Speakers Biographies

Working with the Community: OSS in Public Administrations   SPEAKERS (by alphabetical order) Please note:  All Speakers to be confirmed!
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh	Rishab Aiyer Ghosh is Founding International and Managing Editor of First Monday, the most widely read peer-reviewed on-line journal of the Internet. He is Programme Leader at MERIT/International Institute of Infonomics at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands. He speaks frequently at conferences on the socio-economics of the Internet and free/open source software, most recently at the UNCTAD Commission, Geneva.   Mr. Ghosh coordinated the European Union funded FLOSS project, the most comprehensive study of free/libre/open source users and developers, coordinates the follow-on FLOSSPOLS project on policy support, and the new FLOSSWorld project conducting studies in 8 non-EU countries. He is actively involved in initiatives related to government policy on open source, and conducts research funded by the EU, the Dutch government and the US National Science Foundation.
Karel De Vriendt	Karel De Vriendt has recently been appointed head of the IDABC unit in the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission.  After having obtained a degree in nuclear engineering and a post-graduate degree in informatics, he worked 7 years in private industry (as a software engineer) before joining the European Commission.  Within the Commission he worked as a project officer for what is now the Information Society and Media DG and then spent 12 years in various operational IT functions.  He has been involved in the introduction of electronic mail within the Commission, the connection of the Commission network with the Internet and later became responsible for user support and IT training.  His last function before joining the IDABC unit has been head of unit responsible for the development of a number of the Commission's internal administrative systems.
Till Jaeger	Dr. Till Jaeger is a Munich based attorney at law and member of the Institute for Legal Questions on Free and Open Source Software (ifrOSS) in Germany which he co-founded in 2000 to perform research on legal questions regarding the Open Source model. ifrOSS was involved in several legislative projects on the national and European level, such as the implementation of the EU Information Society Directive in Germany, the German “Copyright License Act” and the discussion on the proposal for a directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. Dr. Jaeger is partner of the law firm Jaschinski Biere Brexl (JBB Rechtsanwälte). Established in 1999, JBB Rechtsanwälte is a so called “boutique” for legal matters arising out of the complex high-tech, entertainment and information technology industry. According to the firm’s policy, JBB advises a wide range of companies exclusively in our practice areas Intellectual Property, IT and Telecommunications, Media, Entertainment and Unfair Competition.  Dr. Jaeger has published several articles and books related to legal questions of Free and Open Source Software, amongst others “Open Source Software - Rechtsfragen der Freien Software”, Munich 2002 (together with Axel Metzger) and “Die GPL erläutert und erklärt”, Köln 2005 (together with other ifrOSS members).
Jens Mundhenke	Jens Mundhenke has a Master of Economics and a Master of Business Studies from Kiel University in Germany and a Diploma in International Business from University College Dublin, Ireland. Since July 2000 he has been working as a Research Associate at the Kiel Institute for World Economics, one of the leading economic research institutes in Germany. Mr. Mundhenk is doing research on competition policy in the New Economy and on microeconomic aspects of network and information goods. He is working on his Ph.D. in economics on the impact of Open Source Software and he also acted as a consultant on these topics for the German Ministry of Economics and Labour.   Please see http://www.ifw-kiel.de/staff/mundhenke_e.htm  for further details.
Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz	Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz has an interdisciplinary profile as lawyer and 20 years of IT experience (Document & Imaging architect). Mr. Schmitz dedicated himself to ICT consultancy at an early stage specialising in legal and factual information systems, achieving databases and studies related to European and national laws. At Unisys Belgium, he is in charge of management consulting for the European Union, delivering studies and prototyping related to e-Government policies, including Open Source Software and the Justice, Freedom and Security space. Mr. Schmitz is the author or main contributor of the "Study into the use of open source software in public sector" (2001), the "Pooling open source software study” (2002) and other advices published on the IDABC Open Source Observatory site (the OSO, which is managed by his team, in collaboration with Merit). Mr. Schmitz is the coordinator and main writer of the project EUPL (European Union Public License).
Oliver Schneider	Oliver Schneider, an expert for the Belgian Secretary of State for e-Government, is responsible for several topics such as free and open-source software policies, open standards, e-procurement, crossroad bank for Enterprises and e-justice. Mr. Schneider is an active contributor to and coordinator of several free software projects, and is particularly interested in collaborative models and their application to the public sector.
Patrick Sinz	Patrick Sinz started his professional career working in research centres (INRIA and IRCAM) in the early 1980's. He then went on to manage various industrial projects as a consultant specialising in Unix kernel related activities. In the mid 1990's, Mr Sinz launched an Internet consulting start-up. After selling it he took on various responsibilities at Cap Gemini Telecom and then Hewlett Packard. His last role at Hewlett Packard was World Wide e-Government Business Development Manager. After leaving Hewlett Packard in 2004 Mr. Sinz founded Ethiqa SAS a Consulting start-up specialising in addressing the needs of the Public Sector in Europe and in Emerging countries using Open Source Solutions and Processes. He has also been teaching various aspects of computing, lately focusing on E-Government at the University of Paris VIII since '81.         Ethiqa is Member of the ADULLACT (Association des Utilisateurs de logiciels Libre dans  l'administration et les collectivités territoriales) and the Open Forum Europe. Patrick Sinz is a Board Member of the AFUL (Association Francophone des Utilisateurs de logiciels libres).
Jean-Paul Triaille	Jean-Paul Triaille is an IT/IP lawyer with the Brussels firm Lontings & Partners and heads the IT/IP department of the firm. He is a senior lecturer at the University Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur, where he teaches "Intellectual Property and Information Technologies" in the context of the postgraduate diploma (D.E.S.) Droit et Gestion des Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication - www.dgtic.be ).  He is also an external collaborator at the Centre de Recherches Informatique et Droit (C.R.I.D.) (computer law research center, www.crid.be) and an Executive Advisor to the European Multimedia Forum. He is the author of a book and of many publications focusing on legal issues related to information technology, e-commerce law and intellectual property. He is a member of various editing committees and Vice President of the Belgian Computer Law Association (ABDI).  He conducted expert missions for a.o. the European Commission, the O.E.C.D. and the Council of Europe.  His professional experience is particularly oriented towards computer law, intellectual property, e-commerce law and e-banking.
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