Team members as of 1/06/2020:
Corinna Cath-Speth, Cultural anthropologist of technology governance
Corinne Cath-Speth is a PhD student at the Oxford Internet Institute and Alan Turing Institute for AI. She is a cultural anthropologist studying Internet governance culture. Her PhD presents an ethnographic case study of human rights NGOs working in Internet governance organizations. She is interested in the Internet companies most people have never heard of but use every day and the human rights organizations targetting them to develop “human rights-respecting” computer code. Her other research interests include AI governance, digital activism and the politics of emoji design.
Prior to joining Edgeryders and the OII, she worked as a policy officer for the digital team of human rights NGO ARTICLE 19 and as a policy advisor for the US House of Representatives. She has an MSc in Social Science of the Internet from the University of Oxford and an MA in International Relations from the University of Utrecht.
Andreja Lepen
Unit coordinator, Edgeryders
Andreja is EarthOS, Edgeryders’ Climate Unit coordinator, project manager and Be.Funded owner. A political scientist by education with a Master in Public Relations and Political Communication. With more than 7 years of experience in the field of the EU policies and EU funding she has developed strong expertise in policy analysis, project management, stakeholder relations and communication. As a unit coordinator she is involved in different work from project management, communication to event management.
Marina Batinić, Research Coordinator
Research coordinator and project manager, specialized in cultural and arts management, education, and heritage with the M.A. degrees from Croatian, French and Spanish Universities. Experienced in European projects and international cooperation. Co-founder of the Culture Hub Croatia which aims to strengthen the local cultural and creative sector and foster cross-sectorial innovation through participatory projects and community building initiatives.
Giovanni Calia
Born in '82, has lived in 11 cities of 4 nations in 16 years cultivating a long experience in Marketing and Media. After a long period abroad decides to return to his own city, Matera, to be close to the his family and his beloved niece. He loves the crimping of crickets and cicadas, the infinite skies of southern Italy and the tales of the southern elders.
Leonie Schulte
Leonie Schulte is a linguistic anthropologist with a focus on language policy and migration. She is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. Leonie’s research investigates the relationship between language, integration and belonging in contemporary Germany, for which she has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Berlin on the experiences of refugees and migrants enrolled in state-funded language integration programmes.
Leonie holds an MSc in Social Anthropology and an MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology, both from the University of Oxford. In 2019, she was a Visiting Student Research Collaborator at Princeton University’s Department of Anthropology.
Maria Euler, Community Manager
Interdisciplinary artist and design researcher as well as a community manager for edgeryders with a background in physics, fine art and a Master in Information Experience Design from the Royal Collge of Art. She searches for points of connection and entry, between disciplines, complex scientific concepts, discussion, emotional and tangible experiences and people. She pursues research studies and art-science collaborations as for example with the Bristol Laboratory for Quantum Computing and exhibited interactive installations at venues and festivals across Europe such as Sonar+D, I-Gem and VrSci. Currently, she is also involved in the PLATO project. Her goal is to enable different approaches and connections to increase the diversity and creativity of the discourse on art, science and technology. You can see some of her works here: http://mariaeuler.com/
Owen Gothill
Developer for front end applications based in Brussels, working on functionality and user interfaces that extend our connection with members and collaborators on the platform, as well as new opportunities to bind our community and strengthen our common goals.
Zmorda Jedidi
Data scientist, with previous experiences in the supply chain management field, during the past ten years, Zmorda developed a real interest in social entrepreneurship. She started contributing as a marketing manager with the Enactus team at her engineering school.
As a participant of the Mobnet exchange program, she conducted a study to evaluate the profitability of the social innovation hubs and co-working spaces based in Europe and North Africa by exploring their income-generating activities. Moreover, she contributed to designing ideation, incubation programs, and events with local NGOs in Tunisia and within the Edgeryders community. Furthermore, she held the position of social innovation advisor of the social incubator program for Women Charek’ in Tunis.
She is also the co-founder and operations manager of OCI Lab, the first online peer to peer incubator in MENA.
Daniel Hires, Community Manager
Daniel is a TCK born in Korea and raised between Germany and the US. He spent 8 years building and growing the social innovation ecosystem in Berlin and Germany. He co-founded MakeSense in Berlin, a global community that engages citizens in social innovation, facilitated and trained facilitators of design thinking workshops, and works with impact startups as coach, trainer, and mentor. He also founded the Silent Climate Parade Berlin, a silent disco parade as an artivist demonstration for a sustainable future and has spoken about community activism at TEDx. More recently, he helped UN Environment on building community and rethinking their green startup incubation program across 8 MENA countries from Lebanon to Morocco. Read more on his website.
Kaja Farszky
Professional musician working in the international field of contemporary music. Born in Croatia, has been educated in Zagreb, Barcelona and Ghent, and based in Brussels since 2016. Funding member and co-artistic director of the collective Down the Rabbit Hole in Belgium since 2017. Among being a professional musician, she is interested in production work and keeps expanding her skills along side of playing music. She joined Edgeryders in winter 2019 as administrative assistant. For more info of her work visit www.kajafarszky.com
Volha Martynenka
MFA, born in Minsk, Belarus. Connection to local communities and social activism have always been important to me while growing up in the post-Soviet country. People there are used to mistrust the authorities and to rely on mutual support. I have a background in journalism, social activism, and art. I was studying media art at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and participated in numerous multidisciplinary exhibitions and festivals, used to teach video art in Minsk.
I am good at learning languages and able to speak Polish, Russian, Belarusian, German, and English fluently. In 2018-2019 I took part in the Lane Kirkland Scholarship program at the University of Wroclaw. Currently, I work in tech as a project manager.
Matteo Uguzzoni
An architect and a game designer. His practice focus on creating transformative experience blending real life game and theater based in Baltimore, US. He designed project that spans from a chase zombie night experience until the global roadshow presentation of world leading brands. Passing through pervasive games, e-learning, immersive experience, pitch workshops and products to improve our way to live and work. Co-Founder of Livello7 and Urban Games Factory. Project Manager of the Nomadic branch of Trust in Play - the European School of Urban Game Design.
Host of “the Playcast” a podcast about urban games, immersive experience and everything in between.
Urban Games Factory – esperienze immersive-interattive, http://trustinplay.eu/ , theplaycast.co