Owen Blacker

Owen Blacker has a diverse work experience spanning several organizations and roles. Owen is currently working as a Lead Software Engineer at Made Tech, where they contribute to the transformation of public sector organizations through the use of technology. Owen has also been a Governance Committee Member at Wikimedia LGBT+, where they support queer wikimedians and works on projects to combat systemic bias in Wikimedia projects. Additionally, they have been involved with the Open Rights Group since 2005, initially as a Founder and Advisory Council Member and later as a Founder, Board Director, and Scottish Advisory Council Member. At Open Rights Group, Owen has contributed to policy development, proof-reading responses to consultations, and campaigning on digital rights issues. Owen has actively participated in Purpose Disruptors as a Technologist, volunteering their skills to help mitigate the climate and ecological crisis. In their tenure at Iris, Owen held multiple positions, including Technical Lead and Head of Server-side Development, overseeing teams of developers and contributing to the design and architecture of digital solutions. Owen has also been involved with organizations such as mySociety, No2ID, uSwitch.com, Wheel:/ pres.co, and Stand.org.uk, making valuable contributions to various initiatives and campaigns.

Owen Blacker obtained a BSc (Hons) degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of East Anglia, where they studied from 1993 to 1997. In addition to their degree, they have obtained several certifications. In 2022, they received the AWS Partner: Accreditation (Technical) from Amazon Web Services (AWS). In 2013, they completed the course "Epidemics - the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases" on Coursera. In 2012, they obtained the Umbraco v4 Certified Developer (Level 1) certification from Umbraco. Owen also received Fire Warden safety training from Force Fire Consultants in 2010. In 2001, they earned certifications in MS Internet Information Server 4.0 administration and Written French from Brainbench. In 2000, they obtained certifications in Active Server Pages, HTML 4.0, and JavaScript, also from Brainbench.