[read this post in English >]

Después de años de reunirse en línea, la comunidad de CC claramente está lista para reunirse en persona para la Cumbre Global de CC 2023 del 3 al 6 de octubre en la Ciudad de México, mostrando que el trabajo para abrir el conocimiento y la cultura es más popular e importante que nunca. Recibimos 184 respuestas de calidad a nuestra convocatoria de propuestas y más de 300 solicitudes de ayuda financiera para asistir. Ahora las personas reciben notificaciones sobre el éxito de sus propuestas de sesiones y solicitudes de becas y comienzan a planificar su viaje.

El interés inmenso en la Cumbre Global de este año generó grandes desafíos para los voluntarios que se unieron a la comunidad de CC para dar forma al programa y la participación de la Cumbre. Si bien hubiera sido maravilloso aceptar cada propuesta y solicitud, los límites de financiamiento, tiempo y espacio significaron que los miembros del comité tuvieron que tomar decisiones difíciles para tratar de formar una Cumbre que esperamos sea diversa, enriquecedora y práctica.

En todo momento, los comités trabajaron para tratar de hacer posible que todos tuvieran algún conexión con la Cumbre. Si bien decidimos que no sería práctico tratar de realizar un evento totalmente híbrido en el que tanto los participantes remotos como los presenciales pudieran participar de manera sincrónica, reconocimos que también era imposible reunir a todos los que quisieran asistir en un solo lugar.

En consecuencia, solicitamos sesiones en vivo en la Ciudad de México y experiencias a las que la gente pueda acceder en línea, cuando y donde pueda. Además de los paneles, talleres, charlas relámpago, carteles, y reuniones de la Cumbre misma, los participantes grabarán videos para verlos a pedido y reunirse en sesiones en línea antes y después de las sesiones en persona que tendrán lugar del 3 al 6 de octubre. En resumen, hay una manera de que cada sesión interesante llegue a una audiencia, ya sea solo los presentes en la Ciudad de México o el público mundial en línea. Dados los altos costos, las molestias de las restricciones de viaje, y los impactos ambientales de realizar eventos globales en ubicaciones únicas, más allá de la Cumbre de este año, esperamos continuar explorando prácticas tan variadas para unir a las personas.

En todas sus decisiones, los comités priorizaron la inclusión, trabajaron para equilibrar a los becarios e invitaron a sesiones para reflejar la diversidad de la comunidad de CC. Mientras tomamos en consideración factores como la calidad de la propuesta, la contribución anterior, y la necesidad financiera, también nos esforzamos por equilibrar el programa y los participantes por país, región, idioma, género, formato de entrega — enfatizando las sesiones que son colaborativas, interactivas y/o rompen el molde de la presentación clásica de un orador — y el tema — basándose en el tema de la Cumbre de IA y los bienes comunes, y temas que incluyen una mejor internet, creatividad contemporánea, cultura y patrimonio, educación, periodismo, y investigación y ciencia.

¡Únase a nosotros para agradecer a los miembros del comité del programa y de becas por su servicio! Se reunieron de todo el mundo — y en todo momento del día y de la noche — para refinar los procesos y revisar las presentaciones para ayudar a tantas personas como sea posible con fondos para asistir a la Cumbre y para dar forma a un programa que represente muchas actividades diversas en los bienes comunes que esperamos que inspire, pero no abrumar.

Si aún no se ha registrado en la Cumbre, regístrese para unirse a nosotros en la Ciudad de México, o si no está seguro de poder viajar allí, regístrese como participante virtual para asegurarse de enterarse y poder unirse a todas las actividades en línea.

Nota: Los miembros de los comités presentaron sus biografías en inglés.

Comité de Programa

Amber Osman (she/her)

Ambassador, DOAJ

I am an open science advocate and my greater interests are in scholarly content and the publication ethics. I am actively involved in different international academic, research & publishing organizations and with the Higher Education Commission (Govt. of Pakistan). An award-winning journal editor for advancing the publishing process by adopting innovative research and publishing solutions.

Aysa Ekanger (she/her)

Open Access Advisor, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

I am based at the library of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and work mainly with Open Access-related topics. Giving advice about copyright and licensing issues is one of my tasks.

Brian Ssennoga (he/him)

CEO, Guild Digital

Brian is passionate mostly about 2 things: developing young leaders and the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development. Brian currently serves as Director, Digital Health, for Last Mile Health’s Liberia Country Program, overseeing the adoption of the eCBIS (Community Based Information System) powered by the OpenSRP, a digital public good choice for public and private sector Community health digitization programs in Liberia. He is a founding member of the ICT Association of Uganda, and holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science, a Postgrad diploma in Information Technology and an MBA (International Business). When not exploring the world through technology events and adventure, Brian loves to cook meals for family and friends, enjoy a good book, post a blog or play the guitar.

Carlo Joseph Moskito (co-chair; he/him)

Teacher, Instructional Designer, e-Learning Developer, Wikimedian, Philippines

Carlo is an educator and a free culture and open movement advocate from the Philippines. He has worked for several print publishing companies and an educational technology (edtech) company focusing on the content development of K to 12 instructional materials. Currently, he works for a USAID project on developing early grades reading materials in selected mother tongues in the Philippines. He is the lone member from the Philippines of the Creative Commons Global Network, a volunteer to several Wikimedia projects such as the Encyclopedia of Philippine Heritage, and a member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Elections Committee.

Irene Soria (she/her)

Embajadora, Creative Commons México

Irene is a PhD in the Feminist Studies Department at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. She is a part-time faculty member, academic, consultant, graphic designer and activist for the free software / free culture movement since 2009. Irene decided to explore and study her own practices when migrating to the exclusive use of free software as a graphic designer, which led her to the in-depth analysis of open knowledge, free access, the Commons and above all: social sciences crossed by feminism and decolonial studies. Around these topics, she has written a degree thesis, academic and general interest articles, books and compilations, as well as attended and presented at conferences in many countries. In 2018, she was invited to re-found the Creative Commons Mexico Chapter, which she represents at the Global Network Council, in addition to being a member of the CC Global Network Council Membership Committee and, lately, part of the ExCom.

Jennifer Miller (she/her)

Independent Open Knowledge Advocate

As an independent civic technologist and open knowledge advocate, my activities currently focus on organizing civic tech volunteers at Code for the Carolinas, service on the board of FORCE11, and planning a sustainable future for Translate Science. My academic background is in public policy and technical communication, and I have completed the Creative Commons Certificate Program for Educators.

Lía Rodríguez (she/her)

Socióloga, TEDIC

Estudiante de Sociología, militante feminista de las ciencias sociales. Cuento con experiencia laboral en organizaciones sociales rurales y urbanas. Activista en ámbitos de la comunicación popular e inclusión digital de comunidades en situación de vulnerabilidad.

Marcela Basch (she/her)

Nexialist, LAIA

I am a journalist, educator and nexialist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 2013, I am focused on collaborative, free, and open culture. I founded El Plan C, the first website in Spanish focused on these issues. I co-founded Encuentro Comunes (Commons Conference) with the goal of spreading awareness about those initiatives. I write a newsletter, Diez palabras: new tendencies from a linguistics nerd perspective. I have been part of CCGN since 2017, the Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH) since 2018, and Laboratorio Abierto de Inteligencia Artificial (LAIA) since 2023.

Nate Angell (co-chair; he/him)

Director of Communications & Community, Creative Commons

I’m an evangelist connecting people, ideas, and technologies to try to make things better, now leading communications and community at Creative Commons. I’ve worked across a wide variety of public and private institutions, focusing on community development, digital communications, meaningful education, open technologies, and sustainable growth. I live in Portland, Oregon, USA with some other cats and humans.

Nyirahabihirwe Clementine

General Secretary, Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda

Nyirahabihirwe Clementine is Rwandese and holds a Bachelor’s degree from National University of Rwanda, in the faculty of Economics and Management, Economics Department. ​She started contributing on Wikimedia projects in 2019 and is one of the four founders of Rwanda Wikimedia community user group, acting as General Secretary in the executive team. She used to organize and coordinate many different Wikimedian projects in my community (eg, Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos, Wiki Loves Monuments , Wiki Loves Women, Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Folklore).

Prodip Roy

Library Officer. RMIT University

I have been a library professional in local and state Governments and the tertiary education sector in Australia and Bangladesh for nineteen years. As the founder and Editor in Chief, I lead The Librarian Times team in implementing its vision and mission. I was the founder and President of the Bangla Language and Cultural School in Adelaide, South Australia, from 2013 -2015. I served as a Co-Chair for Special Interest Group-International Information Issues (SIG-III) of The Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2021. I am serving as an ASIS&T Governance Committee member for 2022-2023. I have been a Creative Commons Global Network and CC Australia chapters member for the last few years.

Thalia Rahme (co-chair; she/her)

Independent Communications Consultant

A city goat, originally from Beirut, but currently living in Marseille. A former journalist, yet an unrepentant storyteller. A versatile comms person who’s into management. I’m interested in bridging between languages and technology and making information accessible to whomever needs it in the appropriate format. Currently learning 한국어 My Achilles heel is design but I haven’t lost hope yet

Comité de Becas

Eunice Mercado-Lara (she/her)

Civic Science Fellow, The Open Research Funders Group

I’m a Civic Science Fellow at the Open Research Funders Group, where I lead the Open & Equitable Model Funding Program, a research funders’ community of practice to pilot interventions to make grantmaking practices more equitable and incentivize open and collaborative scholarly practices. I have worked in the public sector to help government funding agencies in North and Latin America align incentives and policies to advance open research. I have served as a board and committee member in several international organizations and initiatives advocating for open scholarship practices, such as CERN’s SCOAP3 initiative, the Open Access Week, and the OpenCon LATAM.

Ivan Martínez (he/him)

Creative Commons México and R3D

Human rights defender and long-time free and open knowledge activist. Currently Creative Commons México Coordinator.

Lia P. Hernández Pérez (she/her)

Co-Founder, Creative Commons Panama Chapter

I am the founder of the Panamanian chapter of Creative Commons. Since 2014, I have been a very active actor promoting the use of CC licenses in the local and regional community.

Mari Moreshead (she/her)

Chief of Staff, Creative Commons

Mari came to CC in 2015 after three years at the Mozilla Foundation. Prior to that, she held similar administrative roles at a legal technology start up and the Playful Invention Company. She leads staff engagement, hiring, and other CC operations. She’s lived in a few Canadian cities but now calls Toronto home where she lives with her cats.  When she’s not at her desk, she’s quilting.

Max Wardeh (he/him)

Founder and CEO, Open Knowledge Connective

Interested in finding ways to get people in different areas of open culture (education, software, hardware, media, archives) to collaborate and grow the movement. Helping build Internet of Production Alliance, Open Knowledge Connective, and Less Impact. Teaching at Loughborough University London and OpenClassrooms.

Olalekan Isaac Olatunde (he/him)

Executive Secretary, Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation

Olatunde Isaac is a Nigerian scientist, food safety specialist, open knowledge advocate and social entrepreneur. He’s a long-term Wikipedia editor and Wikimedia community manager in Nigeria. Isaac is a versatile personality whose works in the open movement, specifically on Wikipedia, have been extensively covered by national and international media and have received numerous accolades for his contributions. He is one of the most prolific contributors to Wikipedia in Africa, and in 2015, he founded Wikimedia User Group Nigeria (now a charitable organization in Nigeria) that focuses on promoting Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in Nigeria.

Sami Mlouhi

CC Global Network Member

I’m Sami Mlouhi, a CC network member living in Tunis, Tunisia. I’m a Wikimedian and an advocate for open knowledge all over the world.

The post Conozca a los Miembros del Comité de la Cumbre Mundial de CC 2023 appeared first on Creative Commons.

[lee esta entrada en español >]

After years of gathering online, the CC community is clearly eager to gather in person for CC’s 2023 Global Summit during 3–6 October in Mexico City, demonstrating that the work to open knowledge and culture is more popular and important than ever. We received 184 compelling responses to our call for proposals and over 300 requests for funding assistance to attend. Now people are receiving notifications about the success of their session proposals and scholarship applications and starting to plan their travel.

The overwhelming interest in this year’s Global Summit generated big challenges for the volunteers who stepped up from the CC community to shape the Summit’s program and participation. While it would have been wonderful to accept every proposal and application, the limits of funding, time, and space meant committee members had to make difficult decisions to try to form a Summit that we hope is diverse, enriching, and practical.

Throughout, the committees worked to try to make it possible for everyone to have some engagement with the Summit. While we decided it would be impractical to try to hold a fully hybrid event where both remote and in-person participants could engage together synchronously, we recognized that it was also impossible to bring everyone who might want to attend together in a single location.

Accordingly, we called for sessions to be held live in Mexico City and for experiences that people can access online, when and where they can. In addition to the panels, workshops, lightning talks, posters, and meetups that will happen at the Summit itself, participants will be recording videos for on-demand viewing and gathering in live online sessions both before and after the in-person sessions that will take place during 3–6 October. In short, there is a way for every compelling session to reach an audience — whether that’s just those present in Mexico City, or the worldwide public online. Given the high costs, travel restriction hassles, and environmental impacts of holding global events in single locations, beyond this year’s Summit we expect to continue to explore such varied practices to bring people together.

In all their decisions, the committees prioritized inclusion, working to balance scholarship recipients and invited sessions to reflect the diversity of the CC community. While taking factors like proposal quality, past contribution, and financial need into consideration, we also strived to balance the program and participants by country, region, language, gender, delivery format — emphasizing sessions that are collaborative, interactive, and/or break the mold of the classic speaker presentation — and subject matter — drawing on the Summit’s theme of AI & the Commons and topics including Better Internet, Contemporary Creativity, Culture & Heritage, Education, Journalism, and Scholarship & Science.

Please join us in thanking the program and scholarship committee members for their service! They gathered from all over the world — and all times of the day and night — to refine processes and review submissions to assist as many people as possible with funding to attend the Summit and to shape a program to represent many diverse activities in the commons that we hope will inspire, but not overwhelm.

If you haven’t registered for Summit yet, sign up to join us in Mexico City, or if you’re not sure you can travel there, register as a virtual participant to make sure you hear about and can join in all the online activities.

Program Committee

Amber Osman (she/her)

Ambassador, DOAJ

I am an open science advocate and my greater interests are in scholarly content and the publication ethics. I am actively involved in different international academic, research & publishing organizations and with the Higher Education Commission (Govt. of Pakistan). An award-winning journal editor for advancing the publishing process by adopting innovative research and publishing solutions.

Aysa Ekanger (she/her)

Open Access Advisor, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

I am based at the library of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and work mainly with Open Access-related topics. Giving advice about copyright and licensing issues is one of my tasks.

Brian Ssennoga (he/him)

CEO, Guild Digital

Brian is passionate mostly about 2 things: developing young leaders and the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development. Brian currently serves as Director, Digital Health, for Last Mile Health’s Liberia Country Program, overseeing the adoption of the eCBIS (Community Based Information System) powered by the OpenSRP, a digital public good choice for public and private sector Community health digitization programs in Liberia. He is a founding member of the ICT Association of Uganda, and holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science, a Postgrad diploma in Information Technology and an MBA (International Business). When not exploring the world through technology events and adventure, Brian loves to cook meals for family and friends, enjoy a good book, post a blog or play the guitar.

Carlo Joseph Moskito (co-chair; he/him)

Teacher, Instructional Designer, e-Learning Developer, Wikimedian, Philippines

Carlo is an educator and a free culture and open movement advocate from the Philippines. He has worked for several print publishing companies and an educational technology (edtech) company focusing on the content development of K to 12 instructional materials. Currently, he works for a USAID project on developing early grades reading materials in selected mother tongues in the Philippines. He is the lone member from the Philippines of the Creative Commons Global Network, a volunteer to several Wikimedia projects such as the Encyclopedia of Philippine Heritage, and a member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Elections Committee.

Irene Soria (she/her)

Embajadora, Creative Commons México

Irene is a PhD in the Feminist Studies Department at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. She is a part-time faculty member, academic, consultant, graphic designer and activist for the free software / free culture movement since 2009. Irene decided to explore and study her own practices when migrating to the exclusive use of free software as a graphic designer, which led her to the in-depth analysis of open knowledge, free access, the Commons and above all: social sciences crossed by feminism and decolonial studies. Around these topics, she has written a degree thesis, academic and general interest articles, books and compilations, as well as attended and presented at conferences in many countries. In 2018, she was invited to re-found the Creative Commons Mexico Chapter, which she represents at the Global Network Council, in addition to being a member of the CC Global Network Council Membership Committee and, lately, part of the ExCom.

Jennifer Miller (she/her)

Independent Open Knowledge Advocate

As an independent civic technologist and open knowledge advocate, my activities currently focus on organizing civic tech volunteers at Code for the Carolinas, service on the board of FORCE11, and planning a sustainable future for Translate Science. My academic background is in public policy and technical communication, and I have completed the Creative Commons Certificate Program for Educators.

Lía Rodríguez (she/her)

Socióloga, TEDIC

Estudiante de Sociología, militante feminista de las ciencias sociales. Cuento con experiencia laboral en organizaciones sociales rurales y urbanas. Activista en ámbitos de la comunicación popular e inclusión digital de comunidades en situación de vulnerabilidad.

Marcela Basch (she/her)

Nexialist, LAIA

I am a journalist, educator and nexialist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 2013, I am focused on collaborative, free, and open culture. I founded El Plan C, the first website in Spanish focused on these issues. I co-founded Encuentro Comunes (Commons Conference) with the goal of spreading awareness about those initiatives. I write a newsletter, Diez palabras: new tendencies from a linguistics nerd perspective. I have been part of CCGN since 2017, the Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH) since 2018, and Laboratorio Abierto de Inteligencia Artificial (LAIA) since 2023.

Nate Angell (co-chair; he/him)

Director of Communications & Community, Creative Commons

I’m an evangelist connecting people, ideas, and technologies to try to make things better, now leading communications and community at Creative Commons. I’ve worked across a wide variety of public and private institutions, focusing on community development, digital communications, meaningful education, open technologies, and sustainable growth. I live in Portland, Oregon, USA with some other cats and humans.

Nyirahabihirwe Clementine

General Secretary, Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda

Nyirahabihirwe Clementine is Rwandese and holds a Bachelor’s degree from National University of Rwanda, in the faculty of Economics and Management, Economics Department. ​She started contributing on Wikimedia projects in 2019 and is one of the four founders of Rwanda Wikimedia community user group, acting as General Secretary in the executive team. She used to organize and coordinate many different Wikimedian projects in my community (eg, Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos, Wiki Loves Monuments , Wiki Loves Women, Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Folklore).

Prodip Roy

Library Officer. RMIT University

I have been a library professional in local and state Governments and the tertiary education sector in Australia and Bangladesh for nineteen years. As the founder and Editor in Chief, I lead The Librarian Times team in implementing its vision and mission. I was the founder and President of the Bangla Language and Cultural School in Adelaide, South Australia, from 2013 -2015. I served as a Co-Chair for Special Interest Group-International Information Issues (SIG-III) of The Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2021. I am serving as an ASIS&T Governance Committee member for 2022-2023. I have been a Creative Commons Global Network and CC Australia chapters member for the last few years.

 

Thalia Rahme (co-chair; she/her)

Independent Communications Consultant

A city goat, originally from Beirut, but currently living in Marseille. A former journalist, yet an unrepentant storyteller. A versatile comms person who’s into management. I’m interested in bridging between languages and technology and making information accessible to whomever needs it in the appropriate format. Currently learning 한국어 My Achilles heel is design but I haven’t lost hope yet

Scholarship Committee

Eunice Mercado-Lara (she/her)

Civic Science Fellow, The Open Research Funders Group

I’m a Civic Science Fellow at the Open Research Funders Group, where I lead the Open & Equitable Model Funding Program, a research funders’ community of practice to pilot interventions to make grantmaking practices more equitable and incentivize open and collaborative scholarly practices. I have worked in the public sector to help government funding agencies in North and Latin America align incentives and policies to advance open research. I have served as a board and committee member in several international organizations and initiatives advocating for open scholarship practices, such as CERN’s SCOAP3 initiative, the Open Access Week, and the OpenCon LATAM.

Ivan Martínez (he/him)

Creative Commons México and R3D

Human rights defender and long-time free and open knowledge activist. Currently Creative Commons México Coordinator.

Lia P. Hernández Pérez (she/her)

Co-Founder, Creative Commons Panama Chapter

I am the founder of the Panamanian chapter of Creative Commons. Since 2014, I have been a very active actor promoting the use of CC licenses in the local and regional community.

Mari Moreshead (she/her)

Chief of Staff, Creative Commons

Mari came to CC in 2015 after three years at the Mozilla Foundation. Prior to that, she held similar administrative roles at a legal technology start up and the Playful Invention Company. She leads staff engagement, hiring, and other CC operations. She’s lived in a few Canadian cities but now calls Toronto home where she lives with her cats.  When she’s not at her desk, she’s quilting.

Max Wardeh (he/him)

Founder and CEO, Open Knowledge Connective

Interested in finding ways to get people in different areas of open culture (education, software, hardware, media, archives) to collaborate and grow the movement. Helping build Internet of Production Alliance, Open Knowledge Connective, and Less Impact. Teaching at Loughborough University London and OpenClassrooms.

Olalekan Isaac Olatunde (he/him)

Executive Secretary, Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation

Olatunde Isaac is a Nigerian scientist, food safety specialist, open knowledge advocate and social entrepreneur. He’s a long-term Wikipedia editor and Wikimedia community manager in Nigeria. Isaac is a versatile personality whose works in the open movement, specifically on Wikipedia, have been extensively covered by national and international media and have received numerous accolades for his contributions. He is one of the most prolific contributors to Wikipedia in Africa, and in 2015, he founded Wikimedia User Group Nigeria (now a charitable organization in Nigeria) that focuses on promoting Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in Nigeria.

Sami Mlouhi

CC Global Network Member

I’m Sami Mlouhi, a CC network member living in Tunis, Tunisia. I’m a Wikimedian and an advocate for open knowledge all over the world.

The post Meet CC’s 2023 Global Summit Committee Members appeared first on Creative Commons.

This post was prepared collaboratively by Jennryn Wetzler, Werner Westermann, Lisa Di Valentino, Dr. Suma Parahakaran, Tetiana Kolesnykova, Paola Corti, Dan McGuire, and Fernando Daguanno.

In February and March, the CC Open Education Platform community voted on five winning ideas to advance open education globally. Five project teams, spanning Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Italy, Malaysia, Ukraine, South Africa, and the USA have received CC Open Education funds. The CC Open Education Platform also funded ongoing global community work supporting the UNESCO Recommendation on OER. We are delighted to share updates about the projects now underway.

CC lauds all of the open education community efforts, and we look forward to sharing additional highlights at the end of this year.

Title: Building a K-12 Interactive Open Textbook

Contact: Werner Westermann
Location: Chile

Summary: The Building a K-12 Interactive Open Textbook project works with community members to support the development of a K-12 Open Textbook in the subject of Civics and Citizenship subject for 11th and 12th Grade, aligned to the official K-12 curriculum of Chile. Thus far, the project has gathered a core team focusing on content selection, H5P deployment, and graphic design. The core team has discussed: curricular alignment and structuring learning chapters; textual content creation and reuse; graphical content selection using Wikimedia Commons; creating learning chapters and reusing previous developments, using Interactive Book H5P tool. The team has H5P packages and trials hosted in Pressbooks, thanks to support of REBUS Foundation.

Title: Climate Change: OER integrating SDG components in Education in two Southeast Asian Countries

Contact: Dr. Suma Parahakaran
Location: Malaysia and Laos PDR

Summary: This project supports OER for Climate Change and the sustainable development goals (SDGs); it focuses on OER creation through experiential activities in schools. Where Malaysia’s Global Environment Center (GEC) focused on climate change and water resources education, Laotian Sri Sathya Sai Institution focused on climate change work, installing solar lights and solar-generated electricity to reduce a primary and secondary school’s carbon footprint and energy costs. The project has also created a greenspace within the Laotian school for students and staff to engage in outdoor learning and gardening.

The project will be compiling OER content from both education centers, and displaying videos, activities and other media outputs on the project website. Next steps include hosting a competition for Climate Change and network building for collaboration.

Title: “Popularization of OER in Ukraine: Small steps to a big goal”

Contact: Tetiana Kolesnykova
Locations: Ukraine and Italy

Summary: Polytechnic University of Milan has partnered with the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies (USUST) to translate and localize a MOOC on OER. The Polytechnic University’s learning innovation unit (METID) developed and shared a MOOC, “Using Open Educational Resources in Teaching” to meet the needs of Ukrainian teachers and academic library professionals. This partnership overcomes language barriers and ensures equitable and inclusive access to education in times of a full-scale war.

After METID and USUST agreed on a process and the necessary parameters to ensure the project would be sustainable for both partners, they adapted subtitles, infographics, the course description and summative weekly quizzes. USUST also created a bilingual version of the quizzes, which helps students in obtaining the MOOC’s final Certificate of Completion. Next steps include: creating instructions in Ukrainian; debugging video subtitles; verifying the MOOC content; and testing the process with teachers and librarians. USUST will also develop a mock-up of the Certificate of Completion of the course “Using Open Educational Resources in Teaching” released by Polimi Open Knowledge platform adapted into Ukrainian. The certificate will be generated in Ukrainian at the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies, indicating the amount of training in ECTS credits.

Title: STEAM Ahead with OER in South Africa project

Contact: Dan McGuire
Locations: Ghana, South Africa, and USA

Summary: This collaborative project creates, curates, and sources OER content that meets the needs of elementary students and is aligned with Ghanaian Education standards as well as South African standards. The project has a special emphasis on incorporating materials edited and adapted for and translated to the local languages in addition to the use of English language materials. Dan McGruire and colleague, Peter Amoabil, created a video explainer about the Ghanaian portion of the project, which works Amoabil’s nonprofit, Rural Literacy Solutions. There are some great pictures on their website of students reading OER materials in their local language on the server in their classroom that is not connected to the internet via an open source learning management system.

Title: Alquimetricos

Contact: Fernando Daguanno
Locations: Argentina and Brazil

Summary: Alquimetricos is a STEAM OER project that inspires wonder, using card games, connectors and sticks to build geometric sculptures. Through experiential learning, the project develops students’ spatial, mathematical and kinetic understanding. For this phase of project work, Alquimetricos is developing a STEAM OER collection repository translated to English, Portuguese, and Spanish. The first draft translations will be machine-generated. Alquimetricos will then organize a set of online workshops and collabora-thons to share, revise translations and document the contents and replication process, inviting Creative Commons community members to join.

The project is also developing a card game, which teachers can download and share with their K-12 classes for STEAM education. The digital version will be free, and the printed version will be available for sale. Fernando piloted the project and card games with students and teachers at the International book fair at Comodoro Rivadavia, in Chubut, Argentina, a 10-day learning fair for over 10,000 people.

Next steps include: (1) providing a demo of the card deck at the CC Summit, in Mexico City this October. (2) Alquimetricos will also produce a short video summarizing case studies of its CC BY-licensed educational products being used.

Title: Global Commons: Unlocking Open Education with Creative Commons

Contacts: Lisa Di Valentino, John Okewole
Locations: Nigeria, USA, and global

Summary: This project is developing a short animated video describing Creative Commons and how it would accommodate the implementation of the UN recommendations for OER. The video will have narrations in different languages, potentially including: English, French, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin could be the initial ones that would hopefully be ready by the end of the year. Team members are also developing 2-3 one-page graphic handouts explaining Creative Commons licenses, and the CC organization, also in different languages. Handouts will be shipped to CC Open Education Platform community members engaging in communications around the UNESCO Recommendation for OER.

The post CC Open Education Platform Activities 2023 appeared first on Creative Commons.

As the EU seeks to finalize its landmark AI Act, CC has joined with Eleuther AI, GitHub, Hugging Face, LAION, and Open Future in offering suggestions for how the Act can better support open source and open science.

As we’ve said before, we welcome the EU’s leadership on defining a regulatory framework around AI and the Act’s overall approach. At the same time, it’s critical that well-intentioned proposals do not have unintended, harmful consequences for the extensive ecosystem of open scientific research and open source development.

As we note in our full paper, open and accessible sharing of the software, datasets, and models that make up AI systems allows for more widespread scrutiny and understanding of both their capabilities and shortcomings. Open source development can enable competition and innovation by new entrants and smaller players, including in the EU. Projects like EleutherAI and BigScience have brought together researchers and a range of institutions, including ones in the EU, to develop and share resources and skills to train high quality models.

Unfortunately, as things stand in the current negotiations, we believe the proposals threaten to create impractical barriers to and disadvantages for contributors to this open ecosystem. For instance, the text could impede simply making open source components available in public repositories and collaborating on them, thereby threatening the very process on which open source depends to develop.

To be clear, we don’t think open approaches to AI development should make their use fully exempt from the Act’s requirements, and we recognize how open source AI can also make harmful uses of AI more accessible to more people. Instead, our recommendations underscore the need for a tailored, proportionate approach to open source and open science, which supports collaborative models of development of AI by a wide range of players.

The post Supporting Open Source and Open Science in the EU AI Act appeared first on Creative Commons.

We’re nearly halfway through 2023 and this year has already been an eventful one for generative artificial intelligence (AI), presenting unique challenges and opportunities for the Creative Commons (CC) community of creators who embrace open sharing.

From the community and beyond, we are seeing urgent demands for support in navigating AI’s implications for the commons.

CC has been hard at work developing our thoughts on the intersection of copyright and generative AI inputs and outputs. In February, we kicked off a public consultation with our community members and a wide range of stakeholders to learn about their thoughts on generative AI and to contemplate ways to move toward a positive future with this promising technology.

We believe AI can work in the public interest, and want to be part of the solution in navigating to that reality.

We use “artificial intelligence” and “AI” as shorthand terms for what we know is a complex field of technologies and practices, currently involving machine learning and large language models (LLMs). Using the abbreviation “AI” is handy, but not ideal, because we recognize that AI is not really “artificial” (in that AI is created and used by humans), nor “intelligent” (at least in the way we think of human intelligence).

What We Heard From You

We talked to creators, artists, publishers, policymakers, and legal experts. There are a wide variety of uses of these new tools, and just as wide a variety of points of view. As with previous technologies like the camera and Photoshop, generative AI is providing new tools for creativity, empowering both professionals and the public at large to make new works. At the same time, we listened to creators who worry about how their works are used to train AI and produce content that may compete with their works. For instance, if someone can generate works in the style of a previous artist, is that fair to the original artist? If people can use ChatGPT to get answers gleaned from Wikipedia without ever visiting Wikipedia, will Wikipedia’s commons of information continue to be sustainable?

Hearing these diverse voices helped reinforce and clarify our view that we need to think about a diverse set of solutions to support our strategy of better sharing in a world with AI. While we think it’s important that copyright continues to leave room for people to study and learn from past works to create new ones, including by analyzing past works using automated means, copyright is just one lens to think about AI. It’s still important to grapple with legitimate concerns about this technology and consider solutions that support responsible development and use.

Importantly, we heard interest in such solutions not just from creators, but also from developers of AI. With laws varying around the world and cases in the midst of active litigation, some developers are uncertain about whether and how to proceed in building AI. Moreover, regardless of what the law permits, some developers want to work with creators to find ways to respect creators’ wishes and support the commons through clear norms and technical solutions. For instance, we met with developers actively working on opt-in and opt-out solutions for creators regarding training of AI, and we talked to many developers who see using openly-licensed content for AI training as in line with their own aspirations and values.

We also spent time consulting with developers of open-source AI tools. Open source can help grow the commons, improve transparency in AI, and democratize access to the technology. At the same time, people have raised concerns about how open source may lower the barriers to harmful uses such as deepfakes or disinformation, and we’re starting to see proposed regulatory approaches that may go too far, hindering open approaches to AI. It is critical that, as an organization and a voice for the public interest, we continue to support appropriate regulations and practices that strike a balance among essential concerns, including open access, transparency, incentives for creativity, and protecting the commons and digital rights .

Additionally, we spent time talking to legal experts from academia and from private practice. Our thoughts about using AI in the public interest are rooted in our understanding of the legal frameworks involved and the way CC’s licenses and legal tools interact with them. We want the advice we share with our community and the policy approaches we advocate for to be informed by the most thoughtful analyses of the current and evolving legal situation, and we’ll provide further insights about AI and CC’s licenses in a future post. (For now, you can find additional details in our FAQ.)

What’s Coming Up for CC

With new developments in generative AI coming daily, and with increasing debate worldwide about how best to regulate AI, it is time for CC to look to the future and to consider our place in the ongoing conversation around generative AI.

We will continue to convene critical conversations and bring together stakeholders who may not typically sit across the table from each other. If you know of events where the CC community should be engaged, please share.

Upcoming opportunities to engage in-person on these topics include:

• Expert roundtables in London in mid-July

• Wikimania in Singapore in August

• Convening in New York in September

• Policy workshops in DC in September (to be confirmed)

• CC Global Summit in Mexico City in October, with a specific focus on AI and the Commons, including participants from diverse communities around the world, not just people in the centers of power and privilege who already dominate conversations about AI

Additionally, anyone may join our community Copyright Platform and participate in its community advisory group on AI.

The CC team is dedicated to loud listening as we thoughtfully consider our stance and foster an exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Our consultation is not an end in itself. Knowledge exchange through convenings will inform our intentions, and guide our actions.

There are things we must do urgently to help bring clarity to our community and support for creators. We must:

• Clarify how the legal structures supporting the commons, including CC licenses and legal tools, interact with generative AI today.

• Empower creators, engaging even more deeply with those whose voices are being excluded from mainstream media coverage and policy debates. One question raised by creators rests on moral rights (non economic rights) which vary between jurisdictions, creating uncertainty over reuse.

• Collaborate with builders and innovators who share our values and our vision for generative AI in the public interest, to develop, test, and potentially co-create solutions that tackle challenges like transparency, credit, consent, and choice.

Join us

Please join us on this journey of discovery through our platforms, community, network and in person at our Global Summit.

• Participate in the CC Global Summit: Register to join us in Mexico City during 3–6 October 2023, where our theme will be AI and the commons.

• Join our community Copyright Platform and participate in its community advisory group on AI.

• Learn more about how CC licenses and legal tools intersect with AI inputs and outputs, and current understandings of the legal and regulatory landscapes.

• Subscribe to our newsletter: Never miss an update or CC event! Subscribe to our mailing list and get all the latest CC news and invitations delivered straight to your inbox.

• Follow us on social media: Keep up with all things CC by following us on your preferred social platform. We’re active on Facebook, Mastodon, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

• Get involved with CC on slack: Engage directly with our team and fellow CC enthusiasts. Join our Slack community for real-time discussions and updates.

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