[okfn-coord] To be submitted on Friday: Application for COMMUNIA membership

Thu Jun 26 20:52:06 UTC 2008

Hi all,

Tomorrow I will send off our application for membership of the COMMUNIA 
network. Please find the completed form below. All suggestions welcome.

Jo, Jordan, Rufus - if its alright with you I will include your 
biographies that we used for the FP7 application in the "key persons in 
your organization that could be involved in COMMUNIA" section.

Pro - it would be great if you'd be interested in adding yours!

Jonathan

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## 1. Name of your organization;

The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF)

## 2. Type of organization (academic, NGO, enterprise, government, etc.);

Not-for-profit organisation

## 3. Location of your organization (country, city);

Registered office in Cambridge, UK.

## 4. Short presentation of your organization;

The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) is a not-for-profit organisation 
founded in 2004 and dedicated to promoting open knowledge in all its 
forms. It is a European leader in this field and prominent on the 
international stage.

A small Executive Group is responsible for running the Foundation on a 
day to day basis and for coordinating the activities of its volunteers. 
This is supplemented by the expertise of technical contractors and a 
distinguished Advisory Board.

The Foundation has pioneered work in developing robust legal mechanisms 
for sharing data - and has taken a central role in helping to develop 
standards for openness in knowledge and services. Crucially it acts as a 
hub, drawing together representatives from across the knowledge society 
- from academics, public servants and entrepreneurs to data experts, 
archivists and web developers. Forums and an annual conference serve to 
strengthen this network.

In addition to research and policy work, it contributes to the 
infrastructure for open knowledge users and producers. This includes 
CKAN, a registry of knowledge packages, and KForge, a suite of tools for 
managing software and knowledge projects. It has also initiated several 
open knowledge projects - such as Open Shakespeare and Open Economics.

## 5. Brief explanation of your organization's interest in the digital 
public domain;

COMMUNIA's working definition of the digital public domain broadly 
overlaps with the Open Knowledge Definition (see opendefinition.org). 
There are strong areas of common interest - from scientific research to 
public sector information to creative works. Many of those involved with 
the OKF are academics or professionals engaged in research and policy 
work relating to the digital public domain in its various forms.

## 6. Brief explanation of your organization's specific interest in the 
COMMUNIA project;

We are committed to strengthening the European network of groups and 
individuals interested in open knowledge and the digital public domain. 
Also we are very interested in the various working groups of the 
COMMUNIA project. We have discussed the possibility of initiating 
projects with network members under the auspices of COMMUNIA - such as a 
set of public domain calculators for Europe (to calculate whether or not 
a given work is in the public domain in a given jurisdiction).

## 7. Brief description of what your organization could contribute to 
COMMUNIA, if selected to join the network;

We could commit time and energy to COMMUNIA activities that intersect 
with the aims of the OKF. We would be particularly keen to work on 
project relating to mapping the public domain in Europe, and to 
consolidate the activities of the various competence centres on the 
public domain in Europe. We are also interested in helping to facilitate 
the growth of a shared knowledge base of research and policy work in 
relevant fields. We have experience in organising events such as our 
Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon), domain specific Forums, and technical 
workshops.

The OKF may be able to commit to helping with administrative tasks - 
from event organisation to the preparation and dissemination of 
publications and reports. Most importantly we could bring the expertise 
of our Executive Group, our Advisory Board and our international 
community of volunteers and contributors to the COMMUNIA project.

## 8. Names and short bios of key persons in your organization that 
could be involved in COMMUNIA;

== Rufus Pollock ==

Rufus Pollock is a Founding Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation 
and Mead Fellow in Economics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. 
His research focuses on innovation and IP, with particular attention to 
open models of innovation. Other areas of particular interest include 
two-sided/platform industries (e.g. Operating Systems, Search Engines), 
and research on happiness and well-being.

He is author of The Value of the Public Domain published by the 
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), and co-author of Models of 
Public Sector Information Provision via Trading Funds commissioned by HM 
Treasury and BERR. He is currently working on an European Commission 
funded project analysing the scope and nature of the public domain in 
Europe.

== Jordan Hatcher ==

Jordan has made the study of intellectual property and IT law, 
especially US/UK/EU comparative aspects, his main focus. He is a 
graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, and holds an advanced 
degree in IP and technology law from the University of Edinburgh School 
of Law.

Jordan has worked on a number of projects related to open content and 
copyright, including a study by the CIE about UK public sector use of 
Creative Commons and similar licences in 2005, an Eduserv Foundation 
funded study on use of open content by the cultural heritage sector in 
2007, and on the Creative Commons Scotland localisation in 2005 and in 2007.

He is one of the principal developers of the Open Data Commons project 
and Chair of the Advisory Council for the Open Knowledge Definition.

== Jo Walsh ==

Jo Walsh is a geo-spatial data expert currently working for the European 
Space Agency. She is also Board Member of the Open Source Geo-Spatial 
Foundation and co-author of O'Reilly's Mapping Hacks. Her technical 
interests have been in metadata exchange and the web; the semantic web; 
spatial applications and spatially processing information. She studied 
English at Linacre College and Magdalen College at Oxford University.

== Jonathan Gray ==

Jonathan Gray is Operations Manager at the Open Knowledge Foundation. He 
studied at Cambridge University, the Open University and is currently 
doing research at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has a 
background in the library sector. He recently sat on the programme 
committees of I-SEMANTICS '08, Graz and Linked Data on the Web 
(LDOW2008), Beijing.

## 9. Any other relevant information that could convince the COMMUNIA 
members to select your organization rather than other applicants.

In addition to working with other European groups and networks, we work 
closely with international organisations - from Creative Commons, the 
Internet Archive, SPARC, W3C, F/OSS groups and others. Our diverse 
technical experience could also prove to be valuable.