GOOD24
Open Futures Panel
Stefaan Verhulst
Co-Founder and Chief Research and Develpment officer, The GovLab
FStefaan G. Verhulst is Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer as well as Director of GovLab's Data Program.
He is also, among other positions and affiliations, the Editor-in-Chief of Data & Policy, an open-access journal by Cambridge University Press; the research director of the MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance; Chair of the Data for Children Collaborative with Unicef; and a member of the High-Level Expert Group to the European Commission on Business-to-Government Data Sharing.
He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Yale University, Central European University and serves on numerous (advisory) boards, including Sparks and Honey, Center for Media, Data and Society, among others. He is also Founder and Curator in Chief of The Living Library.
In 2018 he was recognized as one of the 10 Most Influential Academics in Digital Government globally (as part of the Top 100 in Digital Government) by the global policy platform Apolitical.
At The GovLab, Stefaan Verhulst has developed and leads a range of impactful research initiatives that contribute to an enhanced understanding and improved practice of using data, science, and technology for decision and policymaking
Nastaran Saberi,
Co-Founder & CTO
GeoMate
Details at LinkedIn
Ashleigh Weeden
Research Associate
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
S. Ashleigh Weeden, MPA, PhD, is a community changemaker and rural futurist who splits her time between Ontario’s Saugeen/Bruce Peninsula (Saugeen Treaty Lands) and Wellington County (Haldimand Treaty Lands). Her work is fundamentally concerned with place, power, and policy — and how these forces shape people’s lives, particularly in rural communities and through technological and economic change.
A long-time advocate for the power of place-based approaches as critical mechanisms for creating effective public policy, Ashleigh has spent her career championing community-led innovation. Ashleigh recently completed her PhD in Rural Studies in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph, under the direction of Dr. Ryan Gibson.
Prior to pursuing her doctorate, Ashleigh’s work leading Grey County’s Connected County Initiative directly contributed to the community being recognized as one of the Top 7 Intelligent Communities of 2017 by the Intelligent Community Forum. She also provided strategic communications, community engagement, and Indigenous relations support to the largest publicly-funded regional broadband project in Canada to-date, the Southwest Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) initiative.
Recognized as a thought leader on rural renewal, policy foresight, and public sector innovation, and an emerging voice for ‘the right to be rural,’ Ashleigh has provided expert commentary to outlets and organizations like Buzzfeed News, the Ryerson Review of Journalism, the David Hume Institute (Scotland), the Scottish Government, CBC News, and CTV News, as well as several podcasts and community news outlets. Her work can be read in publications like The Conversation Canada, IRPP Policy Options, the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation, Rural Policy Learning Commons, CIGI Online, and Municipal World (where readers have voter her Columnist of the Year in 2022 and 2023).
Connie McCutcheon, Moderator
Connie is the President of MISA Canada (Municipal Information Systems Association) and a past President of MISA Ontario. She was an inaugural member of the Canadian Open Data Society.
Connie holds a degree in Urban Geography from the University of Western Ontario as well as a certificate from Brock University in Urban and Environmental Studies. She is passionate about citizen engagement and the opportunity open government provides for new innovations and insights.