, and pertaining to the flow of content and ideas on the Web.

Hettie Dreyer - Bookkeeper
Hettie joined iCommons as the organisation’s bookkeeper in June 2006. Hettie has years of experience in establishing and maintaining bookkeeping systems for a large number of non-profit organisations in Africa.

She was active in the establishment of a Human Resources Empowerment Centre called Project Gateway in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, in 1987. In 1998 she moved to Zimbabwe where she started a similar project that focused on the training of rural communities and establishing food security programmes. At the time she also worked with 84 churches in the country – designing and administering the bookkeeping systems and structures, as well as the training of staff and field personnel for basic bookkeeping skill and practice.

She returned to South Africa in 2001 and also does bookkeeping work for another commons-based organisation, Translate.org.za.

Rebecca Kahn - iCommons researcher and writer
Rebecca Kahn is a freelance journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

She’s graduated from Rhodes University with an Honours Degree in English Literature, and is currently completing a Masters Degree in Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand.

She’s written extensively about open licencing and intellectual property issues, for various publications, both in print and online.

Daniela Faris - Web Manager
Daniela Faris joined iCommons after graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism degree from Rhodes University in South Africa. She specialized in ‘New Media’ as a subject and has experience in design and layout, photography, web development and online publishing. She has also specialized in ICT and economics writing.

Daniela has reported on various conferences and events, including the Creative Commons South Africa launch, as part of her practical training in multimedia journalism. Daniela has completed short internships at a locally based newspaper and magazine; and at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), a politically focused NGO in Pretoria.

Rosanne Hack - Office manager
Rosanne joins iCommons with experience in the travel and tourism industry. She previously worked as a sales co-ordinator for a car hire company, as a marketing assistant for a tour operator, and a sales executive for a foreign exchange company.

She earned her Conference, Exhibition and Event management degree from Damelin, and later studied for a Travel and Tourism diploma from Varsity College. Rosanne is passionate about travelling and enjoys learning about foreign cultures.

Stephanie Traynor - iSummit communications
Stephanie has extensive experience across marketing disciplines and media platforms and has worked in South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Stephanie’s diverse background in marketing includes research management, brand marketing and business development for international media organisations such as the Independent Group and Time Warner. Working with Primedia group companies in South Africa, her experience also includes international pitch management, multi-platform strategic advertising procurement projects, sponsorship strategy and media partnerships and events.

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce Honours Degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, majoring in Business Economics.

Anna Berthold - iCommons fellow
Anna’s primary interests centres around the ability of new media technology to foster cross-cultural exchange and stimulate development.

Anna received a BA in International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Southern California (USC). She also has certificates in International Humanitarian Law, International Tracing, and Relief and Development from the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Academy.

In addition to her background in international relations, Anna has nearly ten years experience working with multimedia and digital technologies. In 2005, Anna founded ALaraB Productions, a company specialising in web and graphic design, 3D modelling, animation and videography. In January 2007, Anna became the Project Manager and Technical Producer of the Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds Project at USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy. During this time she co-ordinated the iCommons Summit 2007 in Second Life.

Anna recently graduated from the Master of Public Diplomacy Program at USC, with a thesis project that includes an extensive quantitative analysis of cross-cultural interaction in virtual worlds and its impact on public diplomacy. Anna joins iCommons to continue her current research on issues of transparency and accountability in open business models and transnational advocacy networks.

Dave Duarte - iCommons fellow
Dave Duarte is a self-proclaimed Marketing Geek. He is the co-founder of Cerebra, currently South Africa’s leading social-media consultancy with clients such as SABMiller, Wesbank, Samsung and Toyota.

He is programme director of a social-media marketing programme at the UCT Graduate School of Business, called Nomadic Marketing, and occasionally lectures on the MBA programme and other executive education courses. He also directs a second year Business Science course at UCT called Attention Economics.

Other projects are 27dinner (a free monthly gathering for the new-media community), which attracts hundreds of new media enthusiasts from around the country; and Muti, a popular peer-rated news filtering site. He is a well-recognised proponent for free digital culture.

iCommons appoints fellows annually. Fellows are volunteers who work on specific projects with expertise in iCommons’ core areas of focus. To apply to be an iCommons fellow, please send a summary of your CV with a motivation on what support you’d like to give in terms of iCommons’ core focus areas to kerryn AT icommons.org

Members of the Board

Ronaldo Lemos- Chairman
Ronaldo Lemos is the director of the Center for Technology & Society (CTS) at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School in Rio de Janeiro. Dr. Lemos is the head professor of Intellectual Property Law at FGV Law School and is also the director of Creative Commons Brazil. He has an LL.B. and LL.D. from the University of Sao Paulo, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. He is the author of three books, including Direito, Tecnologia e Cultura, published by FGV Press, 2005. He coordinates various projects, such as the Cultura Livre and Open Business Project, an international initiative taking place in Brazil, Nigeria, Chile, Mexico, South Africa and the UK. He is one of the founders of Overmundo, the largest Web 2.0 initiative in Brazil. He is also a member of the Electronic Commerce Commission appointed by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, curator of the TIM Festival, and monthly columnist at Trip Magazine.

Catharina Maracke
Catharina studied law in Germany and graduated from the University of Kiel and the Hamburg Court of Appeal with the first and second state examination. While studying she obtained a scholarship from the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law in Munich to write her PhD thesis on the History of the German Copyright Act of 1965. During the legal preparatory service she worked for several German Courts, the German Patent Office and the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Toronto. After finishing her legal education, Catharina worked for the law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP in their Munich office. Afterwards she spent three months at the Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo where she did research and taught design protection and copyright law.

Joichi Ito
Joi Ito, an activist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, has received much recognition for his role as an entrepreneur of Internet and technology companies. He has founded companies such as PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan and is the founder and currently the CEO of the venture capital firm, Neoteny Co., Ltd.

Ito serves on the board of several companies; he is the General Manager of International Operations of Technocrati, which offers an Internet search engine for finding information on weblogs; and is Chairman of the software company, Six Apart. In addition, he is on the board of Creative Commons, Socialtext, The Metabrainz Foundation and Technocrati Japan, and more recently, to the board of ICANN, the Mozilla Foundation and the Open Source Initiative. Ito serves on various Japanese central and local government committees and boards, offering advice on issues relating to IT, and computer privacy and security.

In 1997, Ito was named a member of the CyberElite by Time Magazine, and in 2000 was ranked as one of the ‘50 Stars of Asia’ by Business Week. In 2001, the World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 ‘Global Leaders of Tomorrow’ for 2002. He is currently reading towards a Doctor of Business Administration degree at Hitotsubashi University’s Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, in Japan, and is focusing his research on the sharing economy.

Paul Keller
Paul Keller is the project lead for Creative Commons Netherlands, and joined the Board of Creative Commons International in August 2005. Keller also heads the Public Research Program of the Waag Society, a knowledge institute dealing with issues in educations, government, society, industry and technology. The Waag Society undertakes research and develops new concepts and software applications, and initiates public debates relating to old and new media. Keller serves as a board member of the Waag Sarai Exchange Platform, a collaboration with Sarai: The New Media Initiative, in New Delhi. The program encourages the exchange of information and ideas on the topics of new media, knowledge production and culture between Europe and Asia.

Keller has acted as an editor for various conferences, such as ‘WE SEIZE!’ in Geneva in 2003 and the Creative Capital conference in Amsterdam in 2005. He obtained a masters degree in Comparative Political Science from the University of Amsterdam.

Tomislav Medak
Tomislav Medak is the joint project leader for Creative Commons Croatia. The licenses were ported through the Multimedia Institute in Zagreb, where Medak co-ordinates theory and research programs and publishing activities. The Multimedia Institute (mi2) is a NGO established in 1999 and houses a media lab, provides support to other NGOs in the area, publishes newsletters and provides net services. It also opened a ‘net.culture’ centre called ‘Mama’, which provides cheap internet access and a meeting and presentation space for artists, social, political, organizational and technological experiments. Medak studied philosophy, literature and German at the philosophy faculty in Zagreb. He is interested in social, ‘biopolitical’ and media theory, especially how new technologies and new media affect social theory.

Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

Professor Lessig represented website operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. He has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation’s Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing “against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online.”

Professor Lessig is the author of Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). He chairs the Creative Commons project, and serves on the board of the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge.

Professor Lessig earned a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale.

Professor Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace.

Lawrence Liang
Lawrence Liang is a researcher with the Alternative Law Forum (ALF), Bangalore. He was one of the co founders of ALF, which is a non profit collective of lawyers, academics and media practitioners who work on various aspects of law, legality and power. His key areas of interest are law, technology and culture, the politics of copyright and he has been working closely with Sarai, New Delhi on a joint research project Intellectual Property and the Knowledge/Culture Commons. He is the author of two books, A Guide to Open Content Licenses, and The Public is Watching: Sex, Laws and Videotape. Lawrence is a guest lecturer at the National Law School, Bangalore and the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.

Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia.org in 2001 with the philosophy: “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” In the years since, he has devoted his life to that goal. In the process, he pioneered the collaborative Web 2.0 model.

Wikipedia currently has over 2 million articles and is consistently in the top ten websites visited worldwide. In 2004, Wales founded Wikia.com to expand beyond Wikipedia to more general online communities and collaborative projects. In 2005 Wales was appointed as a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and is a member of the Board of Directors of Creative Commons. In 2006 he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.

Jonathan Zittrain
Jonathan Zittrain is a co-founder of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and from 1997 to 2000 served as its first executive director. He further holds the Chair in Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University and is a principal of the Oxford Internet Institute. Zittrain is the Jack N. & Lillian R. Berkman Visiting Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School.

Zittrain’s research includes the areas of digital property, privacy, and speech. He is a principal investigator of the Open Net Initiative, collaboration between researchers at the University of Toronto, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School. He was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in Eldred v. Ashcroft, and filed an amicus brief of law professors in the MGM v. Grokster Case.