Peter Anderson (Founder)
Social entrepreneur & founder of VocalEyes & LocalEyes
(Innovation)
http://petera.co.uk/cv |  http://www.shirewebdev.org.uk |  http://www.shireinitiative.org

Peter has worked on a voluntary basis as a “social entrepreneur” for the past eight years. His focus has been mainly on projects that will stimulate community building, empowerment and that are a catalyst for social interaction at local level as the regeneration of our communities lies at the heart of many of the major issues of our time, including peak oil, climate change, social degradation and a failing economy.

To facilitate the development of his work, in 2003 Peter set up “The Shire Initiative” as a social profit company limited by guarantee. The Shire Initiative’s main aim is to facilitate innovative community building projects that are focused primarily at the local level.  More specifically, Peter has been focusing on innovative local social networks and democratic projects. Since then both LocalEyes and VocalEyes have been recognised by no.10 as having “Revolutionary” potential. read more…

Nick Sherwood
Environmental consultant heavily involved in Transition Towns.
(Company Strategy & Project Coordinator)

Nick is responsible for setting up and managing pilot projects of VocalEyes consultation tool, a central aspect and principal ‘front door’ of LocalEyes.

Nick has always chosen to work at the leading edge, where creativity and innovation are required. A trained designer, experienced facilitator and qualified environmental professional, he has thirty years’ experience of project-development in a variety of different fields, working with groups in the UK and abroad.

During the 1990s his consultancy work focused on the development of ground-breaking sustainable waste-management policies and strategies for the waste industry, using early computer-modelling techniques (including Procter & Gamble’s IWM-1) and LifeCycle Inventory Analysis.

More recently, while working for local government in the field of carbon-management, on his own initiative he developed a web-based Community Carbon Calculator. Using the same back-engine as DEFRA’s national ‘Act on CO2’ calculator and launched the same day, this took a radically different approach enabling the capture and use at local level of data which would otherwise have been dissipated. Like LocalEyes, this tool is also based on the use of six-figure postcodes and also offers the potential to act as a ‘hub’ for community engagement.

These projects equip him well to be a member of the LocalEyes team. In addition, having worked widely in the environmental movement and with Transition Towns Initiatives, Nick brings to the project a wealth of key connections, experience in training and development, and communication skills which are essential to trialling and proving the capabilities of LocalEyes and reporting on these. He also possesses analytic strengths, with a notable eye for detail and a capacity for strategic vision, which enable him to contribute to the project at all levels.

Melvyn Wallis
Community activist, passionate about empowerment & democracy as this is a major part of the solution to some of the big problems we face in society today.
(Corporate Relations)

Melvyn has been a committed grass roots activist since the late 1960’s when he first engaged in the radical youth politics of that era and he is a committed democratic who firmly believes that the Internet and mobile telephony have the potential to radicalise the way individuals will, in the future, engage in decision making and the civic affairs of their local communities.

For many years Melvyn worked with tenants of inner city London council estates to campaign for improved housing conditions and better living standards and he knows all too well why it is necessary to build strong local groups if communities are to thrive, which is the principle reason why he so strongly supports the need for LocalEyes.

Brian Seage OBE, BA (Hons), MInstF
Chartered accountant and experienced charity fund raiser
(Company secretary, fund raiser & accountant)

Former Royal Marines Officer with wide experience of Operations and Logistics. Reskilled in Finance and has worked in Accountancy, Audit, Business Management and most recently as CEO of a specialised charity raising funds for medical research. Currently working as an Independent Consultant in the 3rd Sector.

Lizzy Lowenstein
An Occupational Psychologist and Learning and Development Specialist
(Education, learning, participation & engagement)
http://www.investorsinlearning.com

Through my experience working in business, education and in communities, I have learnt that there are some key common denominators for the achievement of successful outcomes. These include: openness to learning, fostering positive relationships, establishing communication structures, creating a community of shared values and vision, developing engagement strategies where all feel safe to participate and learn freely.

When I was first introduced to VocalEyes, I immediately saw the power it had in addressing all of the above key factors. It is an online process which faciltates learning in groups whilst also ensuring that this learning is captured and that action is taken as a result of the learning. I have therefore incorporated VocalEyes as a key online engagement process which I promote through my business Investors in Learning Ltd.

Alex Ali
Senior editor for Herald Express, South Devon
(Marketing, branding and PR)

A Journalist with an interest in reporting crime, justice, politics and a passion for social reform, engagement with the disenfranchised and democracy. Currently a trustee with the Write to Freedom Charity, which works with young offenders pre and post release and a trainee psychotherapist in my spare time. Loves deadlines, honest communications, news, spin, strategy and people. Owner of a BA and Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism Studies too.

Ana Stanic
London based lawyer
(Legals and governance)
http://www.ealaw.eu

Founder of E&A Law Limited, Ana Stanic is a Solicitor Advocate with rights of audience in all English Courts. She completed a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance and Banking) and a Bachelor of Laws at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Thereafter, Ana spent two years at the Slovenian Ministry of Economic Relations and Development and Central Bank, where she was responsible for negotiating investment protection agreements and free trade agreements on behalf of Slovenia, advising the Slovene government on EU and international law, drafting banking regulations and supervising banks. She received a Cambridge Trust and Chevenning Scholarship to study international law, EU competition law and international dispute resolution at Cambridge University. She completed the LLM with highest distinction. more..

Spiro Stathakis
IT Systems Manager at Cardiff University.
(Technical Development)

An IT systems manager for a neuro imaging centre at Cardiff University. I manage an infrastructure consisting of a network of around 50 workstations, 75 high performance clustered compute nodes, a 45 terrabyte storage array and an accompanying backup system.  I adapt Linux to work with the University’s information systems and also develop software to assist neuro scientists with their research. I also design database systems to manage the day to day business of the Department. I am currently embarked on a PhD programme and my research interests concern scaling fault tolerant systems to operate within an exascale computing environment.

My involvement with the LocalEyes project originates from the belief that existing democratic structures and institutions are out of touch with grass roots opinion and to some extent no longer work in the interests of citizens. The ubiquity of networked aware technology can facilitate a communication process to bring people and communities together for a common cause or consenus that can gradually feed back up to policy making levels.

John McGeechan
Runs an IT company in Torbay
(Technical Development – experienced in web to mobile platforms)
http://simplersolutions.biz/

Ryan Jendoubi
Trainee Lawyer
(Technical Development. Programmer, concept design & testing)

Ryan found LocalEyes over two years ago while researching the UK local / community website space, and was drawn in by the scope and ambitiousness of the project. His self-led technical “training” is grounded firmly in the open source movement. Experience using a variety of web and desktop programming languages, and particularly work in the Perl community, has given Ryan an innate appreciation of software development best practices. He is particularly interested in effective workflows, interoperability and open standards, and making the best use of resources provided by the open source community. Ryan is currently converting to law from a politics-based undergraduate degree. His social outlook is heavily influenced by the philosophies of open source, and his interest in the LocalEyes project lies in its potential for connecting individuals to precipitate bottom-up action, be it for social good, for enterprise, or just for fun.

Marko Koskinen
Democratic Educator
(Concept design & testing)

I have been involved in democratic education movement for 20 years and started the first democratic school (Phoenix School) in Finland in 2005. I have been actively promoting children’s rights for more democratic participation also outside education. Recently I have been working on an online learning environment, which would allow students to study more autonomously. I found VocalEyes to be a brilliant tool for social change and grassroots involvement.

I’m also a member of a citizen panel of the Ministry of Justice of Finland for developing an online democracy software to improve citizen participation and access to knowledge of public decision making.