About Me

I currently work as project and community manager for KDE e.V in the KDE Eco initiative. Prior to this I completed a PhD in linguistics in 2020 at the Universität Potsdam, Germany, where my research interests were focused on experimental and theoretical approaches to meaning in context (semantics and pragmatics). Since then I have been working exclusively on projects related to Free Software and digitization. For the past couple of years I have been teaching the course "Deconstructing – And Reconstructing – The Digital Self" at the Universität der Künste Berlin. I have given presentations at various events, including Chaos Communication Congress, SFSCon, Grazer Linuxtage, and many more, and I appeared in the Arte documentary Disappear: Cover Your Online Tracks from director Marc Meillassoux, which explores information and operations security in various contexts. In my free time I collaborate with the Mobilize Berlin community project promoting the Fediverse-based event-management service Mobilizon in the Berlin club scene. Since 2013 I have volunteered with various groups seeking to empower people in our new digital society, including Slow Tech Berlin (STB), CryptoParty Berlin, and Berlin Freedombox User Group. I am a card-carrying member of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and I support Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung (FIfF).

Contact & Social Media

Project & Community Manager: Blauer Engel For FOSS (KDE e.V.)

From July 2021 to March 2023 I worked as project and community manager for KDE e.V in the project "Blauer Engel for FOSS" (BE4FOSS). The goals of the project are (i) to make the criteria for Blauer Engel ('Blue Angel') eco-certification for software known in the Free & Open Source Software community, and (ii) to generally promote resource efficiency in Free Software. For background information about the project, see the two presentations below.

I gave a presentation on measuring the energy and resource consumption of software and Blauer Engel eco-certification at the rC3 2021:

If you would like to be in touch regarding the BE4FOSS project, write me at joseph [at] kde.org.

Teaching

"Deconstructing – And Reconstructing – The Digital Self" (UdK Berlin, Germany)

In Winter-Semester 2021-2022 and Winter-Semester 2020-2021 I taught the course "Deconstructing – And Reconstructing – The Digital Self" at the Universität der Künste Berlin. The word self can be defined as "consciousness of one's own identity". In the internet age, one's digital self often remains an abstract and unconscious aspect of life. The goal of the course is to make the unconscious conscious – to critically deconstruct the digital self with the goal of reconstructing it as one wants. The course schedule for Winter-Semester 2020-2021 can be found here.

For courses taught on language and linguistics, click here.

Presentations

Holen wir uns unsere Veranstaltungen zurück! (2021-06-18, Görlitzer Park, Germany)

Holen wir uns unsere Veranstaltungen zurück!
On 18 June 2021 I gave a speech at the "Holen wir uns unsere Veranstaltungen zurück!" rally organized as part of the https://mobilize.berlin/ launch event. The text of the speech can be found at the following link: Pictures of the event were posted to Mastodon by @Disappear_Doc@mastodon.social [archived 2021-06-29].

☞ 37th Chaos Communication Congress (2020-12-29, Open Infrastructure Orbit, Germany)

On 29 December 2020 I gave a talk at the "remote Chaos Experience" (rC3) together with Miha and Max on the Fediverse-based event management service Mobilizon. The event was recorded as part of an Arte documentary by Marc Meillassoux entitled Disappear: Cover Your Online Tracks, which deals with online self-defense and free software.

Community Engagement

Mobilize Berlin

Together with a small community of hackers, event organizers, and party-goers, I am doing outreach for a Berlin instance of Mobilizon, a Fediverse-based event management service. The goal is to provide a non-commercial, autonomous free space for Berlin clubs and organizers to promote their events in the spirit of the Reclaim Club Culture movement.

For more information about the project, see our talk at the 37th Chaos Communication Congress above.

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