Dan Staples

Technologist, Open Technology Institute

As a Technologist for the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation, Dan works to develop technologies that empower social movements and promote open and free communications. He works primarily on the Commotion project, an open-source communication tool that uses wireless devices to create decentralized mesh networks.

Dan's experiences include student organizing, feminist culture-jamming, independent journalism, information security, and circumvention technology. He is a co-conspirator with the group FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, and was formerly an editorial collective member of the Baltimore Indypendent Reader, a grassroots social justice media organization. He received his master's degree in women's and gender studies from Towson University, and his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His personal work can be found at http://disman.tl