Whose site is this?
This is the personal website of Rufus Pollock.
Contact
I get a lot of email but I do try to read it all. If you’d like to contact me drop a line to rufus [dot] pollock [at] okfn [dot] org
Bio (last updated: 2010-09-05)
Warning: like everyone else I only get around to updating this kind of information irregularly. Thus if the date above is more than six months ago you should assume that the following is no longer entirely accurate!
Click through for higher-res versions.
One sentence: Dr. Rufus Pollock is co-Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and an Associate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge.
One paragraph: Dr. Rufus Pollock is co-Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and an Associate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge. He has worked extensively as a scholar and developer on the social, legal and technological issues related to the creation and sharing of knowledge.
Full: Dr. Rufus Pollock is co-Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and an Associate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge. He has worked extensively as a scholar and developer on the social, legal and technological issues related to the creation and sharing of knowledge.
After graduating with a first in Mathematics (and a distinction in part III) from the University of Cambridge in 2004 he co-founded the Open Knowledge Foundation, a not-for-profit which works to promote open knowledge — any kind of information from sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata, that can be freely used, reused, and redistributed.
The Open Knowledge Foundation has rapidly established itself as a leading group working on open access to knowledge both nationally and internationally. Today it has over a dozen active projects and working groups backed by a vibrant community. The Foundation has worked extensively on almost every area of open knowledge and performed almost every kind of activity: developing standards and licenses (e.g. OpenDefinition.org, Open Data Commons), organizing workshops and conferences (e.g. the annual Open Knowledge Conference now in its 5th year), supplying tools and infrastructure (e.g. KnowledgeForge and CKAN, now used by data.gov.uk and many others), and building services and websites (e.g. Where Does My Money Go?, Open Shakespeare).
As the co-founder of the Foundation, and a board member since its inception, he has been instrumental in the Foundation’s development at every step and continue to be actively involved both in individual projects and the development of the Foundation’s overall strategy.
In parallel with his activities at the OKF, he has also worked as an academic in economist: in 2008 he obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge and from 2007 to 2010 he was the Mead Fellow in Economics at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. He remains an Associate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge.
As an economist his work has focused on the theory and empirics of innovation and their implications for intellectual property policy. He was the author of The Value of the Public Domain published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), co-author of a report on Models of Public Sector Information Provision via Trading Funds written for the UK government, and the lead economist of a study on the “Economic and Social Impact of the Public Domain” funded by the European Commission. In 2010 he was appointed as one of the four members of the UK Government’s newly created Public Sector Transparency Board.
Other activities include: co-founding the Open Rights Group in 2005 and serving on its board until 2008; serving as director of the UK branch of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure from 2004-2006 during the crucial vote on the software patents directive, and as policy adviser to Creative Commons UK from 2003-2007.
Research in Economics
At present my research focuses on innovation and IP, with particular attention to open models of innovation. Other areas of interest include two-sided/platform industries (e.g. Operating Systems, Search Engines), and research on happiness and well-being.
More information about his economics research can be found in the economics section.
Open Knowledge Foundation
Co-founder of the The Open Knowledge Foundation and has contributed heavily to associated projects such as:
