Advisory Board

Lawrence Lessig is perhaps the leading light of the free culture movement and one of the most powerful voices in the field of intellectual property law in cyberspace. Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society, he is the author of Free Culture, The Future of Ideas and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. He also chairs the Creative Commons project.

Brewster Kahle was an early member of the Thinking Machines team and later went on to found WAIS (sold to AOL) and later Alexa Internet (sold to Amazon.com). He also founded and continues to run the Internet Archive. Brewster is currently a plaintiff, along with film archivist Rick Prelinger, in Kahle v. Ashcroft, an effort to release abandoned vintage works into the public domain.

Angela Beesley is one of five directors of the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia. She is also vice-president of Wikia, Inc. which runs the Wikia search engine and Wikicities, a collection of freely hosted wiki communities. Angela has recently worked as a consultant for the BBC and was formerly a researcher and test developer for the National Foundation for Educational Research.

Susan is with Charles River Ventures. Before that, she was Chief Marketing Officer of the Apache Software Foundation,  one of the world’s most influential open source software organizations. In Susan’s spare time, she remains active in online games.

Howard Rheingold was pioneering online communities before the Web was even invented. He is the author of Smart Mobs, The Virtual Community, Virtual Reality and Tools for Thought. Howard also operates a business as a professional virtual community builder.

Dan Gillmor is director of the Center for Citizen Media. He is also author of We the Media, a landmark book about citizen journalism. In late 2004, he left his longtime position as technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s daily newspaper.

Karen Worcman was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1991 she founded the Museum of the Person (www.museudapessoa.net), a virtual museum that seeks to record, preserve and transform into information the life stories of any person in society. Since 1997 the museum has received thousands of stories and personal documents through the Internet. Since 2003 the museum has worked with civic organizations in Brazil to allow their members to produce their own life stories.

Charles Nesson is William F. Weld Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A member of the Law School's faculty since 1966, Charles founded and directs the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which explores the frontiers of intellectual property law in the digital age. His blog is eon.

Joaquin Alvarado is the founding director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet (INGI) at San Francisco State University. His work with INGI is dedicated to advancing the development and deployment of high-speed networks and collaborative applications through community-based initiatives and technology innovations.

Doc Searls is the senior editor of Linux Journal, a leading technology magazine. He also runs Doc Searls' IT Garage, an online journal. He is co-author of the best-seller The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Called one of the deep thinkers in the blog movement, he writes Doc Searls Weblog, which is consistently listed among the top blogs out of millions.

Founded in 1995 by Denise Atchley and her late husband Dana, the Digital Storytelling Conference & Festival immerses participants in the principles and practice of digital storytelling. Denise directs and organizes the event, held each summer in Sedona, Arizona. She also serves on the board of the Digital Storytelling Association.

Alex Cohen is chairman of the board and co-founder of Undergroundfilm.org, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance independent cinema. He also occasionally teaches a course on digital technology's effect on cinema at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the former vice president of engineering of OpenDesign Inc. and former chief technology officer of POP.com.

David Bollier is an independent strategist, journalist, activist and consultant. He is the author of Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth, Artists, Technology and the Ownership of Creative Content and Brand-Name Bullies and Their Quest to Own and Control Culture (early 2005). David is also a co-founder of Public Knowledge, the public-interest advocacy organization that represents the publics stake in copyright, technology and Internet issues.

Leslie Rule runs the Digital Storytelling Initiative of KQED public broadcasting in San Francisco. Over the past six years, she has trained more than 500 digital storytellers around the world. Leslie also serves on the executive board of the Digital Storytelling Association.