Daniel Stenberg, Founder of cURL
Daniel Stenberg, President of the Open Source Academy, is a Swedish Internet protocol expert and the founder and lead developer of the curl project, one of the most widely used software components in the world. With 30 years of dedication to Open Source, Daniel has made lasting contributions through software development, protocol work within the IETF, and authorship of key texts on curl, Open Source, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3. A frequent public speaker and currently employed by wolfSSL, Daniel was honored with the European Open Source Achievement Award.
Reflecting on the recognition, he stated, “Getting recognition for my work and efforts in the wider real world outside of the small circle of engineers working on network software is rare and feels huge. I feel humbled and honored.” As President of the Academy, he emphasises the importance of continued investment in Open Source, noting, “We need to make sure that the European leadership understands this. The Open Source Academy can help make it so.”
Amandine Le Pape, COO and Co-Founder Element
Amandine Le Pape, Head of Section – Business & Impact at the Open Source Academy, is the COO and co-founder of Element, a secure and interoperable open source communication platform built on Matrix—the open standard she also co-founded. Element enables sovereign communications for complex organisations that cannot depend on commercial cloud solutions or unencrypted platforms, serving millions of users including NATO, the UN, the German Armed Forces, the US Navy, and companies like Mozilla. Since 2014, Amandine has worked to balance the growth of a thriving open ecosystem through the non-profit Matrix.org Foundation with building a sustainable open source company through Element, with a strong focus on gov tech. She received the Business & Impact Award for her role as a disruptor in open source innovation, with the Matrix project addressing fragmentation in communication technologies like Chat, VoIP, VR, and IoT.
Reflecting on the award, she said, “It is a true honour to receive this first Business & Impact award from the Open Source Academy. I have spent the last 10 years working closely with governments and have been thrilled to see the awareness of the value of open source grow at high speed in gov tech. However it has been very hard to change the mindset around buying open source, and instil an understanding of what type of financial support the projects and companies need to be sustainable and able to compete with proprietary alternatives. Some organisations are taking great steps in the right direction but most of the market is still in the old ways. Having been lobbying with a supplier hat on, this Award and my new role as the Business & Impact section lead in the Academy will allow me to have a louder voice to help our ecosystem and hopefully accelerate change in both the public and private sectors.”
David Curatielles, Founder of Arduino and Assistant Professor in Interaction Design at Malmö University
David Cuartielles, Head of Section – Skills & Education at the Europeam Open Source Academy, is the founder of Arduino and an Assistant Professor in Interaction Design at Malmö University. With a PhD in Interaction Design and an MSc in Telecommunications Engineering, David has dedicated his career to advancing education in interactive art, creative coding, interaction design, and embedded technology. He founded Malmö University's IOIO Lab in Design and later established the Full Scale Prototyping Laboratory to bridge engineering and design. As a co-founder of the globally influential open source platform Arduino, he has played a pivotal role in democratizing access to hardware and programming skills. His contributions to education and open source have earned him numerous honors, including the STINT award, the Ashoka Foundation Fellowship, the Swedish SER prize, and the Sant Carles Medal of the Arts for lifetime achievements. Recognized with the Skills & Education Award, David now brings his expertise to the Academy, where he leads efforts to strengthen the intersection of open source and education across Europe.
Lydia Pintscher – Portfolio Lead for Wikidata at Wikimedia Deutschland e. V.
Lydia Pintscher, Head of Section – Advocacy & Awareness, is the Portfolio Lead for Wikidata at Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. and a passionate advocate for free software and open knowledge. With over 18 years of experience contributing to free software projects, she studied computer science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and serves as Vice-President of KDE e.V. In her role at Wikimedia, Lydia has been instrumental in leading Wikidata to become one of the most influential open data projects globally, working to democratise access to structured knowledge for developers, researchers, and the wider public. Her dedication to the open knowledge movement and efforts to foster inclusion and diversity have inspired a global community to embrace transparency and collaboration. She was awarded the Advocacy & Awareness Award for her ongoing impact, stating,
“I am honored to receive one of the inaugural European Open Source awards. It is an important recognition of the fantastic work being done by thousands of people all around Europe every day to help build and maintain infrastructure where we can be in control of our digital lives and enjoy freedom and privacy. It is my hope that this award will inspire a new generation of free software contributors who are ready to build, tinker and share their creations with the world.”