Mark Surman

Mark Surman is in the business of connecting things: people, ideas, everything. A community technology activist for almost 20 years, Mark is currently the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, with a focus on inventing new ways to promote openness and opportunity on the Internet. On the side, Mark convenes conversations about ‘open everything‘ in his home town of Toronto and around the world.

Before joining Mozilla, Mark was an open philanthropy fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation in South Africa, he invented new ways to apply open source thinking to social innovation. Earlier, he was the founding director of telecentre.org, a $26 million effort to network community technology activists in countries around the world. Mark has also served as president of the Commons Group, Director of Content and Community at Web Networks and senior advisor to the Volunteer @ction Online grants program team. Mark’s first real job was training social activists to make their own documentaries in the early 1990s.

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James Whatley

James Whatley is Director of Engagement Strategy for 1000heads. Having spent the summer of 2009 representing Lucozade as their Social Media Reporter throughout the Lucozade Energy Challenges, he currently spends his days advising the biggest brands on how to maximise the use of Word Of Mouth to engage with consumers in brand new ways. Founder of the Mobile Geeks of London, Co-founder of The Really Mobile Project and key advisor to mobile web twitter service Dabr, James lives and breathes mobile in every way, shape and form.

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