Jimmy Edgar
He started so early with serious labels as Poker Flat (when he was teenager), then Warp and !K7 as soon as he turned 20, that now both his production and performing skills are even more serious.
He started so early with serious labels as Poker Flat (when he was teenager), then Warp and !K7 as soon as he turned 20, that now both his production and performing skills are even more serious.
Elizabeth Stark is an influential free culture advocate who was deeply involved in opposing SOPA.
Bilal Ghalib is interested in globalizing the maker movement which encourages people to be makers rather than just consumers, whether it is through crafting, 3D printing, hacking electronics, programming, or other means. His motto is "Be good. Build something. Share."
Ayah Bdeir is an interactive artist and engineer. With an upbringing between Lebanon and Canada, Bdeir uses experimental media and technology to look at deliberate and subconscious representations of Arab identity.
Riwaya wa Bidaya is a program to help raw out stories of engagement and courage. It will use the TEDxBaghdad and GEMSI networks to gather stories and showcase the creative talent of community members as they come across challenges in their neighborhoods and cities.
The mixture of different musical backgrounds of the three members has created a concrete vision of electronic music of their age.
Fari Bradley is an Iranian arts and culture freelancer living in London who has worked with the Iranian diaspora since 2007 on radio, and events the world over.
As a student of Computer Science as well as Political Science, Philosophy, and Human Rights, Nadim Kobeissi is a computer wizard with a sense of civil awareness who likes cryptography and cats.
Inspired by the 18 days of Tahrir, Egyptian actress, Sarah Abdelrahman, started a video blog dedicated to questioning Egyptian norms and taboos.
This is a SHARE Beirut opening event where preregistered conference participants will be able to exchange their bar-code vouchers for wristbands, and everyone else is welcome to enjoy and dance to these cutting edge electronic music acts.
‘Aflamnah’, or ‘Our Movies’, a Kickstarter-like crowdfunding platform based in Dubai that aims to pair funding with creative projects and ideas from the ‘Arab World’.
Wafa Ben Hassine is a writer, human rights advocate, and law student who is interested developing Tunisian society on the pillars of sustainability and social justice. Her work involves redefining the purpose of social media: what was used a tool of revolt can now be used to create, build, and sustain.
Charlie Rayne is a singer-songwriter from Lebanon. He took part in several bands before venturing in a solo career in 2012 as an acoustic folk guitarist.
The disempowerment of veiled women in Lebanon and everyday encounters with stereotypes and discrimination motivated Esraa to try and change something by taking initiative and talking about the problems she has had as a veiled woman.
Jade is frontman and DJ from ‘The Basement’ in Beirut, on of the most important beacons for alternative and electronic music in region. His star is rising fast with a number of productions already under the belt and DJ gigs around Europe and the Middle East taking him away from home almost every weekend.
In line with this year’s focus on ‘Freedom of Expression’, civil rights NGO, ‘March’, launched an uncensored newsletter: the first issue, titled ‘Free’, emphasizes issues of censorship and the importance of Free Expression as a basic right.
Mohammad Tarakiyee is a web developer and an Open Web advocate. 7oryanet is a group of Jordanian bloggers, developers, and designers, and general Internet enthusiasts that have started an online resistance campaign against proposed plans to censor the Internet in Jordan.
Samer Nakfour is a computer engineer and entrepreneur. He founded LebGeeks, the first technology forum in Lebanon, in 2004. It is home to over 3,500 geeks with interests in programming, hardware, design and gaming.
The Beirut Groove Collective (BGC) represents a cultural vision to revive vintage vinyl culture drawing on the rich and diverse African-American music scene spanning several decades.
A young, but already known crew promoting alternative music and throwing good parties all around Beirut.
Musical genius, geek and entertainer at the same time. A violinist with a degree in philosophy and master’s degree in electro-acoustic composition.
Michelle Thorne is working for the Mozilla Foundation and she is a Creative Commons activist interested in open design and collaborative consumption - the idea that access to products is more important than ownership over them.
Improv Everywhere is a comedic performance art group based in New York City, formed in 2001. Its slogan is "We Cause Scenes."
Sami Ben Gharbia is a Tunisian human rights campaigner and blogger who lives in exile in the Netherlands. He is a co-founder of Nawaat.org and was Advocacy Director at Global Voices community.
Prior to the ‘Arab Uprisings’, based on a ranking of internet censorship, five of the top ten most censored countries hailed from the Arab world: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt.
Amira Yahyaoui is a Tunisian peace activist and founder of Al Bawsala, an NGO that monitors the constitutional assembly and parliament to protect the free expression of the Tunisian people and advocate or human rights.
One of the prominent y-generation Belgrade DJs emerged in 00s known for exploring new forms of electronic music and frequently presenting them in clubs and at festivals all around the place.
Grew up in Kuwait with parents educated in Russia, and then changed eight cities before coming to New York where she currently lives and works, Fatima Al Qadiri is a phenomenon without limits.
Kubatana is an online community for Zimbabwean activists that is "harnessing the democratic potential of the Internet" and other technologies as a tools to strengthen NGOs and civil society organisations and make information about human rights and civic education more accessible in communities where resources are scarce.
The co-founder of Multimedia Institute [mi2], freefloating researcher and innovator, focused on producing self-sustainable systems. [mi2]is an NGO established in 1999 in Zagreb.
Quinn Norton is a writer who likes to hang out in the dead end alleys and rough neighborhood of the Internet, where bad things can happen to defensless little packets.
From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers.
Photographers had Flickr, video authors had Vimeo, and only musicians were doomed to use Myspace, a failed hybrid of a social and professional network. For that reason Soundcloud exploded and now everything new and exciting in contemporary music can be find there.
Khat Thaleth or “Third Rail” is a project that has gathered a broad cross-section of the most conscious and innovative Arab hip hop artists from the Middle East and Diaspora to give them a platform for free expression of their thoughts about the on-going revolutionary changes in the region.
Covering topics ranging from pollution, electricity cuts, real estate pricing, to politics and social taboos, Maya Zankoul illustrates everyday life through the Lebanese webcomic blog, Maya’s Amalgam.
Nasri, a British-Lebanese writer and publisher, published his first book, ‘Our Man in Beirut’, last year. Based on his blog with the same title, it tackles the social issues faced by people who only feel partially Lebanese because of their upbringing abroad.
Pirate Beirut posts new releases every other Monday from Lebanese musicians. Showcasing 77 artists/bands so far, the site acts as an archive and discovery portal for music grown in Lebanon, to be shared here and elsewhere.
A new, justifiably hyped two-piece band from Beirut playing raw blues-infused kind of indie rock.
Godfather of Lebanese underground music Zeid Hamdan, founder of the iconic band Soap Kills teams up with young Egyptian singer Maryam Saleh, known for her covers of Sheikh Imam, the famous satirical singer of 70’s Egypt.
Linux Hive is a friendly Lebanese community of dedicated GNU/Linux users. Their aim is to spread the word about this freely available operating system with all its benefits and rock-solid stability.
Ji Lee is a Communication Designer at Facebook, and former designer and creative director at the Google Creative Lab, who is known for his illustrations and public-art projects.
“Spread and participate in culture. Remix, reuse, use, abuse. Make sure no one controls your mind. Create new systems and technology that circumvent the corruption. Start a religion. Start your own nation, or buy one. Buy a bus. Crush it to pieces.”
Ushahidi (Swahili for "testimony" or "witness") uses the concept of crowdsourcing for social activism and public accountability, serving as an initial model for what has been coined as 'activist mapping' - the combination of social activism, citizen journalism and geospatial information.
He’s performed in over 25 countries, released records on Soul Jazz & Tigerbeat6, DJ’ed in a band with Norah Jones, done two John Peel Sessions, and was turntable soloist with the 80-member Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. Rupture’s fans include that hot person you saw on the street yesterday but were afraid to talk to.
Wetrobots <3 Bosaina are an electronic music outfit hailing from Cairo, Egypt consisting of DJ/Production Duo Ismail Hosny & Hussein El Sherbini, and outspoken female front-woman Bosaina.
Internet access in Cuba is minimal to general population, but a young generation is starting to break the online Cuban silence.
Inspired by the power of the ‘collectivist’ nature of tribes and the notion of shared interests and common values, ‘Qabila TV’, or ‘Tribe TV’ in English is a media production organization, or media incubator, engaging in crowdsourcing initiatives.
In the digital era, natural flow of information cannot be controlled by laws or technologies without compromising civil liberties, economic and social development. For that reason, Jérémie and his associates founded an organization four years ago, and called it La Quadrature du Net - after an unresolvable mathematical problem ‘squaring the circle‘.
As he states in his Twitter bio, Smari is an information freedom activist, he writes codes, essays & articles, gives talks, wrestles with governments and builds technical, political and social infrastructure.
On stage: Roy Fokker & Xtrapurified, in life: Bojan Cizmic and Andrija Kovac, a producer and a designer, long time friends from Novi Sad, Serbia, new rave pioneers from Serbia.
Venus X is organizing one of the most respected underground parties in New York - GHE20G0TH1K, which merges all type of music fans from the hood to the geek to the dancer mainly because her sets contain raw blends of club variations and street anthems.
Nasawiya is a very open collective of feminist activists succesfully avoiding traditional NGO structure of boards, staff, and volunteers, but with a set of basic values that all agree upon.
David Munir Nabti is Chief Entrepreneur & Organizer in AltCity, a space dedicated to supporting social entrepreneurship or business startups that address social needs, specifically in the fields of media, technology, and design.
Habib is is the CEO of Wamda, a platform to accelerate entrepreneurship in the emerging markets through a media arm, early stage fund and products.
Igar Dnalor has been researching music since Roland Ragi can remember.
Radio Beirut is the first radio cafe in the Middle East, streaming live online. The cafe also serves as a live music venue as well as a social hub for cultural activities such as workshops, exhibitions, exchanges and other events related to music, arts and culture.
After spending 8 years in advertising, Naeema Zarif took a leap into social enterprises offering expertise on conceptualization, and producing both off-line and on-line integrated media initiatives, including print, social web, audio, and film.
Omar is the Founder of ArabNet, the leading conference for the Arab web / mobile sector, and as such, he has a unique perspective on the region's trends and players. Omar has a BA and MBA from Yale University, with a background in management consulting and finance.
Rami Sakr is a software engineer, technology enthusiast, ethical hacker, tech enterpreneur, scientist and activist, obsessed with software, reverse-engineering, web and internet security, having recently started his own business.