Candidates

• Shawn Ames
• Leah Belsky
• Jaume Canellas Galindo
• Walker Fenton
• Nikil Gandhy
• David Mark Medinets
• Chris Messina
• John Norman
• Jay Parikh
• Jim Risner
• Krishna Sankar
• Roberto Scano
• Joseph Smarr

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Shawn Ames

Affiliation:

Franchise Circle.com

Biography:

Shawn Ames is the founder and CEO of Franchise Circle.com, the worlds’ first social networking site for franchising founded in 2006 with funding from JetBlue founder David Neeleman.

While at Franchise Circle, Mr. Ames went on to continue to innovate interactive technology for the franchise industry, going on to launch the Franchisar brand, the first technology to integrate Webinars, eLearning, and Online Lead Generation.

Prior to founding Franchise Circle.com, Shawn provided interactive consulting services to the most innovative companies in the world including G2, JetBlue, Modem Media, Play N Trade, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and Nutrition Capital

Shawn received his Bachelors Degree from the University of Toledo Business School with a specific focus on Ecommerce, International Business, and Japanese language.

While at the University of Toledo, Shawn did his internship at the prestigious Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, and completed graduate coursework towards his MA in Media Arts, focusing on Screenwriting and Design.

Shawn is an expert in website design, Web 2.0, interactive marketing in the verticals of franchising, travel, ecommerce, and retail.

Mr. Ames lives in Greenwich, CT and has a passion for chess, squash, travel, and tennis.

Reason for wanting to serve:

To find ways to benefit the world using social networking science and technology.

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Leah Belsky

Affiliation:

Information Society Project, Yale Law School

Kaltura Inc.
Noank Media Inc.

Biography:
Leah Belsky is a Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project and a former VP of Global Strategy and Product Development at Noank Media, a spin-off start-up of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School launching in China. She is one of the true experts in the policy of the social web who understands both the technologies, laws, and social dynamics shaping its future. Leah trained in technology and intellectual property law at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and Yale Law School, where she worked on a range open licensing, online privacy, and technology policy initiatives. She studied user interface and online collaborative community design as part of Yochai Benkler's cooperation research group at Harvard University and recently presented a paper on online coopoperation at iCommons iSummit '08 in Japan. She is actively involved in designing community media platforms for private companies and non-profits and brings significant global experience and perspective to her work. Before law school Leah worked as a filmmaker and distribution consultant to leading film organizations in the US, including PBS and Film Independent. She specialized in leveraging new media tools, online networks, and business models for global media distribution. Leah also worked at the World Bank, where she won the Youth Innovation Award and managed public-private development and media sector projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Leah has a BA from Brown University, where she was co-founder of the Internet company InvesTogether.

Reason for wanting to serve:
As someone who has participated in and followed OpenSocial since its founding, I am keenly aware the alliance's potential power and of the early legal and organizational challenges OpenSocial will face. By serving on the Board, I hope to enable OpenSocial to address the intellectual property, data privacy, and global licensing concerns that are essential to its success. My interest in OpenSocial stems from experience designing community platforms for private and non-profit groups and from academic research on peer production and online cooperation completed at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. I have a strong belief in the power of the Internet to enable global online collaboration and innovation but recognize that this potential will be significantly limited if the dominant social platform that emerges is closed and proprietary. As a community board representative, I hope to represent and bridge divides between developers, users, and business execs, help grow the alliance globally, and enable the community to navigate early legal and organizational challenges that might prevent adoption of OpenSocial.

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Jaume Canellas Galindo

Affiliation:

http://www.xn--jaumecaellas-ghb.com

Biography:

Since 1989 Dr. Jaume Cañellas i Galindo, claimed publicly that the specialty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is essential to prevent mental illness of adults. In this sense, says that data from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that a third of all internationally classified mental disorders (DSM IV TR and ICD-10) are produced specifically in childhood and adolescence, although there are other disorders such as neurotic or schizophrenia, which usually start in these stages of life. It adds that over eighty percent of all mental illnesses in adults, have their roots in childhood and / or adolescence.

Finally in 2007, Dr. Jaume Cañellas, along with several associations, families whose children have mental disorders detected and other child psychiatrists, driving the creation of the first Platform for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Spain.

This Platform part of the premise that mental illness in childhood and adolescence have specific characteristics that, by themselves justify the existence of a medical specialty itself, since it is not known whether psycho-affective development and peculiar psychiatric characteristics to the child and adolescent stage, could be overlooked aspects in the future could become severe mental disorders or diseases in adults.

Jaume Cañellas further recalls that the international association for Psychiatry of children and adolescents and related professions (IACAPAP) recommends, from the Declaration of Budapest from 14 May 1992, that each nation carries out a plan for the recognition and support the specialty of psychiatry of children and adolescents, clinical psychology and related professions relating to the mental development of children.

This lack of specification of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , according to Jaume Cañellas ago in Spain that historically there is a high incidence of overdiagnosis and infradiagnosis of children with mental disorders or diseases. Because you can not leave the child and adolescent mental health in the hands of professionals who are not specialized in this field.

Reason for wanting to serve:

Is a form of social interaction, defined as a dynamic exchange between individuals, groups and institutions in contexts of complexity. An open and permanent construction that involves sets that are identified in the same needs and problems and that are organized to leverage their resources.

A fragmented society into isolated minorities, discrimination, which has devitalized their networks linkings, people with no role in processes transformers, was sentenced to a restricted democracy. Intervention Network is a thoughtful attempt and organizer of these interactions and exchanges, where the subject is based on differentiating itself from others. 

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Walker Fenton

Affiliation: 

NewsGator

Biography:

Fenton began his career in the Internet working for Netcom Online Communications, the first nationwide dial-up Internet Service Provider, and has since been involved with several start-ups including dbDoctor, Inc. and Xaffire, Inc. Walker received a BA in Economics from Colby College and has an MBA from Regis University.

Reason for wanting to serve:

As the General Manager of NewsGator’s Saas business, I am responsible for NewsGator’s OpenSocial integration (NewsGator was an OpenSocial launch partner). I have close ties with our media clients (CNN, USA Today, Reuters, Discovery, CBS and others), and I understand how large media companies are using technologies like OpenSocial for content syndication and audience interaction. My background is in product – I will bring a ‘real use’/product driven perspective to the board, with real use cases from large media clients. I believe it is important to have product representation at the board level – specifically for media companies as there is a fantastic opportunity to encourage them to adopt, promote and distribute OpenSocial.

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Nikil Gandhy

Affiliation:

Slide.com

Biography:

Nik is the engineering manager for Slide's FunSpace, the largest social platform application on the Internet. At Slide, Nik's team actively develops on both the OpenSocial and Facebook platforms. Nik is currently working on an internal OpenSocial framework that allows multiple applications to perform optimally on many of the popular OpenSocial platforms. Prior to that, he developed SuperPoke!, another popular social application. Before coming to Slide, Nik had a variety of programming and company experiences - first at Veoh where he was able to significantly increase publication traction. Afterwards, he joined Microsoft to help ship .Net 3.0 and the Windows Communication Foundation. Nik graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Computer Systems.

Reason for wanting to serve:

In my role at Slide, I have come to know the strengths and weaknesses of OpenSocial platform as well as competing social platform technologies. I gained significant practical experience with OpenSocial while creating Slide's first OpenSocial applications and designing a framework to work with multiple platforms. I'd like to use a spot on the OpenSocial board in order to help improve the platform in ways that enable application developers to invent, iterate, and succeed faster -- all while providing users the best experience.

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David Mark Medinets

Affiliation:

General Dynamics

Biography:

I love developing software that enables business to succeed. My

passion is the creation of flexible systems that respond to rapid

changes in business needs. I employ testing disciplines to ensure

success. While my development preference is Ruby, Java and SQL, I have

worked with other languages as needed. I have never failed to produce

a working application. My forté is understanding complex business

requirements beyond the scope of the average developer.

Reason for wanting to serve:

Social networks have the potential to be world-changing. For example,

kiva.org helped over 90,000 people last year. With better social

networks (faster, cheaper, less friction), how many more people could

be helped? Beyond financial, there are disaster relief efforts that

could be helped. Why should governments need to recreate a social

network for a particular disaster. Couldn't we simply create an

application that plugs itself into facebook, myspace and any other

site with a common api to form an instant network of people within a

given town or zipcode?

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Chris Messina

Affiliation:

Vidoop

Biography:

Chris Messina arrived in San Francisco four years ago and began volunteering for the Mozilla Foundation, leading the Spread Firefox community marketing project, helping to raise over $220,000 in microdonations to put a two-page spread, which he also designed, into the New York Times helping to increase Firefox's downloads to over 50 million in its first six months.

He went on to co-found social web browser Flock. Later, he co-founded Citizen Agency, and was named one of the Digital Utopians and People Who Populate Web 2.0 in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006 after his work on WineCamp.

Chris now works for Vidoop, LLC, a provider of secure internet identity, on a distributed social network project called DiSo that he co-founded with Steve Ivy in December 2007.

He has spoken at numerous conferences around the world and has been quoted in national publications such as The New York Times, Business Week, LA Times, MIT Technology Review and Wired. Chris is well-known in the Web 2.0, open source, and startup worlds for his community advocacy and work on open standards initiatives like microformats, OpenID and OAuth. He has been a key leader of worldwide community efforts such as Coworking and BarCamp.

Reason for wanting to serve:

OpenSocial serves an increasingly important role as a cental body dedicated to the development and architecture of the social web. That the components of the social web are easily implementable by all, and are open and non-proprietary is critical to the ongoing improvement of the social web, but it is not enough. The OpenSocial Foundation, and similarly the Open Web Foundation, must be charged with ensuring that an open and competitive marketplace thrives, and that its products support and reflect the needs and realities of large and small providers alike.

For the past year I have been working on the DiSo Project, an effort to facilitate the design and development of "The Open Stack" -- a set of technologies designed to enable decentralized social networking. A number of the components of the DiSo Project also form the foundation of OpenSocial (namely OpenID, OAuth and Portable Contacts API).

My experience leading the Spread Firefox project, co-founding the Flock browser, BarCamp and coworking communities and being an early and active member of the OpenID, OAuth and microformats communities provides me with perspective to tell the story of the open social web — in terms of where it's been and where it's going.

Personally I'd like to be involved in branding and socializing conversations, in advocacy and liaising with external groups. I also have a background in design and a passion for user experience design.

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John Norman

Affiliation:

University of Cambridge

Biography:

I direct an innovation group at the University of Cambridge that is using Shindig/OpenSocial to build academic networks. I am currently the elected Chair of the Sakai Foundation Board. Sakai is an open-source collaboration suite for Higher Education (www.sakaiproject.org). I also Chair the Information Stratagy Working Group at the University of Cambridge.

Prior to joining the University in 2002, I worked in several medical device startups in the US and in Europe, raising funds (>$20 million total) and managing Business Development. The most successful startup (Summit Technology Inc.) reached a peak market capitalisation of over $1 Billion.

I have also worked as an engineer in the Oil industry and the Iron and Steel industry. I have an MBA and 3 years of Technology Strategy consultancy experience - advising some of the world’s largest corporations.

I enjoy sailing, am married with two young boys and speak French and Spanish.

Reason for wanting to serve:

I believe the OpenSocial initiative contributes to the beginnings of a new understanding about how to successfully link people and share knowledge. I wish to support that initiative and help it grow beyond its current scope into a ubiquitous facilitator for systems that seek to bring people together. I would like to apply the lessons learned in the establishment of the Sakai Foundation in a larger setting and to continue develop an understanding of how to establish and sustain open processes. The Sakai Foundation community has similarities with OpenSocial with a mix of, sometimes divergent, corporate interests and individual member interests.

Over time, I would also like to ensure that the Foundation develops a good relationship with standards bodies so that the specification can develop into a full standard.

I see the role of the Board as stewardship of the specification and development of the community to sustain adoption and increase OpenSocial’s reach and penetration. I am aware of the personal time such volunteer positions can absorb and am prepared to commit my time to this enterprise because I think the rewards to society from improved communication are invaluable.

You should know that I am not a great public speaker and my value as an ambassador for the project will be limited, but I would bring honesty, integrity and hard work to the role with a deep personal belief in the value of the OpenSocial initiative.

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Jay Parikh

Affiliation:

Ning

Biography:
Jay Parikh
Senior Vice President, Ning Inc.
Mr. Parikh is passionate about technology, platforms, and leading innovative product development. Currently, Mr. Parikh is the Senior Vice President of Product Engineering at Ning where he oversees the product development, engineering, and operations teams. This team is responsible for creating and scaling Ning's social networking platform that today powers nearly 500,000 social networks. Prior to joining Ning, Mr. Parikh was the Vice President of Engineering at Akamai Technologies. During his nine years at Akamai, Mr. Parikh led the product engineering teams responsible for many of the distributed delivery and acceleration solutions used by the majority of Akamai’s customers.

Reason for wanting to serve:
I have been involved with OpenSocial since the .5 days and I think Ning’s represents a very unique implementation of the specification. We are now over 500,000 social networks today and each one can be an OpenSocial container hosting OpenSocial gadgets. We also have a vested interest in the success of Shindig long term since Brian M and I were involved with the original idea around Shindig. And we’ll be live with our newest version of OpenSocial tomorrow night- hope you’ll check it out and the new http://developer.ning.comsite ☺ !!!

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Jim Risner

Affiliation:

Votigo, Inc.

Biography:

As the co-founder and President of Votigo, Inc., one of the initial OpenSocial Launch Partners, Jim has been heavily involved in creating and enhancing OpenSocial applications such as "Rate My Friends", "Rate People", and "Rate My Photos" since the inception of the OpenSocial Platform. "Rate People" on Orkut touches over 5MM unique users per month with over 25MM page views per month. Votigo helps brands such as Kohl's, L'oreal, Victoria's Secret PINK, Gamefly, Pandora, and NBC Universal better engage and communicate with their customers through the use of social media. Before founding Votigo, Jim spent over 10 years at various Internet companies. Most recently he was the Vice President of Interactive Design at United Online (NetZero, Juno, Classmates) where he spent 7 years overseeing the web design, development, and overall online consumer experience. Prior to United Online, Jim helped start a number of Internet companies including AimTV, Inc. (acquired by NetZero) where he was the Director of Web Development. Previously, he was the Director of Web Development for Nine O'clock New Media and began his career as a Web Developer for RandomNoise, Inc. (acquired by Vignette). Jim holds his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Reason for wanting to serve:

As a pioneer in social network application design and development I am a true believer in the benefits for both businesses and users of the applications. I want to lend my expertise to the OpenSocial Foundation so that we can continue to make strides toward a more open and social web.

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Krishna Sankar

Affiliation:

Cisco Systems Inc

Biography:

Krishna Sankar, is a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco Systems Inc. He has varied experience, from developer to consultant to entrepreneur to author. Currently he is focusing on the Web 2.0 Enterprise Edition - Social Networks, iPhone and mobility, Cloud Computing, the GIS and GeoWeb. He is working on his Cisco Press book “A Hitchhiker's Guide to Web 2.0 Enterprise Edition”. Krishna has experience in various standard bodes from W3C,OASIS, European Union Task forces (ETSi Electronic Signature STF) et al. He was the elected member of OASIS TAB as well as elected to the exec board of the Java Community Process. He is also working on an independent implementation of OpenSocial (verrry slowly!) A quick profile at http://superhappydevhouse.org/The-pitter-patter-of-small-feats.

Reason for wanting to serve:

I believe that for a domain to mature, it needs a set of systemic interfaces and programming models, which are pragmatic as well as conformance across multiple implementations. OpenSocial is on its way there and I would like to be one of the guides, as a part of the board. Another of my passion is the intersection between the social graph and knowledge graph to be an integral part of the Web CE (Consumer Edition) as well as Web EE (Enterprise Edition). In this regard, I believe that OpenSocial needs to add more enterprise features and would like to champion that direction. Finally I want to participate and contribute to the effort and community in different ways.

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Roberto Scano

Affiliation:

IWA/HWG

Biography:

Roberto Scano is the EMEA Coordinator for IWA/HWG and through

numerous initiatives, since 2001, has been a leader in the Web industry by

establishing and promoting Web Standards; Mr. Scano is the AC Representative

for IWA/HWG inside W3C and involve inside Working Group IWA specialists for

developing new specifications. He works also inside ISO and CEN, and with

Italian government for laws about accessibility.

Reason for wanting to serve:

IWA shall continue to support the creation and

promotion of Web standards, especially Open Standards. We are interested to

involve our skilled members for develop open standards.

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Joseph Smarr

Affiliation:

Plaxo

Biography:

Joseph Smarr is Chief Platform Architect at Plaxo. He is currently leading Plaxo’s “Open Social Web” initiative to put users back in control of who they know when using socially-enabled sites by using open data-sharing standards. An active participant in the Web 2.0 community, Joseph has built web applications for many years, including Plaxo’s online address book, web widgets, and was architect and lead developer of the Plaxo 3.0 rich AJAX address book, calendar, and sync tool. Joseph has a BS and MS from Stanford University in Artificial Intelligence.

 

Reason for wanting to serve:

I have been a passionate advocate for opening up the social web for many years. My work spans a large number of technical projects—OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, XRDS-Simple, microformats, FOAF, Portable Contacts, XMPP, etc.—with a focus on how we can “put the pieces together” to enable a user-centric social ecosystem on the web. OpenSocial is clearly an important part of this equation, and as such, I’ve been involved in OpenSocial since its inception—in fact, I built and launched the first public OpenSocial container (on Plaxo Pulse) back in November 07. I’ve been actively involved since then, most recently spearheading the successful alignment of Portable Contacts and OpenSocial’s RESTful Protocol, so that there can be truly a single standard for accessing people data across the web. As an active participant in many of the Open Web projects and communities outside of OpenSocial, I believe I can also be an effective emissary between these complementary efforts, which will be essential in ensuring that these projects continue to co-evolve harmoniously. I am also an outspoken evangelist for opening up the social web in general, and am a frequent speaker at conferences and other industry events, so “flying the flag” of OpenSocial will come naturally to me, and I believe my reputation and existing audience will help me do this in a meaningful way. In summary, I’m deeply familiar with the technical aspects, people, and larger context of OpenSocial, and I want to help ensure and further its success.