Hello I'm ADRIANA GROH

Adriana is the director of Prototype Fund and responsible for the further development of the program, the projects’ network and controlling. She studied Public Policy and Democratic Innovations in Maastricht and did research on participation in the EU. Previously she was a Fellow at LaunchBase Incubator and Social Impact Lab Frankfurt. After her studies she founded the project Wepublic and started a Civic-Tech-App for the federal election 2017 at the Code for Germany Wahlsalon event.

Hello I'm DAVY KESTENS

I’m the CEO and founder of Cake. At age 23 I moved to Silicon Valley, where I founded Sparkcentral, an enterprise customer service software company. This startup grew to over 100 people with over $45m in funding. In 2018, at age 30, I stepped down as the company’s CEO to build Cake, a free banking app that analyzes financial data to help people better understand, control and improve their personal finances. As a cherry on the cake we share our revenue with our users.

Hello I'm DOUG BELSHAW

I help people and organisations become more productive in their uses of technology. I'm currently splitting my time between leading the MoodleNet project and working with We Are Open Co-op. These days, I spend a lot of time talking about decentralisation, but I'm perhaps best known for my work on digital literacies. I'm an evangelist for digital credentials, most notably Open Badges. It was the original reason I joined the Mozilla Foundation back in 2012.

Hello I'm FATMA SÜMER

Fatma is novice front-end developer, HackYourFuture Belgium alumni, master’s degree student at KU Leuven, psychometrician who is currently improving her front-end coding skills while writing her thesis on performance assessment of scientific reasoning skills of K-12 students.

Hello I'm JAN AINALI

Jan started contributing to the commons a long time ago as a Wikipedian and later became the CEO of Wikimedia Sverige after co-founding the chapter and being its chairman. Then he started a consultancy called Open by Default, in which he walked 1200 km through Sweden evangelizing on the need for open data in the municipalities to further the Sustainable Development Goals. Lately he was a policy advisor on digital issues in the European Parliament for a Swedish green MEP. Now he is a Codebase Steward at the Foundation for Public Code helping public organizations collaborate on open source software.

Hello I'm SADIA VANCAUWENBERGH

Dr. Sadia Vancauwenbergh is heading the Information management and data-analysis section of the Research Coordination Office at ECOOM/Hasselt University. Dr. Vancauwenbergh is Executive Board Member Standards and Classifications for EuroCRIS as well as the Belgian expert for the Working Group Landscape - EOSC Executive Board and Vice Chair at the International Society for Knowledge Organization - Low Countries Chapter.

Hello I'm THOMAS SKOWRON

Thomas Skowron is an independent software consultant from Germany with a decade of experience. He is an OpenStreetMap contributor and active in FOSSGIS. He develops and maintains a variety of Open Source software, contributes small patches everywhere on the way and advocates for more maintenance funding for open infrastructure projects.

Hello I'm KATRIEN BROUWERS

I am a Business Innovation Manager in the Open Banking & Insurance team at KBC, where we push the boundaries of ‘banking’ today and build what it can become in the future. I have a master in Civil engineering from the KULeuven with specialization in chemistry and started my professional career at P&G where I led the product development and innovation strategy for Household products on a Global level. After 16 years, I was ready to push my own boundaries and started at KBC. I am passionate about finding new and different ways to bring value to the customer, our partners AND the company!

Hello I'm VALERI RAJKOVCEVIC

Valeri Rajkovcevic is currently Multilateral Officer for the Brussels-Capital Region and works for International organizations such as UN, Council of Europe, OECD, ILO, etc. Expert in International Human Rights, she advised the Brussels Government during five years in order to implement a person-based physical and digital accessibility strategy for all.

Hello I'm MIKE NOLAN

Mike Nolan a software engineer, FOSS consultant, AI transparency & ethics researcher, and humanitarian aid worker. He is currently working as a consultant with the UNICEF Innovation Fund with regards to FOSS community strategy and AI transparency & ethics as well as a core contributor to OpenMined's federated learning team. He is most interested in how we can build sustainable software that improves the lives of the worlds most vulnerable populations.

Hello I'm JUANITA DEVIS

Juanita Devis is a Researcher in Urban Design at imec City of Things. Her research combines architecture and urban design, technology and computer science, to investigate new strategies for future places of living and work. She is currently involved in the City Flows and the Digital Twin research projects.

Hello I'm KRIS VANHERLE

Kris Vanherle is an engineer at Transport & Mobility Leuven and the founder of the Telraam project. The telraam project publishes a live view on road congestion where you live, as open data.

Hello I'm ELLEN WAUTERS

Ellen WAUTERS holds a master degree in Political Science (2001) and Law (2010). She has experience in media law, intellectual property and consumer law. Before joining CiTiP, she worked as a legal expert GDPR for the social secretariat for notaries, where she was responsible for GDPR compliance in the notary profession. At CiTiP she is part of the Knowledge Centre Data & Society with a focus on AI and also work on the project Spectre, which focuses on smart cities.

Hello I'm DOMINIC ORR

Dr. Dominic Orr works as Research Lead at the Kiron educational platform and NGO. <br> He is Adjunct Professor at the University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia, where he is involved in the Masters for Leadership in Open Education. Recently, he co-authored the report “Making competences visible with open badges”.

Hello I'm SÉVERINE DEGUELDRE

After a Master Degree in Science and Technology of Information & Communication (ULB, 2013), Séverine Degueldre works now at Infrabel (the Belgian Railway Infrastructure Manager) at the Knowledge Center. Since last year, she is working on Infrabel’s Open Data site, gathering the various datasets from the company to describe them and make them available for re-use by everyone.

Hello I'm MATHIAS VAN COMPERNOLLE

Mathias Van Compernolle is a board member of Open Knowledge Belgium and an Open Data researcher at imec-mict-UGent.

Hello I'm HENRI DEWAERHEIJD

Henri Dewaerheijd is the General Manager for Mastercard in Belgium and Luxembourg. He is responsible for market and business development, developing relationships with the financial and retail sector and represents Mastercard with all payment stakeholders. Henri is also involved with HomeSend, a joint venture start-up located in Brussels which is active in international payments where he is the Chairman the Board.

Hello I'm VERONIQUE VOLDERS

Veronique Volders is Solution Manager at the Flemish Agency for Local Authorities. She is in charge of the e-strategy aiming to create community value.

Hello I'm MARC BRUYLAND

Marc is an IT business analyst within the FPS BOSA where he plays an active role in data standardization efforts at both federal and interfederal level.

Hello I'm GABRIEL PLASSAT

Expert for European Commission (INEA, H2020), for ADEME (French Agency for Environment & Energy), advisor for several corporate firms, Gabriel create FabMob (la Fabrique des Mobilités) dedicated on open source x Mobility for creating a new common culture. Writer, speaker and teacher, he aims to inspire major transitions in the field of mobility.

Hello I'm CHRISTIAN DE NEEF

Chris is a seasoned business consultant and project director, working at the crossroads of innovation management, knowledge management & learning organizations. He's the founder and co-owner of FastTrack, a Brussels-based consultancy that facilitates the people side of knowledge and innovation management. FastTrack does focus on change, collaboration, culture, and how these are key ingredients in lasting organizational transformation. A strong advocate for a more democratic, ethical, open and transparent internet, he is deeply involved in several data literacy initiatives

Hello I'm OLHA HNATIV

Olha is Sales and Marketing expert with a 10 year career in small and big companies driving strategies for top-line growth. She holds an MBA degree from SDA Bocconi with focus on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Private Equity. Olha is passionate about empowering individuals and companies with knowledge and tools to help them make conscious decisions about use / misuse of digital privacy in the modern world.

Hello I'm BRAHIM BENICHOU

Brahim BENICHOU is an academic legal researcher at CiTiP. He focuses on the legal and ethical aspects of AI as part of the Knowledge Centre for Data & Society and on the application of the GDPR in both tech and SME environments. He is also Of Counsel at NautaDutilh (Privacy, Cybersecurity and IT) and co-founded myprivacyspecialist.com.

Hello I'm PIETER COLPAERT

Pieter Colpaert is a postdoctoral researcher public Web APIs at Ghent University–IDLab–imec. At Open Knowledge he is the driving force behind the Open Transport working group.

Hello I'm BERT JEHOUL

I am currently working for FOD BOSA DG Digital Transformation in the domain of Innovation. I am an active member of the international Open Badges & Open Recognition community and co-founder of Open Recognition Belgium. I am also an enthusiastic volunteer & member of the board of Open Knowledge Belgium and co-organiser of Civic Lab Brussels & Basic Income Tech meetups. As a freelancer I am a part of the RD Talents Open Badges consultants network and one of the co-founders of BitofTrust.

Hello I'm JEAN-PAUL DE BAETS

Jean-Paul De Baets is a Programme Manager at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Informatics. He is in charge of ISA² Programme portfolio and responsible for the Joinup action. Before joining the Interoperability Unit, Jean-Paul dealt with IT Governance as deputy head of unit of the strategic planning and monitoring unit in the Directorate-General for Informatics. Prior to joining the Commission Jean-Paul was lead architect for the Ministry in charge of the initiation, implementation and assistance of e-government projects for the Federal Government of Belgium.

Hello I'm MARA MENDES

Mara Mendes is currently a Phd candidate at the University of Munster, Germany working on Open data in the Health sector. Mara has a background in working, campaigning and researching on transparency, open data, pen government and public procurement. Organisations she has worked for include the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, Transparency International and various universities.

Hello I'm GÜLŞEN GÜLER

Gülşen is experienced in youth work and holds a Master's degree in communication science from VUB. Throughout her experiences in the field, she saw the ominous correlation between digital and social exclusion and decided to tackle this issue by empowering individuals in the digital age. Her interests revolve around data literacy and how the full potential of data can be unleashed. Gülşen aspires to raise awareness about data literacy and make an appreciable impact on its social perception.

Hello I'm EVAN COLE

Hello I'm THIERRY BROUWER

As Digital Transition Advisor at the Ministry of the French-speaking Community, Thierry is in charge of data and works towards greater transparency in terms of information. He collaborates with the Agence du Numérique de la Région Wallonne on the publication of open data.

Hello I'm JULIÁN ROJAS

Semantic Web and Linked Open Data PhD researcher at UGent - imec_int - IDLabResearch

Hello I'm CHEUK TING HO

After doing research in theoretical physics, Cheuk built a career as a Data Scientist working in the travel business, a consultancy and a global bank. She now brings her knowledge in data and passion for the tech community into TerminusDB as the developer relations lead. Cheuk constantly contributes to the open-source community by giving AI and deep learning workshops and organize sprints to encourage contributions. Cheuk co-organizes AI Club for Gender Minorities to support Diversity and Inclusion.

Hello I'm FANNY GOLDSCHMIDT

Enthusiastic about new technologies and social changes, Fanny Goldschmidt has joined Opendatasoft four years ago to help the company better understand the various data challenges faced by organisations across Europe and find its first users outside France. She has worked with public and private organisations from Belgium, the U.K., Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands or Sweden seeking to launch or to enhance their data sharing initiatives. You can often find her telling tirelessly data sharing stories heard from the organisations she has been working with in Europe.

Hello I'm GEOFFREY SMOLDERS

Hi, I'm Geoffrey Smolders, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Biztory. At Biztory, we are deeply passionate about helping you find answers in data easier and faster. Using industry-leading tools like Tableau, we help you unleash the power of your most valuable assets: your data and your people. Since our launch in 2014 we’ve grown into the #1 preferred Tableau Gold partner in Benelux, established as a top 3 partner in DACH, became a Tableau EMEA Partner of the Year. It's a fantastic ride, and I'm more than happy to show you what it is all about.

Hello I'm RAF BUYLE

Raf is involved in strategic e-Government projects for local and regional governments since 2002. As an advisor in e-government strategy at Informatie Vlaanderen, Raf tries to implement a more rational, interoperable e-government, promoting open data, open standards and open processes. Raf is also a board member of Open Knowledge Belgium. He’s active in the Open Data community, as a policy advisor.

Hello I'm STÉPHANE VINCE

Senior Expert and Manager at Agence du Numérique

Hello I'm HONZA FÖRSTER

Honza is a Senior Software Project Lead at Cognizone (www.cogni.zone), a scale-up in the domain of Data Management, applying Semantic Technologies and Linked Open Data. During recent years, he has been managing and delivering various semantic software projects for the European Commission. Currently, he is responsible for the technical infrastructure of the European classification of Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO).

Hello I'm SANDER VAN DOOREN

Sander Van Dooren works as a systems architect at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Informatics, where he is mainly involved with the Joinup action. He has built software systems for both the private and the public sector. Sander studied embedded software (electronics).

Hello I'm ANNA MAZGAL

Anna Mazgal works for Wikimedia DE as EU Policy Advisor based in Brussels. She carried out advocacy on the copyright reform and currently is involved in discussions on terrorist content regulation and Digital Services Act, bringing in both the human rights perspective and the experience of Wikimedia as a platform of the world's biggest online encyclopedia that also hosts content generated by users. Previously she was head of policy at Centrum Cyfrowe, a Polish think-and-do-tank on digital rights in culture and education.

Hello I'm MATTHIAS VAN WIJNENDAELE

Matthias is a cycling and public works expert and improv player. As advisor to minister Pascal Smet he was responsible for the bike policy in Brussels from 2014-2019. This included the development of infrastructure and cycling & micro-mobility services. He founded Reinventing the Wheel in 2019 in order to help car-centered cities turn into cycling cities. His main inspiration for urban design? His two children growing up in the city.

Hello I'm NICK TROGH

Nick Trogh is the Developer Engagement Lead for Microsoft WE HQ. He’s engaging with professional developers to guide them on the path towards Azure ninja status. His main technology focus is on Cloud, AI and conversational interfaces. Aside from his passion for technology, he’s striving to make the technology industry a more diverse and inclusive place. You can regularly find him as a speaker at tech conferences or meetups, or any place where you find tech enthusiasts.

Hello I'm WILLIAM O'KEEFFE

William O’Keeffe is a policy officer in the Skills and Qualifications Unit in DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. William is managing the implementation of the new Europass platform, including the European Framework for Digital Credentials. William also works on development of key transversal competences, including the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp) and European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (EntreComp). William is on secondment from the Irish Ministry for Education where he worked on international education, qualifications frameworks and recognition.

Hello I'm MARTINE DELANNOY

Martine is a citizen of the world, born in Canada and having lived in several places in Europe and Canada. She studied at the University of Ottawa (Canada) graduating with a bachelor in social sciences with a concentration in economics She has been living in Ghent for the past 22 years. She is the Chief Foresight Officer at Digipolis, co-founder of Cities of People and taskforce leader of foresight within the Eurocities network. In her career she has especially taken up roles with a strategic focus through which her broad and systems thinking adds extra perspectives in order to increase understanding. She has expert knowledge of e-Inclusion, smart cities, public policy, government strategy, citizen participation and future studies.

Hello I'm PIETER-JAN PAUWELS

Pieter-Jan is an innovation lead at Digipolis Gent, the IT Government Agency for Ghent. As part of their Foresight team, he works around the future shift of government services and how open innovation processes can help us towards a more future-oriented and sustainable way of building technology. PJ believes open knowledge and stimulating collaboration between diverse stakeholders are key factors to solve complex societal challenges.

Hello I'm JORAN VAN DAELE

Joran is a dedicated Open Data Manager for the City of Ghent with a successful track record of using city data for open innovation. Through projects, such as PoliVisu and MUV, and events, Joran helps to maximize the potential of open data in Ghent and make its possibilities known to as many people as possible. As organizer of the annual Apps For Ghent hackathon and the open data portal for Ghent, Joran is committed to exploiting the interface between data science and social good.

Hello I'm TOON NELISSEN

Managing Co-Founder of AppSaloon - Board member Open Knowledge Belgium. Maker, Soft- & Hardware developer. Driving force behind Influencair, a group of citizens who want to raise awareness about air pollution by measuring and mapping local air pollution levels in Brussels.

Hello I'm CLAIRE LOVISA

Claire Lovisa, ir. Full-stack developer on all things Say-editor and the Local Decisions as LOD project, proudly building the #WebWeWant at redpencil.io.

Hello I'm RUTGER BEVERS

As founder of Conversation Starter, Rutger has over 4 years experience with building matchmaking software. He is also co-founder of TEDxUHasselt and graduated as computer scientist at Hasselt University.

Hello I'm SOFIA MICHILI

Sofia is a usability and product management expert with more than 6 years experience in tech companies building software products. Her vision is to improve people's lives through technology and her passion is to create digital products that customers love. She is currently working on developing a digital product which will make it easy for people to see how their data is being used and bring more data transparency.

Hello I'm EMIDIO STANI

Emidio Stani is a technical expert in PwC’s Technology Consulting Belgium. He is a consultant active in the fields of semantic and technical interoperability and software engineering. Emidio has been working in the area of open standards and open data mainly for European Commission and for the Flemish Government.

Hello I'm WIM VANCUYCK

I am a consultant who combines in depth business knowledge of supply chain and logistics with a broad technical experience in IT. Most of the projects I do are solution and enterprise architecture and IT strategy. I have a lot of experience in integration projects, both within companies and outside in broader communities. In addition to that, I have a keen interest in applied data and process analytics, big data applications and artificial intelligence.

Hello I'm JOHAN DELAURE

Johan Delaure is a member of the redpencil team with mission to develop and implement distributed data management solutions. He is involved in developing workflow applications natively working on linked data. He holds more than 20 years of experience in defining and realising projects implementing data processing solutions creating new end-user services.

Hello I'm EVELINE VLASSENROOT

Eveline Vlassenroot is a researcher at imec-mict-UGent where she is involved in projects related to e-government and web archiving.

Hello I'm BART HANSSENS

Bart Hanssens is an Interoperability Expert working for the FPS BOSA - DG Digital Transformation, the maintainer of the federal open data portal data.gov.be, member of the federal Open Data Task Force, and the Belgian representative to the EU Multi Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardisation. He is a long-time user of - an contributor to - open standards, open source and open data.

Hello I'm MANON BRULARD

Manon is the co-founder & coordinator at HackYourFuture Belgium. She also works on Diversity and Inclusion at Open Knowledge and is a true Wikipedia lover!

Hello I'm DRIES VANACKER

Dries works as an educational developer and is involved in interdisciplinary innovative projects such as the co-creation of study materials via open source technologies, blended learning, the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment and lecture capture. Currently Dries is also working on the recognition of informal learning via a cities of learning initiative Gentlestudent.gent.

Hello I'm ERIKA PAUWELS

Erika Pauwels, ir. Web architect driving mu-semtech core and Local Decisions as LOD project. Focuses on highly-effective maintainable lovable products at redpencil.io.

Hello I'm FELIX RUIZ DE ARCAUTE

Felix Ruiz de Arcaute, core team member of mu-semtech and no-nonsense dev proudly building the #WebWeWant at redpencil.io.

Hello I'm THOR GALLE

Thor is a master student in Human-Computer Interaction at KTH in Stockholm. Originally from Leuven, he first turned data into insights by participating in open Summer of Code (oSoC) in 2017 and 2018. He has since gathered and used personal data as a hobby and continues to follow keenly the developments of data ownership, digital privacy and humane technology.

Hello I'm LENNERT SCHEPERS

Lennert Schepers is project manager of the geospatial data team at Flanders Marine Institute’s (VLIZ) Data Centre. VLIZ has been involved in data management and open data for more than 20 years. Currently, Lennert his team work on marine data sharing projects such as EMODnet, LifeWatch.be, EurOBIS. Lennert holds a PhD degree in Sciences (UAntwerpen) and a Master degree in Geography (UGent). He dived from coastal marshes, which he studied during his PhD, into the marine open data when he started working for the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ).

Hello I'm EVA VAN DE GAER

She earned a Master degree in Psychology and a Phd in Educational Sciences at the KULeuven, Belgium. She worked as a research fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research (Melbourne, Australia) and as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liège before joining the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training. Currently she is the Flemish coordinator of Europass. This project, funded by the European Commission, aims to facilitate mobility in education and training across Europe.

Hello I'm AAD VERSTEDEN

Aad Versteden, ir. Linked Data guru with a nack for futuristic data projects. Co-created mu-semtech, <3 Open Source. Tech drive of the Local Decisions as LOD project.

Hello I'm LODE SCHEERS

Lode works at meemoo, Flemisch institute for archives.  A full stack Jack of all trades, master in Media-Art, working as IT 

Hello I'm MATHIAS DE SCHRIJVER

Mahias is a policy advisor at Informatie Vlaanderen and responsible for the Flemish Open Data Portal.