Keynote speakers
Katherine Maher is the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that supports Wikipedia and its sister projects.
Throughout her career, Katherine has been an advocate for global open communities, culture, and technology. Before joining the Wikimedia Foundation, Katherine directed advocacy for the international digital rights organization Access Now in Washington DC, where she worked on global policy issues related to freedom of expression, access to information, and privacy.
Katherine is an expert on the intersection of human rights, tech, democracy, and international development. She has supported the efforts of citizens and governments around the world to embrace transparency and civic technologies in her work with the World Bank, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and UNICEF.
Katherine was appointed Executive Director in June 2016. Previously at the Wikimedia Foundation, she served as interim Executive Director and Chief Communications Officer. She is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and a member of the advisory board of the Open Technology Fund. She lives in San Francisco.
Merrilee Proffitt is a Senior Program Officer in OCLC Research. She provides project management skills and expert support to institutions represented within the OCLC Research Library Partnership. Merrilee is an active member of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (RBMS-ACRL). She is frequently an invited speaker at international professional conferences and workshops on topics relating to the future of research libraries.
Her current projects and interests include: increasing access to special collections, the impact of copyright on primary source material, digital library initiatives, and looking at developing better relationships between Wikipedia and cultural heritage institutions.
Merrilee championed the creation of OCLC's Wikipedian in Residence position (2012-2014), and is one of the principals in the Knight Foundation funded project, Amplify libraries and communities through Wikipedia.
Dr. Lourdes Epstein is a professor at the Social Sciences and Humanities School at the Mexico City campus of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM). Former library directory from 2009 to 2016. She heads the project Goodmother Libraries, an initiative of Learning Cities and is a member of the Research Chair in Open Educational Knowledge UNESCO/ICDE and the Apple Distinguished Professors Program (ADE), 2011.
Dr. Epstein is co-author of the book Problem Based Learning (Editorial Trillas, 2005), Coordinator of the project Voces Anónomas I, II and II (Porrua, 2010, 2012 and 2014), and author of the books Plurality as a Source of Development (Editorial Académica Española, 2012) and Reading Fiction as an Experience of Social Capital (Ediciones del Ermitaño, 2014).
She has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the Universidad Panamericana, a master's degree in political and media analysis from the Graduate School of Public Administration, and PhD in humanities studies, majoring in Science and Culture, from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey. She is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Library Science and Information Studies from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.