Today we are delighted to announce that the Board of Directors of Open Knowledge Foundation has appointed Renata Avila to be the new CEO of Open Knowledge Foundation – effective from October 4th 2021.
Board Chair, Vanessa Barnett, said that Renata was selected after a long and extremely competitive process, over many months.
Renata Avila (1981, Guatemala) is an international Human Rights lawyer and digital rights advocate. Throughout her career, Renata has successfully built a global network of networks advancing a decolonial, peoples-centric approach to open technologies and knowledge, as tools to advance rights and create stronger communities.
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Commenting on her appointment, Renata said
‘I am honoured to be appointed as the new CEO of Open Knowledge Foundation, which plays such an important role in the international open knowledge movement. Without openness, global actions against climate change cannot scale. Without removing the barriers to accessing knowledge, no real solution against misinformation will be ever found. Without including everyone, and equipping people with skills to transform data into actionable knowledge, open data is just an enabler of the powerful. Never before was our mission more urgent than today.’
She went on to say:
‘My goal in the upcoming months is to work together with our global network in designing the open knowledge ecosystem of tomorrow, with tools, strategies, governance structures and communities that are both shielded from abuses, exclusion and data extractivism, and enabled to create, connect and advance our positive agenda. Our vision for an open future.’
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
