Advisory Group

Alvin B. Marcelo is a general and trauma surgeon by training who is currently the director of the University of the Philippines Manila National Telehealth Center. Right after residency training, he took his postdoctoral fellowship in medical informatics at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland with research interests in telepathology, mobile computing, and bibliometric analysis of MEDLINE content. Upon return, he has pioneered the field in the Philippines and is presently the coordinator of the Master of Science in Health Informatics program and chief of the Medical Informatics Unit of the UP College of Medicine. The Community Health Information Tracking System (www.chits.info) is an award-winning open source health information system Dr. Marcelo has helped manage. Presently, he is the sub-regional manager of the International Open Source Network in the ASEAN+3.

Balthas Seibold is a senior project manager at InWEnt - Capacity Building International, Germany. Responsible for programmes on "ICT for Development", he develops and implements capacity building projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East within the department of Sustainable Business Development. Previous work stations include UNESCO's bureau of strategic planning, GTZ and the UNDP. email: balthas DAWT seibold YAT inwent DAWT org

Christiane Weber is a project manager at InWEnt - Capacity Building International, Germany. She coordinates programmes on "ICT for Development", she implements capacity building projects in Africa and Asia within the department of Sustainable Business Development. Previous work stations include Amazon.de department of "Marketplace", US/ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), Washington DC and the Auckland Regional Council, New Zealand. Email: christiane DAWT weber YAT inwent DAWT org

Onno Purbo has dedicated his life to promoting the dissemination of knowledge through ICTs in Indonesia. A technophile from an early age, he started working as an electrical engineer and ham (amateur) radio operator until he became a professor at Bandung University. An equally early believer in the Internet, he spent years trying to convince the government of the validity of his radical vision, later on also as professor at the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB). Onno Purbo is the author of nearly 1000 articles and 40 books which are available free of charge on his website. Inexpensive technology and the creative and innovative use of it is one of his key teaching subjects. He is well known for his expertise and progressive approach to spreading the use of wireless community networking. Purbo was a Research Fellow with the ICTs for Development (ICT4D) program area of the International Development Research Center (IDRC). Purbo is an Eisenhower Fellow.

Partha Pratim Sarkar has worked to co-found one of the major citizen's network- Bytes for All in South Asia that experiments, highlights and organizes debate on the relevance of ICT to development activities. Partha has extensive experience of working and doing research on grassroots ICT projects particularly in South Asian countries. As a researcher to telecentre.org at IDRC, he is now working to examine the social implication of web and multimedia content & tools in telecentre experiments. He has worked or consulted with different international organizations including UNESCO Asia Pacific Office in Delhi, Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), Association for Progressive Communication (APC), IDRC etc. and authored different research papers, articles. His work has been featured in different international publications and one of his earlier web based work - drik.net that he used to maintain received Stockholm IT Award back in 1999. Partha can be reached at: psarker YAT bytesforall DAWT org

Pia Waugh is a consultant at Waugh Partners in Sydney, Australia. She has worked as the Open Source strategist for a large systems integrator and still works to develop the Australian FOSS industry and improve Government policies towards FOSS. She has been working with Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) such as Linux for about 8 years. Pia is also community leader both in Australia and internationally as Vice President of Linux Australia and President of Software Freedon International. She is also currently on the linux.conf.au 2007 organising team. She has spoken at Software Livre in Brazil, FOSS events in China, the Open Source World Conferences in Spain, the World Summit of Information Society (United Nations) in Switzerland, linux.conf.au in New Zealand and linux.conf.au, education au, Making Links, various TechGirls events and many more in Australia.