EFF Announces 2005 Pioneer Award Winners

[ first i've heard of ed felten's blog, or osaf. -d ]

* EFF Announces Pioneer Award Winners

Seattle, WA - EFF will hold its 14th Annual Pioneer Awards
presentation at 7:00 p.m. on April 13th at the Science
Fiction Museum in Seattle, Washington, in conjunction with
the 2005 Computers, Freedom & Privacy (CFP) conference.
This year's winners, nominated by the public and selected
by a panel of independent judges, are entrepreneur and
EFF co-founder Mitch Kapor, Princeton University computer
science professor Edward Felten, and human rights activist
Patrick Ball.

Since 1991, the EFF Pioneer Awards have recognized
individuals who have made significant and influential
contributions to the development of computer-mediated
communications or to the empowerment of individuals in
using computers and the Internet.

Dr. Patrick Ball is a leading innovator in applying
scientific measurement to human rights.  He directs the
Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) at Benetech
(www.benetech.org), a nonprofit organization that combines
the impact of technological solutions with the social
entrepreneurship business model to help disadvantaged
communities.  He served as the catalyst behind two open-
source software tools for the human rights community,
"Martus" and "Analyzer," which aid in the secure storage
and analysis of data on human rights violations.  He
will be accepting his award from East Timor.

Edward Felten is a professor of Computer Science at
Princeton University whose research interests include
computer security and technology law and policy.  He
brings these scholarly interests to his work as an
activist.  In 2001, Felten and EFF sued the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Secure
Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) in a case challenging the
constitutionality of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA).  Felten is also author of "Freedom to Tinker"
(www.freedom-to-tinker.com), a highly regarded weblog
exploring the ways government and industry attempt to
limit technological innovation and what activists can
do about it.

Mitch Kapor is President and Chair of the Open Source
Applications Foundation (www.osafoundation.org), a
nonprofit organization he founded in 2001 to promote the
development and acceptance of high-quality application
software developed and distributed using open-source
methods and licenses.  He is widely known as founder of
Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus
1-2-3, the "killer app" that made the personal computer
ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980's.  In
1990 he co-founded EFF and served as its chairman
until 1994.

"I am thrilled to be able to honor Mitch, Ed, and Patrick
for their incredible work," said EFF Executive Director
Shari Steele.  "Each of them has made a significant,
unique contribution to protecting civil liberties in
this digital age, and they are all deserving of our
respect and admiration."  

The EFF Pioneer Awards are open to anyone who is not a
current EFF staff or board member, and the independent
panel of judges determines each year's award winners.

For the full release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_04.php#003496>

More about the EFF Pioneer Awards:
<http://www.eff.org/awards/pioneer/>

CFP 2005:
<http://www.cfp2005.org/>