Wouter Tebbens, (born 6 May 1974) is a Dutch activist, researcher and social entrepreneur on Free Knowledge.

Career

Tebbens received a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the

University of Twente The University of Twente (Dutch: ''Universiteit Twente''; , abbr. ) is a public technical university located in Enschede, Netherlands. The university has been placed in the top 170 universities in the world by multiple central ranking tables. ...

, Netherlands. His final research project was in the group of Production and Operations Management led by prof. dr. W.H.M. Zijm. In 2002 he founded the company xlocal.com, offering services based on

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

to SME companies. Between 2004 and 2007 he presided the working group on

Free/Libre/Open Source Software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

at Internet Society Netherlands. Between 2006 and 2008 he was coordinator of the European Commission's FP6-funded SELF Project (Science, Education & Learning in Freedom) to design a platform for the collaborative construction of educational materials. In 2007 he co-founds the non-profit foundation

Free Knowledge Institute The Free Knowledge Institute (FKI) is a non-profit organisation founded in 2006 in the Netherlands. Inspired by the free software movement, the FKI fosters the free exchange of knowledge in all areas of society by promoting freedom of use, mo ...

together with

Hinde ten Berge Hinde (or Hynde) is an English surname. Notable persons with that surname include: * Charles T. Hinde (1832–1915), American businessman * Chrissie Hynde (born 1951), American musician * Edmund C. Hinde (1830–1909), American gold miner and labo ...

and David Jacovkis to consolidate their activities and mission for a free knowledge society. In 2008 Tebbens co-chaired the Free Knowledge Free Technology Conference, organised by the SELF Project and the Free Knowledge Institute. The Life Long Learning Programme of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

awards the

a grant to set up the Free Technology Academy together with the

Open Universiteit Nederland The Open University of the Netherlands ( nl, Open Universiteit Nederland) is a Dutch institution for distance learning at university level. It is an independent government-funded university and uses a variety of methods, including written mater ...

and the

Open University of Catalonia The Open University of Catalonia ( ca, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, UOC; ) is a private open university based in Barcelona, Spain. The UOC offers graduate and postgraduate programs in Catalan, Spanish and English in fields such as Psycholog ...

. Tebbens will lead the project and becomes the first director of the academy. In 2009 Tebbens was one of the co-organisers of the

Free Culture Forum The Free Culture Forum (FCForum) was an international meeting of relevant organisations and individuals involved in free culture, digital rights and access to knowledge. It took place in Barcelona every annually from 2009 to 2015, jointly with ...

in Barcelona, where he organised and moderated the Educational panel. The main working documents that were produced during the Forum led to the Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge. Kim Tucker and Tebbens have written a modified version for the Charter from a Free Knowledge perspective, drawing on the various working documents produced during the Forum. The

has published a summary of that as Ten Points For Change. In 2011 he was programme committee member for the Open Knowledge Conference in Berlin, organised by the Open Knowledge Foundation.

Publications

* 2006, ''Kennisdelen in de eenentwintigste eeuw'', book chapter in Open Source Jaarboek 2006-2007, MediaUpdate, Gorredijk (The Netherlands). * 2006, 14 June
''Los peligros del copyright''
published in Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. Retrieved September 8, 2010. * 2006
''Sharing Knowledge in the 21st Century''
conference paper for the Online Observatory for Cybersociety Congress. Retrieved September 8, 2010. * 2007, 23 March,
Waarom gunnen we Microsoft zo'n monopoliepositie?
', published in Dutch newspaper Trouw. Retrieved September 8, 2010. * 2006
''Extremadura, van achterblijver naar voorloper'' (PDF)
book chapter in Open Source Jaarboek 2007-2008, MediaUpdate, Gorredijk (The Netherlands), by David Jacovkis and Wouter Tebbens. Retrieved September 8, 2010. * 2009
''Free technology academy: a European initiative for distance education about free software and open standards''
Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education, Paris by David Megias, Wouter Tebbens, Lex Bijlsma and Francesc Santanach. * 2010
Free Technology Academy: Towards sustainable production of free educational materials
conference paper for the Free Culture Research Conference, Berlin, by Wouter Tebbens, David Megias, David Jacovkis and Lex Bijlsma. * 2010
''The Knowledge Society from a freedom centred perspective''
conference paper for the Free Culture Research Conference, Berlin, by Wouter Tebbens, Hinde ten Berge and David Jacovkis. Retrieved October 8, 2010. * 2010
"Free Technology Academy : a Joint Venture of Free Software and OER"
conference paper in Open ED Conference Proceedings 2010, Barcelona, by Wouter Tebbens, David Megías, David Jacovkis and Lex Bijlsma. Retrieved March 11, 2011.

References

External links

Wouter Tebbens
at Free Knowledge Institute
Wouter Tebbens
at Free Technology Academy {{DEFAULTSORT:Tebbens, Wouter Copyright activists Open content activists Freedom of information activists Living people 1974 births