Become an OSHWA member today to vote on nominees!
This year, we have 4 open seats on the OSHWA board. Board members will hold a 2-year position. Once board members have been chosen by the OSHWA member community, the board will appoint a President, VP, and Secretary. As every nominee answered “Yes” to having 5-10 hours a month to give to the board, we did not include that question in each nominee’s data. Board responsibilities include fundraising, advising on goals and direction, and carrying out compliance of the organization’s purposes and bylaws. Please find details of our election process here.
The vote will be open on Oct. 20th-27th. Members will be emailed a link to vote. Here are the nominees in no particular order:
Tan Siret Akıncı
Why do you want to be on the board?
I want to be on board to advance open source hardware down to the processor level. I believe RISC-V is the pinnacle of open source hardware. Thanks to it, we can finally have fully open source hardware including processor/silicon designs. That being said, I believe RISC-V is still too complicated for beginners to get involved and its still not widely known enough, which I want to change by lowering the entry barrier by organizing workshops, creating educational content and making mass certification campaigns.
What qualifies you to be a board member?
I am a RISC-V Advocate recognized by RISC-V International since April 2026. I do have experience with leading non-profit organizations since my high school years. I led an online open source community named Mercode in 2018-2020. In 2025, during university, I have founded an open source hardware student team focused on RISC-V named SemiTO-V, and now I am founding RISC-V Alliance Türkiye and my own RISC-V based open source hardware company named Riscfruit. I have certified 8 hardware (IT000016, IT000024, IT000028, TR000006, TR000007, TR000008, TR000009, TR000010), and convinced others to do so (DE000174, US002824).
What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?
I am an ally of the oppressed. I am from Türkiye and I had been a student-immigrant myself in Italy, defending rights of other immigrants in both countries. I always defended inclusion of women and LGBT people wherever I hold power. I put a minimum quota of women in SemiTO-V to boost number of women in tech-related student teams, which is, I believe, still very low.
Samuel Boadu Duah
Why do you want to be on the board?
I want to serve on the OSHWA board because I believe Open Source Hardware has the potential to make technology, scientific research, and innovation more accessible, especially in communities that have historically had limited access to resources and global networks. My work in Africa has shown me both the opportunities and the barriers that communities face in adopting, building, and contributing to Open Hardware.
I would like to help OSHWA grow its global community, particularly by strengthening connections with Africa and the Global South. I hope to contribute through community building, partnerships, events, fundraising, education, and advocacy, while bringing the experiences and perspectives of African practitioners into the global Open Hardware movement.
What qualifies you to be a board member?
I bring several years of experience working within the Open Hardware and Open Science ecosystem, including participating in international Open Hardware communities and events, supporting Open Science Hardware initiatives, and contributing to discussions around policy and the development of enabling ecosystems for open technologies. My background in policy, programme development, finance, and organisational management also gives me an understanding of the institutional and practical challenges that affect the growth of Open Hardware communities.
I am currently working on the development of Open Hardware Africa, an initiative focused on building stronger connections among makers, researchers, educators, makerspaces, and Open Hardware practitioners across the continent. The initiative is informed by my experience working with communities in Africa and engaging with the international Open Hardware movement. I believe this combination of community experience, policy knowledge, and ecosystem-building work would allow me to contribute meaningfully to OSHWA's global growth and governance.
What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?
I believe Open Source Hardware should be a movement where people can participate regardless of where they live, their economic circumstances, gender, background, or level of access to resources. Diversity should go beyond representation; it should mean creating real opportunities for people to contribute, lead, learn, and benefit from the movement.
My work in Africa has made me particularly aware of the geographic and economic inequalities that exist in global technology and innovation ecosystems. I want to help create greater opportunities for communities in Africa and other underrepresented regions to participate meaningfully in OSHWA and the wider Open Hardware community, while listening to and learning from perspectives different from my own.
Mike Coates
Why do you want to be on the board?
OSHWA has become central to how I design and build hardware. I've put five projects through certifcation, I’ve appeared on the Show and Tell podcast, and I spoke at the 2025 Summit in Edinburgh. Those experiences showed me what a small, passionate, dedicated team can accomplish and I’d like to help carry that load rather than just benefit from it.
I came to open-source hardware through repair. Thousands of e-bike owners were left stranded when the manufacturer went bankrupt. Every bike was packed with proprietary parts, with an ever-increasing risk of failure and no replacements on the market. Reverse-engineering their components and publishing open replacements showed me that open hardware is about more than just choosing licenses for new products; it can keep existing hardware in use and out of land-fill. Open hardware, the right to repair and environmental sustainability go hand in hand. I want OSHWA to make that case loudly, to policymakers as well as makers.
Selling small-batch boards internationally from the Scottish Highlands has shown me how much friction there is in customs, VAT and distance for indie makers here. I'd use my experiences to promote and further OSHWA’s reach outside North America. OHS 2025 in Edinburgh and 2026 in Berlin showed how much energy there is for OSHWA in Europe, and I’d like to help build on it.
What qualifies you to be a board member?
I'd like to think I offer many qualities that will benefit OSWHA as a whole and the other board members specifically.
Within the community, I design, document, certify and sell open hardware. My boards are listed on Lectronz, I publish all source files on Codeberg, and I post detailed development logs on my website. I've established sponsorship agreements with large PCB houses, a skill which would be transferable to future fundraising and sponsor efforts with OSHWA. I also have experience dealing with the ever-shifting regulatory landscape found when shipping small-batch hardware across borders.
Professionally, I'm a Head of Technology within the Scottish public sector. I lead digital transformation and organisational culture change within formal governance and accountability structures, leading a team of 40 and managing annual budgets in excess of £1Mn. Working in the public sector, I'm comfortable working at a project and programme management level and have experience with the governance required to keep non-profit organisations on-track and delivering positive outcomes. I'm a practiced facilitator, having lead several organisation-wide transformation projects and I have crisis management experience from owning IT & Digital for an organisation of 850 staff.
I can commit the needed time, I am happy to work across time zones and I can help with fundraising and promotion.
What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?
I’m conscious that I come to this with a lot of advantages. I see my job as making room for people who don’t yet feel welcomed, not speaking for them.
Simply publishing design files might meet the definition of being Open, but on it's own it doesn't match the spirit. People have to be able to build, repair and learn from these projects too. Costs, skills and tools all have an impact on who gets to take part.
I endeavour to design my projects with that in mind. I designed "Touchy Subject" to use hand-solderable packages so people assembling their own boards aren’t shut out. I sized my "Oops! All Servos!" PCBs to be build-able with the hardware that hobbyist makers actually own. I blog about my failures, not only my successes, so others can learn from my mistakes and dispel doubts people may have towards their own imposter syndrome.
My most popular project only exists thanks to a manufacturer going bankrupt, leaving ordinary owners unable to fix what they’d paid for. The Right to Repair is a justice issue; it matters most to people who cannot afford to replace things.
On a separate note, it's hard not to notice that half of all certifications have been issued to makers within the US. The next closest country has one tenth of the contributions and the trend continues to fall after that. I don't consider Open Source Hardware advocacy in the US "done" by any means, but there's a real opportunity to engage new communities outside of OSHWA's current audience.
Michael Weinberg
Why do you want to be on the board?
I want to continue helping OSHWA make an impact in the existing OSHW community, as well as grow the community. There are many people who are already doing a form of OSHW but don't identify as part of the community. That is a real opportunity to help them realize they are part of a larger group.
What qualifies you to be a board member?
While I have been a longtime OSHWA board member, I don't think board member longevity is in and of itself a qualification. I oversee the OSHWA open hardware certification program, and do my best to help clarify legal issues as they emerge in the open source hardware community. I also make open source hardware, although many people far outpace me on that front.
What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?
I do not personally represent any traditionally underrepresented categories in the OSHWA community, which probably argues against my inclusion on the board. I do try to make the OSHWA community a welcoming place for people from a wide range of backgrounds an experiences, both through personal interactions and in fostering the larger OSHWA environment.
If you are a returning nominee who has served as a board member previously, please delineate the tasks and initiatives you were involved in over the past 2 years and any of your OSHWA accomplishments.
I am largely responsible for the open source hardware certification program. As part of that, I also made modest contributions to developing the open healthware certification program. I managed the A/V for the Summit (which, given the quality, may cut both ways), including editing and posting all of the videos. I also served as the Board Treasurer over the last year, and have been pretty involved in some of the strategic discussions about the future of OSHWA that the board has on an ongoing basis.
Andrew Lamb
Why do you want to be on the board?
OSHWA faces demands from the Open Hardware movement and the world more broadly, whilst facing challenges of its own sustainability and capacity.
In the last couple of years, the future of the Open Hardware movement has increasingly been called into question. The challenges society faced from an out-dated patent system, from the paucity of funding, the pressures of project funding and increasingly rarified communication between the movement are adding up. The lack of infrastructure to enable the Open Hardware movement has been a passion of mine for a decade.
In the last three years in particular, I have bene fortunate to participate in the Open Hardware movement from across a variety of motivations, organisations and cultures. I have become aware of where the opportunities are, where the fault-lines are and where the big existential challenges of the future are emerging. I have ideas about how they could be tackled, and where the money might come from.
Whilst I am occasionally a maker, and am very much an Open Hardware advocate, I am not in this for the hardware itself; my motivations are about the societal and economic change that Open Hardware can bring about, and about helping the movement reach its fullest expression.
My experiences in the movement have somehow been an apprenticeship for the board of OSHWA! I want to contribute to finding answers and to securing the future of OSHWA, and of Open Hardware.
What qualifies you to be a board member?
My board-level experience includes: as a trustee of an ‘old school’ board of an international disaster relief organisation, RedR, where I took on particular roles in governance and in risk; as a long-term board director of Appropedia, where stability and very slow change has been essential, combined with rapid-response to incidents (say, hacking) and opportunities; as a board member of several not-for-profit organisations or various forms, styles and legal jurisdictions where tasks have included hiring a Chief Executive, removing a Chief Executive, fundraising, budgeting, mentoring, documenting, representing and much much more.
But what qualifies me most is my own experience of being a Chief Executive and of running small-to-medium sized international non-profits. I have learned a very great deal, particularly about fundraising, finances, cashflow, management, leadership and style of governance. I have preferences towards strategy and purpose rather than, say, strategic plans and operational targets – these preferences have been informed by the way I have seen the funding environment change over the last two decades.
I have particular expertise in: the management of large numbers of restricted grants, covering a wide range of grant sizes; grant fundraising; charity accounting software; the donor environment; international operations; crisis management, and; international / cross-jurisdiction stewardship of non-profits (ranging from alliances to independent organisations using the same name as part of a movement to centralised structures).
I have in recent years been invited on to a number of boards, most of which relate to Open Hardware. I am currently a board member of (among others): an Open Hardware manufacturing company called Mekanika; Helpful Engineering, a community that emerged in the pandemic, and; the Humanitarian Technology Trust, which incubates the Open Flexure Microscope.
As a Shuttleworth Foundation fellow, I became a deeply committed advocate of the open movement, and of Open Hardware in particular. The fellowship remains a source of inspiration and a powerful network for me.
Finally, I have had the opportunity in recent years to engage with OSHWA and its community. I have attended and contributed to its summits, open hardware months, funded projects and conferences. Through this, and all my other work, I have a very strong network across the Open Hardware movement and have developed a sense of the challenges that the movement and that OSHWA itself is facing in the years ahead.
What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?
Engineering and technology has faced challenges in what is now called DEI for decades. When I was the Chief Executive of Engineers Without Borders UK , both as a volunteer in 2004 and then as its first paid CEO from 2008-2013, my primary DEI focus in that role was diversity. We were particularly successful on gender diversity, to the extent that we were often studied by the wider engineering profession to see how we did it! Over my tenure, we also improved participation of volunteers from diverse economic backgrounds, religions and ethnic groups by making changes to the design of our activities, culture and communications.
Part of my career has been focused on the equity of people through technology, and particularly of people living with disabilities. Open-ness has a big role to play here, but my work has often been more specific. I have learned a great deal about equity through work between communities in developing countries, on assistive technology design and through my involvement in a huge range of events – from the Global Disability Summit to responding to requests for aid from the Disabled People’s Organisation (DPO) of the country of Vanuatu.
In my work in the humanitarian sector, inclusion and protection have always been part of its purpose. I have left initiatives – and even moved countries – when I’ve had concerns about lip-service being paid to issues like localisation rather than them being taken seriously. I continue to work today with people who are excluded because of economic, historic, geographic or cultural reasons (e.g.: I am in the process of organising an event in Benin which has an agenda around recognising the skills of those who may have no formal education using technologies like Open Badges and the makerspace movement). In recent years, I have designed, fundraised for and delivered training on inclusion, protection and DEI (or GESI) and some of that training is available openly online.
Justice has been less of a focus of my work, admittedly. I sometimes get myself into trouble by calling out injustices, or by not being willing to accept a decision that I feel is unjust. And I continue to advocate for those who have less power, and try to help those who want to ‘speak up’ to do so. And I am someone who is deeply motivated by anger at the way the world is, by the role of engineers and by the tyrannies of big, closed systems. So perhaps my work on justice is more about my personal approach to life.
Finally, I have experienced DEI as a barrier and witnessed it as a barrier for others. I will always be concerned about moments when identity is being used deterministically, or as a blunt instrument. Identity is an indicator of course, but a poor one. So DEI is another area of my work where I work to help organisations, initiatives and individuals embrace complexity.
Moheeb zara
Why do you want to be on the board?
I believe heavily in open source hardware and enabling developers and makers to create without restriction.
What qualifies you to be a board member?
I have served 2 years on the board of a non profit previously and have done a lot of research into what makes non profit governance work. I am fully committed to the mission of the Open Hardware Association.
What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?
Nothing open source is created with a closed mind.
Ramón Roche
Why do you want to be on the board?
I want to serve on the OSHWA board because open hardware drives innovation and global collaboration, and it can be a real industry force when projects get the fundamentals right. Too many promising projects stumble on the business side rather than the engineering, from picking the wrong licenses to failing to protect their trademarks, domains, and repositories, or struggling to bring their hardware to market efficiently. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but there are proven practices from around the world that can spare projects from reinventing the wheel.
I’ve spent the last decade helping guide Pixhawk from a university lab project into the most widely adopted open autopilot standard in mobile robotics, running on multicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, VTOLs, rovers, and marine vehicles. That growth came from hundreds of engineers willing to collaborate, a neutral foundation behind the standard, and a constant feedback loop with the manufacturers who build it. I believe that model can be replicated, and I want to help other open hardware projects make the same leap from the lab to powering entire industries.
What qualifies you to be a board member?
I’m the Executive Director of the Dronecode Foundation, the Linux Foundation nonprofit that stewards Pixhawk, PX4 Autopilot, MAVLink, and QGroundControl, where I run governance, membership, and sponsorship, and raise the funds that keep these projects sustainable. I also lead Space Grade Linux, a newer Linux Foundation initiative, so I know firsthand what it takes to build an open project from formation through bylaws, membership, and technical governance.
I’ve spent over 13 years in the Pixhawk ecosystem, starting as Tech Lead at 3D Robotics, where I created DroneKit, and today I work directly with semiconductor companies and the hardware manufacturers who build Pixhawk-compatible products, balancing open standards with their commercial realities. I also host the PX4 Developer Summit and organize community meetups around the world, experience I’d bring to the OSHWA Summit, Open Hardware Month, and growing OSHWA’s membership and funding base.
What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?
I believe talent is everywhere but opportunity isn’t, and where you’re born and the circumstances you grow up in still decide who gets a fair shot. I’ve seen that firsthand, growing up in Mexico and building a career leading global open source communities, a path made possible by people who opened doors for me, and I’m committed to doing the same for others. Every event I run has a clear code of conduct and DEI policy that protects people’s identities and beliefs while keeping space for open, honest expression. Open technology communities are only as strong as the doors they keep open, and I want OSHWA to keep widening the path for people who don’t yet see themselves in open hardware.
