New Director of strategy for ICT charity NLnet

[ Deze tekst in het Nederlands]
The Netherlands-based charity fund NLnet has appointed Michiel Leenaars (35) as Director of Strategy of the foundation. NLnet manages a large private fund of some tens of millions of Euro's, and annually invests significantly in the area of open standards, free software, digital privacy and civil rights through an open and easy application process.

NLnet director Valer Mischenko welcomes the appointment by the NLnet Board of Directors: "With the appointment of Michiel Leenaars, the foundation confirms the previously adopted path of maximum positive impact on the development of society. For the coming period NLnet has selected a number of strategic issues that will make good use of the extensive expertise and experience from Leenaars in both the area of privacy and open document formats".

In addition to his work for NLnet Leenaars maintains his position as director of Internet Society Netherlands. Additionally, he serves as advisor on e-science and e-infrastructure within The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Board memberships include EURid, OpenDoc Society, and Gridforum.nl.

Stichting NLnet manages a significant trust fund created in 1997 by the profits made from the sale of the first ISP in the Netherlands, and in addition retrieves funds from donations and bequests. Its private equity puts NLnet in a fully independent position, geared towards the maximum benefit of society. The articles of association for the NLnet foundation state: "to promote the exchange of electronic information and all that is related or beneficial to that purpose". At the moment, dozens of projects and organizations are supported financially. Amongst them: research laboratory NLnet Labs, the Free Software Foundation, KOffice, Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems, and the Internet Society.