Posts from 2022

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,...

Posted in philanthropy

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...

Posted in open

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...

Posted in philanthropy
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Welcome Jeni and Diarmaid!

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...

Posted in announcements
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Introducing: Jeni Tennison

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...

Posted in announcements
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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...

Posted in announcements