Presenters/Heather Ford/Biography
Heather Ford is the Executive Director of iCommons and is based in Johannesburg. iCommons is a relatively new organisation, incubated by Creative Commons, with the goal of bringing together the various 'streams' of the global commons movement. Once a year, iCommons hosts the iCommons Summit (last year in Rio http://www.icommons.org/isummit/, this year in Dubrovnik) where we bring together people who practice commons-based peer production in the areas of free software, open access, Creative Commons, access to knowledge and free culture communities around the world.
We're also continuing to broaden the communities who are involved in the debates around how best to grow the commons of knowledge and culture to include those who are discussing the role of 'piracy' in Asia, for example, decentralized distribution of local films in Nigeria and local music in Brazil called 'Tecno Brega' which has been distributed without the need for copyright controls. Above all, iCommons is determined to introduce a new diversity to debates around the commons, requiring a new focus on countries of the South in our work. This is hopefully where I can provide the most input to Wikimedia - and hopefully develop some partnerships as well.