Heather Leson

Heather Leson creates strategic partnerships and builds community for global open source projects. As the Program Manager, Social Innovation for the Qatar Computing Research Institute, Qatar Foundation she designs and implements programmes for social innovation, youth engagement, entrepreneurship, urban informatics, digital response and humanitarian software. Specializing in strategic planning and community engagement, Heather is the President of the Board of Directors for Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and a Board Member for PeaceGeeks. Recognized digital humanitarian leader Heather’s honours include the OpenSource.com the People’s Choice Award and Crowdsourcing Week cited her in the Top 10 Canadian Experts. Organizations she leads in include the Crisis Mappers Network, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, Open Knowledge Foundation (School of Data), Ushahidi, Random Hacks of Kindness, Mozilla and more. Heather curates numerous civil society, open source and technology workshops and is a frequent public speaker including such events as IEEE Humanitarian Technology Conference, Google Big Tent, World Bank, OSCON, TedxSilkRoad, CSR GCC, World Humanitarian Youth Summit and more. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Combined Political Science and History from Carleton University in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, and a Library and Information Technician diploma from Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto.