Posts from 2022
by Chris McGivern, 1 September 2022
Sean and Chris joined us in September 2019, just a few months before the world went into lockdown. While the pandemic undoubtedly impacted their experience of the Fellowship, we are delighted at how they overcame its disruption to advance openness in both their projects. They are exceptional individuals working on distinct challenges, yet share a deep determination to ensure everything we know about the world is informed by truth, equity, and justice. Both have made...
by SF Team, 19 July 2022
We explored a variety of different methods, continuously iterating and tweaking our model to unlock a better, more effective way of giving. Our preference to measure progress rather than demand results has borne fruit: the community has blossomed to 56 Fellows and each individual has made significant contributions to the world, their respective fields, and the open movement. But all experiments must have an end. Sadly, it is time for us to begin writing our...
Compliance: A Baseline, Not A Goal
by Chris McGivern, Helen Turvey, Karien Bezuidenhout, Shannon Dosemagen and Delphine Halgand-Mishra, 7 April 2022
Discussing compliance will not make you a popular guest at parties, but perhaps it’s a subject more deserving of an audience. It is a vital part of the plumbing of functioning societies, impacting and influencing everyone. Organisations must comply with industry and government regulations to avoid censure and investigation. Employees must comply with codes of conduct to keep their jobs. Social compliance keeps us all in line with the behavioural expectations of our peers, neighbours,...
Drifting & Grifting From Open to Fauxpen
by Chris McGivern, Helen Turvey, Adam Hyde and Peter Murray-Rust, 1 April 2022
Yet the open Internet is also an example of how openness is not a permanent state. It is always under attack, regardless of whether we apply its concepts and values to the web, data, software, hardware, science, or publishing. As advocates of an open knowledge society, we should celebrate how far the open movement has come in just over a couple of decades. But equally, we can never take our progress for granted. Some threats...
20 Years On: Reflections From the Frontier of Philanthropy
by Chris McGivern, 24 March 2022
Our experiment to re-imagine philanthropy has made the Foundation a very different organisation from the one it resembled in 2001. It’s been a long, sometimes bumpy, but mostly positive journey into maturity. As individuals, we have - hopefully - gained a little wisdom to accompany our wrinkles and wanted to collect our thoughts to pause and reflect on our story so far. We hope you will find something useful in Field Notes From the Frontier...
by Chris McGivern & SF Team, 1 March 2022
We are thrilled to welcome our new intake to the Fellowship community and would like to offer our gratitude to Nicole Wong, our Honorary Steward for the 2022 round, for her thoughtful guidance and input throughout a selection process that included a compelling shortlist of candidates. Nicole works at the intersection of law, emerging technologies, and public policy. She is a powerful voice for human rights and justice, and an advocate for freedom of expression...
by Chris McGivern & SF Team, 28 February 2022
Introducing: Jeni Tennison Background: A data expert bringing open values to the field of data governance. Idea: ‘Connected by data’ - an open, participatory model of data governance that puts community at the centre of decisions about data. The Problem The current framing of data protection has convinced us to see privacy as the pre-eminent human right, and personal data as personal property. Rules and practices are modelled on the concept of individual consent and...
Introducing: Diarmaid McDonald
by Chris McGivern & SF Team, 28 February 2022
Introducing: Diarmaid McDonald Background: An activist, organiser, and advocate for access to medicines. Idea: Just Treatment - a patient-led campaign group fighting for fair access to high-quality healthcare The Problem Who benefits from the privatisation of our healthcare and monopolisation of our medicine? It isn’t the untold millions who are denied access to life-saving treatment. It isn’t the grieving families of patients whose anguish for their dying children, partners or parents is accentuated by the...
