About Participatory Culture Foundation
What We Do
Democracy and culture can only thrive when people are engaged in creating the world around them; not when they are passive recipients or alienated from the society they live in.
Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF), a 501c3 non-profit organization, is dedicated to supporting a democratic media by creating open and decentralized video tools and services. We work to eliminate gatekeepers and empower communities around the world.
Our software is used by millions of people each month; people often ask why we're setup as a non-profit rather than a for-profit. Quite simply: all of us at PCF are drawn to the organization because of our shared belief in the mission.
Being a non-profit is the only way we can ensure that the mission is built into the structure of the company. So many times we've seen for-profit companies lose their values as financial pressures mount, founders leave, or they get acquired. We want to make sure that can't happen.
Board of Directors
- Dave Glassco, President
- Tiffiniy Cheng, Secretary
- Nicholas Reville, Treasurer
- Joel Cohen
- Cory Doctorow
- Rick Hess
- Leszek Izdebski
- John Lilly
- Stefan Magdlinski
- Holmes Wilson
Major Funders
- Knight Foundation
- Surdna Foundation
- Mozilla Foundation
- Open Society Institute
- Rappaport Family Foundation
- Mellon Foundation
- Opencast
- Mitch Kapor Foundation
- William Penn Foundation
- ...and many individual users
Our Staff
Aleli Alcala
Development Director
Aleli lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has worked for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in Speech Communications. Aleli will be focused on fundraising activities at PCF.
Contact:
Stephen Burrows
Lead Developer, Miro Community
Stephen graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in Creative Writing and German Language and Literature, and currently lives in the Seattle area. After hours, he likes to write Django applications and go swing or blues dancing.
Contact:
Marisa Browne
Support and Community Advocacy
Marisa has lived up and down the east coast of the U.S. and currently resides in Austin, Texas. She plays competitive skee-ball, dabbles in music, and loves traveling to visit friends and family.
Contact:
Ben Dean- Kawamura
Software Developer
Ben lives in Rochester, NY.
Contact:
Arthur Debert
Developer
Arthur Debert is a developer based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Gave up on movie making because the Internet is where people are actually at. He believes in good software, open source and good manners.
Contact: adebert@pculture.org
Janet Dragojevic
Quality Assurance
Janet directs quality and testing for PCF. She lives on an island in the Adriatic.
Contact:
Terri Hanley
Bean Counter
Terri lives in Cenral MA. She has been invovled in finances for 25+ years as an independent contractor before joining PCF. Her interests include fostering and rehabilitating Mastiffs in need of re-homing and fighting for camera space
Contact:
Dean Jansen
Outreach & Business Development Director
Dean is based in New York. He's focused on growth and sustainability for PCF. His interests include digital culture, 20th century branding, and motorcycles.
Contact:
Steve Losh
Programmer
Steve Losh is a programmer, photographer, dancer, and bassist from Rochester, New York.
Contact: steve@stevelosh.com
Nicholas Reville
Co-Founder, Executive Director
Nicholas Reville is from Worcester, MA and has a B.A. in Public Policy from Brown University. He worked in a variety of political activism positions for several years before co-founding PCF. He is an Ashoka Fellow.
Contact:
Nick Sergeant
Web Developer
Nick lives in Rochester, NY working on the front-end of Amara. He has a BS from Le Moyne College in Syracuse.
Contact:
Margarita Shamraeva
Quality Assurance
Margarita lives in beautiful Vancouver, Canada. She performs software testing of PCF products, mostly Amara and MiroCommunity, and always enjoys searching for bugs and verifying that they are properly fixed.
Contact:
Paul Swartz
Software Developer
Paul is from Kensington, MD, but graduated with a B.A. from Hampshire College and now lives in Northampton, MA.
Contact:
Robert G Shaw
Director of International Sales
Rob lives in SW Scotland, United Kingdom. He is a serial entrepreneur who has 30 years’ experience in the IT sector and has founded and grown early stage companies to exit as well as being executive director of a Global IT corporation . Rob is focused on driving revenue growth in the EMEA region.
Contact:
Honza Pokorny
Software Developer
Honza is a web developer in Halifax, Canada. He loves open source software and learning new things.
Contact: me@honza.ca
Sultan Tarimo
Web and Design
Sultan Tarimo is a user-interface designer & front-end developer living in Gaborone, Botswana. Passionate about all things ui design, css & javascript.
Contact:
Fernando Takai
Software Developer
Developer from Sao Paulo that loves Python and kind of likes Javascript. Besides programming, loves esports.
Contact: fernando.takai@gmail.com
Craig Zheng
Product Director and UX Design Lead for Amara
Craig lives in Jersey City, NJ. He has degrees in history and anthropology, both of which are doing him a whole lot of good as a web developer. Aside from design and development, he enjoys martial arts, writing, and learning new things.
Contact: craig@pculture.org
