Open for Social Good

Zaheda Bhorat has been successful in her career as a catalyst for change. In the early days of open source she managed the OpenOffice.org project and community and took the project from inception to a 1.0 release. With her experience of building communities of contributers, she created one of the first open source marketing projects with a global team of passionate volunteers to promote both open source and launch the office suite. Zaheda has a passion for applying open source processes beyond code, and has engaged contributors in localisation communities, education and adoption for Free and Open Source software, particularly in the developing/emerging markets. Zaheda is an open advocate in her role at Google as an Open Standards Programs Manager. She has over 15 years software industry experience, holds a BSc in Computer Science and lives in California.

Paul Rademacher is VP of Engineering at Tasty Labs, a new startup working on tools to improve everyday life. He was previously an engineering manager for Google Maps, and Technical Lead for the Google Earth Browser Plugin and API. Prior to joining Google, Paul was the creator of HousingMaps.com, a combination of Craigslist and Google Maps that was the first-ever map mashup. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UNC-Chapel Hill, and worked as an R&D Software Engineer for Dreamworks Animation on films including Shrek 2 and Madagascar.

Adam is pursuing his MS in computer science at MIT, where he is focusing on applications of mobile and information technology in the developing world. Adam Lerer is an intern at Google, where he works as a developer for the Open Data Kit (ODK) project founded by the University of Washington. Adam created the first prototype of ODK, and is now working on an ODK tool for device management.

Greg Norris founded and directs Sylvatica, an international life cycle assessment institute which consults on LCA to the UN, governments in the US and abroad, a variety of Fortune 500 companies, industrial associations, and smaller companies, and the non-profit sector. He is Visiting Professor with the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas, where he helps the ASC advance the availability of valid and transparent life cycle inventory data, and its application to spur innovation for sustainability. Norris has lead the development of the methods, modeling, and software to implement LCA within the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating system. He is Senior Fellow with GreenBlue, providing LCA guidance to their Sustainable Packaging Coalition, and through the SPC to Wal-Mart and the US EPA. Norris founded Earthster, an open source sustainable information platform, and New Earth, a global fund for community-driven sustainable development. Norris teaches LCA at Harvard, and is Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is an editor for the International Journal of LCA and the Journal of Industrial Ecology.