I'm Tara Tarakiyee, a public interest technologist based in Berlin and a supporter of human rights, a free and open internet, and open source software. My work sits at the intersection of technology and society: helping protect those most vulnerable to surveillance and censorship, and unlocking the potential of information technology as a tool for liberation rather than control.
I've managed projects enhancing internet access and digital security, helped essential open source privacy tools gain funding, led advocacy campaigns against online censorship, and conducted research on surveillance infrastructure and policy.
I've had the pleasure of working with organizations including the Jordan Open Source Association, which I co-founded, the Association for Progressive Communications, and the Open Technology Fund. At the Sovereign Tech Agency, where I've been since the start, I designed, built and led Sovereign Tech Resilience and co-designed the Sovereign Tech Standards network.
Two decades in, I've stopped thinking openness is enough. A licence guarantees you can use, study, modify and redistribute. It guarantees nothing about who gets to decide, and decision-making accrues to whoever contributes most.
I sit on Quad9's Privacy, Equity and Human Rights Council, the W3C Advisory Committee, and I've been part of the Public Interest Technology Group since 2017. I've spoken at SSTIC, RightsCon, FOSS Backstage and the Open Source Summit Europe, helped organise the funding devroom at FOSDEM, and I take part in the IETF.
I also perform art as Terrabyte.
You can reach me by email at me [ a/t ] tarakiyee.com and follow me on Mastodon. More about what I work on.