Team

The Team responsible for the launch and operation of the Web Wide Web Foundation is composed of individuals with strong, diverse experience in leading organizations and projects in international not-for-profit, for-profit and governmental organizations.

Anne Jellema, Chief Executive Officer

Anne has over 15 years experience as a development worker and human rights campaigner. From 2006 to 2012 she was the International Director of Policy and Campaigns for ActionAid, and also oversaw the organisation’s global programming on women’s rights, education and food rights. She helped to found the Global Campaign for Education and served as its first coordinator from 2001 to 2005.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Anne was a Marshall Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge and a Mellon Century Fellow at the University of Chicago.

Dillon Mann, Senior Communications Adviser

Dillon joined the Web Foundation in March 2013. He has close on a decade’s worth of communications experience, primarily gained working with complex, knowledge-rich organisations. Dillon leads communications across a number of the Foundation’s programmes and projects.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Dillon was a director at Spada, a leading UK communications consultancy, where his clients included technology companies, membership bodies, professional services firms and financial services organisations. He has also previously worked at one of South Africa’s largest PR agencies and in the education sector.

A graduate of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, Dillon holds a Bachelor of Business Science (Marketing). You can find him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Karin Alexander, Web Index Manager

Karin is a development professional and political analyst with eight years of experience in the non-profit sector. Her work has focused on governance and democracy from a comparative perspective with an emphasis on transitional states and a background in transitional justice. Karin joined the Foundation from Idasa (an African Democracy Institute) where she was the manager of the States in Transition Observatory and led the organisation’s strategic team on Measuring and Monitoring Democracy.

She is a Zimbabwean Rhodes Scholar with an MPhil in Development Studies from Oxford and an undergraduate degree from Harvard University. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

José M. Alonso, Program Manager

José is an Open Data pioneer and advocate with extensive experience in the eGovernment and Web standards fields. He has been devoted to Open Data since 2007, co-chairing the national Open Data initiative in Spain (awarded as the most-friendly in Europe), serving in European Commission and United Nations expert panels, managing research studies in Ghana and Chile and managing several Open Data implementations for local and regional governments while at CTIC, a research and technology centre. He is currently managing the Ghana Open Data Initiative (GODI), in support of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), and the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Development Countries (ODDC) project, in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Prior to joining the Foundation, José held several positions at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Web standards setting organization. He was key in establishing and led the W3C eGovernment Activity, and the country office in Spain and served as member of the Advisory Committee. He combined these roles with other positions at CTIC over several years such as Head of e-Administration and Open Government and Senior Advisor on Open Standards. José also served as member of the Nominating Committee at ICANN, the organization dedicated to preserving the operational security and stability of the Internet.

He speaks frequently at international conferences, has been named several times as one of the most influential Internet people in Spain, has previously worked as IT analyst, consultant and trainer, and even founded his own Web startup back in 1997.

You can find Josema on twitter, linkedIn, flickr, and several more.

Stéphane Boyera, Lead Program Manager

Stéphane has played an important role in the creation of the World Wide Web Foundation since 2008. In January 2009, he became Program Manager, responsible for the design and implementation of a new Foundation program targeted at leveraging the power of Web technologies to empower people in parts of the world where they need it most. Stéphane is also participating in different experts panel on the topic of Mobile and Social Development, including the World Bank Expert Panel on Mobile for Rural Development, the World Bank Expert Panel on mobile Health, and Vodafone Socio-economic Impact of Mobile (SIM) panel.

Previously, Stéphane joined the World Wide Web Consortium in 1995. Leading the W3C Device Independence Working Group from 2001 until the end of 2005, he was a key participant in the development and launch of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. Stéphane also took part in the management of the Voice and Multimodal Activities. From 2006, he led W3C’s work on the Mobile Web for Social Development, which is looking at how to extend the frontier of the Web to make it relevant, usable and useful for rural communities and under-privileged populations of developing countries. Before W3C and the Web Foundation, he worked in Artificial Intelligence (knowledge acquisition and modeling) at INRIA.

Stéphane graduated from ESSTIN (degree in telecommunications and network engineering), in Sophia-Antipolis, France.

Jules Clement, Systems Manager

He joined the foundation in February 2011 to take the lead on systems management and help the foundation projects from a technical point of view.

Prior to the Foundation, Jules worked as a project manager for Gandi SAS (a French registrar) in Paris. He also worked for the Word Wide Web Consortium as a webmaster and system engineer in Cambridge (USA). Jules has a greater interest in Internet and more specifically the Web, as an Information technology medium and a way to enhance ability to access information.

He holds a bachelor of computer science from Epitech (Paris, France).

Hania Farhan, Program Manager

Hania has extensive experience working in the private and public sectors. She was Director of Research at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in London, responsible for the Ibrahim index of African Governance. Before that, she was Director of the Middle East and North Africa region at The Economist Intelligence Unit – The Economist Group. Prior to that, Hania worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC. Before moving to the USA, she worked in investment banking in London and Johannesburg, where she covered emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Hania studied at London University. She has a B.Sc. degree in Economics (LSE), an M.Sc. in Economics (UCL), and a Ph.D. in Economics (SOAS).

Aman Grewal, Program Manager

Aman joined the Web Foundation in September 2010.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Aman worked as a senior consultant in the India field office of Vital Wave Consulting Inc. Aman has over ten years of work experience in designing and implementing IT projects in India, with a special focus on e-Governance. In his capacity as the Joint Ceo of the IT agency of Chhattisgarh in India, Aman worked closely with Indian government officials, NGO officers, private sector representatives and entrepreneurs with a focus on using ICT’s for development.

Prior to joining the government, Aman was part of the founding team at Drishtee, engaged in designing services for telecenters. He was a project manager with One World and was part of the technology team that designed voice based helpline services for farmers across rural India. Aman has consulted for several international organizations including IDRC and JBIC. Aman holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering and was a Reuters Fellow with CSLI at Stanford University. He received his MSc degree in Information Systems from the London School of Economics.

Sofia Latif, Programme Development Advisor

Sofia works across the Foundation’s cutting-edge programmes and projects to support programme design, planning, funding, and monitoring and evaluation.

Prior to joining the Foundation in 2011, she co-founded Strategic Inspirations, a marketing and consulting firm focused on building the capacity of small to mid-size non-profits. She has consulted with organizations across the US in areas of development, communications, measurement and evaluation and strategic planning. Formerly, Sofia served as Communications & Development Specialist for ACCESS in Dearborn, Michigan, where she also spent one year as an AmeriCorps member.

Sofia holds an MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business where she focused on strategy and social enterprise, a certificate in non-profit leadership from Georgetown University and a B.A. in print journalism and political science from the University of Michigan – Dearborn.

Shivali Mehta, Finance and Accounts Manager

Shivali joined the Web Foundation in November 2009, after serving as one of the Foundation’s first volunteers. She is helping to establish and run a high-quality, international financial operation. Her responsibilities include budgeting, accounting, payments, tracking, research, administration, and support for tax and audit activities.

Before coming to the Web Foundation, Shivali held positions at KPMG/BSR, P.R. Buhta and H.B. Dye, specializing in tax and accounting work.

Shivali received a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Mumbai, India; is a Chartered Accountant in India, and a Certified Public Accountant in the United States

Franco Papeschi, Program Manager

Franco Joined the Web Foundation in January 2011, working on the creation of mobile training and innovation labs.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Franco worked as User Experience manager in Vodafone Group, taking a human-centered approach to envision innovative and meaningful services.

Franco has 7 years of experience leading projects on the design of web sites and applications, mobile services, IPTV, change and knowledge management systems. He has been lecturer at the Politecnico of Milan from 2004 to 2007, teaching Communication and cognitive systems.

Franco is available on twitter (@bobbywatson), flickr (themepap), and – often – at a meet-up / conference near you.

Florence Toffa, Regional Coordinator

Prior to joining the Web Foundation, Florence founded a Website called myfashionafrica.com where she writes about African fashion news, fashion designers and beauty. She has volunteered in the organization of youth-centered events like TEDxYouthInspire, BarCamp Ghana, BarCamp Accra and Global Entrepreneurship Week Ghana. In the past, Florence has worked as senior assistant in the Department of Biostatistics, University of Ghana School of Public Health; sales executive in prepaid phone card industry; and research assistant in the health and finance industry.

Florence studied psychology and sociology as her first degree at the University of Ghana, Legon. She also has a two-year Certificate in Software Entrepreneurship from the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST).

Tim Davies, Research Coordinator

Tim Joined the Web Foundation in February 2013.

Tim is a researcher, facilitator and community builder interested in the intersection of technology, civic engagement and social justice. He is currently research lead for the Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC) project, and the Open Data Research Network. Prior to joining the foundation Tim set up and ran Practical Participation as an independent consultancy working to promote participation rights of children, young people and adults. He was worked on issues ranging from the use of online social networks in youth work and health communication, to the development of global standards and digital tools aid transparency. Tim has been involved in e-participation at the Internet Governance Forum, and in promoting UK civil society engagement with the Open Government Partnership.

Tim has a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and an MSc in Social Science of the Internet, from the University of Oxford, and is studying for PhD in Web Science at the University of Southampton. He lives in Oxford, UK.