In this episode, I talk with Arfon Smith of GitHub.com. At GitHub, Arfon promotes academic engagement in open source code and open science. Prior to working at GitHub, Arfon worked in a number of positions where he supported a changing infrastructure for the scientific process, built around open source, open data, and open science. You can find Arfon on Twitter @arfon or on GitHub.

Episode 22 – Arfon Smith – GitHub, Open Science and Academic Culture Change

Episode 23 is the first to roll out in 2015! But don’t let that fool you… we recorded it in 2014. But what might fool you is that there’s some new voices in town on the OKCast this year. I (Alex) was joined by Jeremia Kimelman (@jeremiak) in creating an intro that frames this lovely interview with Richard Pietro, the motorcycle rider and self-proclaimed Open Government fanboy. It’s part of a new OKCast in 2015 – one with more hosts, more voices, more interviews, and new kinds of coverage. Welcome aboard! And as always, let us know what you think.

This interview has been a long time coming. Richard went on his Open Government Tour across Canada in the summer of 2014. We meant to get him on earlier, but the delay actually meant that we got his reflections across the course of his tour – and they turn out to be very interesting! A worthwhile listen for other Open Gov fan-people, as well as anyone trying to build “open” communities.

During the interview, Richard tells us about how one attendee on his tour taught him about the value of mandalas – a symbol that participants could draw to focus their attention and prompt different, creative thinking. Here’s one image of the mandalas from the tour.

Episode 23 – The Open Government Tour of Canada with Richard Pietro

This interview is with Shah Selbe. Shah is a National Geographic Explorer and, with colleagues at Nat Geo and elsewhere, is helping to shape the fields of open ecology and open conservation. As he says, he’s an engineer developing technologies to help with our greatest conservation challenges. You can reach him on Twitter @shahselbe.

In this interview, Adam Terlson and I interview Shah Selbe, a National Geographic Explorer.

Episode 24 – Open Ecology and Conservation with Shah Selbe

St Boltophs - Matt And Alex Interview

Marc And Kavoos - Its About Caring.

Derek Interview - Why Vic Makerspace?

The OKCast is a weekly open source blog and podcast with the goal to explore, connect, use and inspire open knowledge projects around the world to develop the public commons, improve organization and government transparency and communication, and advocate for social justice and social activism.

Open Knowledge Podcast