Sascha Meinrath is the Director of the New America Foundation

New America Foundation

The New America Foundation is a non-profit public policy institute and think tank with offices in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, CA. It was founded in 1999 by Ted Halstead, Sherle Schwenninger, Michael Lind and Walter Russell Mead....

's "Open Technology Initiative" and heads the "Internet in a Suitcase

Internet in a Suitcase

‘Internet in a suitcase’ is a program reportedly developed or spearheaded by the US Department of State to provide Internet and mobile phone service to dissidents that can bypass government censorship or shut down of telecommunications in countries such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, Syria and...

" effort to create ad-hoc mesh wireless technologies. In 2007, he founded the Open Source Wireless Coalition, "a global partnership of open source wireless integrators, researchers, implementors and companies dedicated to the development of open source, interoperable, low-cost wireless network

Wireless network

Wireless network refers to any type of computer network that is not connected by cables of any kind. It is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and enterprise installations avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment...

 technologies." Meinrath is also the co-founder and executive direct of the CUWiN Foundation

Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network

The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network is a special project of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center . Started in 2000 by a group of developers wishing to take advantage of under-utilized Internet links purchased for public use , it began a partnership with UCIMC in 2004, gaining...

, a non-profit launched in 2000 that aims to develop "decentralized, community-owned networks that foster democratic cultures and local content."

Background and Education

Sascha received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, where he was a Sterling Scholar, in 1997. His undergraduate thesis "The Effects of Academic Grouping on Students' Perceptions of School Climate," received first place for "Best Graduate or Undergraduate Research and Presentation" from the Society for Community Research and Action. He received his Masters of Arts in Social-Ecological Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

 where his thesis was titled: "Reactions to Contemporary Activist-Scholars and the 'Midwestern Mystique': A case study for utilizing an evolving methodology in contentious contexts." He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois focusing on wireless networks and participatory networks.

In 2004 Sascha moved to Washington DC to work as a policy analyst for Free Press

Free Press (organization)

Free Press is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, national organization working to reform the media in the United States.It was founded in 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney, The Nation contributor John Nichols, and Josh Silver, current CEO of the Democracy Fund, a foundation challenging the influence...

, a national media reform organization. He joined the New America Foundation to become the Research Director of the Wireless Futures Program in 2007.

Open Technology Initiative

Sascha launched the Open Technology Initiative in 2009. The Open Technology initiative is currently working to build community wireless networks with local community organizations in Philadelphia and Detroit.. Another project of the Open Technology Initiative is Measurement Lab, an open source platform that supports broadband research tools and speed tests. In 2011, the State Department announced funding for Commotion, a project of OTI, to develop technology to lower barriers for building distributed communications networks.

Publications

• 2011: Sascha D. Meinrath, Victor Pickard, and James Losey. Digital Feudalism: Enclosures and Erasures from Digital Rights Management to the Digital Divide. The CommLaw Conspectus: Journal of Communications Law and Policy. Volume 19, Issue 2 (2011).
• 2010. Sascha D. Meinrath and Victor Pickard. The Rise of the Intranet Era: Politics and Media in an Age of Communications (R)evolution. Chapter for Kevin Howley (Ed.), Globalization and Communicative Democracy: Community Media in the 21st Century, London: Sage Publications.
• 2007. Sascha D. Meinrath and Victor Pickard. The New Network Neutrality: Criteria for Internet Freedom. Accepted for Publication: International Journal of Communications Law and Policy.
• 2007. S. Bradner, k.c. claff, and Sascha D. Meinrath. The (un)Economic Internet. IEEE Internet Computing. Vol. 11(3). Pages 53-58.
• 2007 Sascha D. Meinrath and k.c. claffy. COMMONS Strategy Workshop Final Report: Cooperative Measurement and Modeling of Open Networked Systems.
• 2006: Sascha Meinrath and Ben Scott
  Ben Scott (Policy Expert)
  Ben Scott is Policy Advisor for Innovation at the US Department of State, where he works at the intersection of technology and foreign policy. In a small team of advisors to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he works to help steward the 21'st Century Statecraft agenda with a focus on...
  
  . Community Internet: Why Should Arts and Culture Funders Care. Grantmakers in the Arts Reader.
• 2003: Ben Scott and Sascha Meinrath. Media Reform Explodes onto American Political Scene. Public i. Vol. 3(10).

External links

• http://saschameinrath.com
• http://measurementlab.net