Fabio Balli - 2020 election

Hello :-)

I am a candidate for the affiliate member seat, currently held by Simon Phipps.

Why open-source?

I understand open-source as a method that encourages everyone to build, review, reproduce, improve a technology or an innovation (rather than recreating it).

I see the value of open-source in its ability to help us achieve decent and healthy life for everyone, as it fosters collaboration rather than competition, and reduces barriers to access knowledge.

My goals joining the OSI board:

• cooperation – develop a feeling of belonging in the OSI community by fostering meaningful, rewarding collaborations
• simplicity – make open-source a topic of discussion between 6 year-old children and their grandparents #inclusivegeek
• impact – lead a dialogue on how open-source helps reduce poverty, inequality, and address climate change (UN global goals)

What is Breathing Games?

An OSI affiliate since 2016, Breathing Games brings people together so that we collectively take care of our respiratory health.

We develop digital games to help asthmatic children manage their crises, to value self- and mutual care for people who live with reduced breath capacity (cystic fibrosis, COPD), and to promote respiratory health to the broader population. Did you know air pollution reduces our life expectancy by 20 months?

Thanks to 300 contributors, we prototyped 20 open-source games and two controllers – mostly during events –, some of which were recently tested in hospitals. We also raised 300'000 $ to host these events, and do clinical research. We now develop a multiplayer game where up to four players collaborate to reach the summit of a mountain, with different breathing challenges.

Since 2018, Breathing Games is a member of the Global Alliance against chronic respiratory diseases. Here is a poster that summarizes our work, or a video about an event.

Who is Fabio?

I am 37, queer, born in Switzerland. I live frugally, six months in Montreal, and six months in Switzerland and East Asia.

I feel I had three professional lives:

1. three years in hospitality, working as an employee, and manager in luxury hotels
2. ten years providing guidance to teams in the design and adoption of collaborative technologies (report for Fujitsu, in French)
3. now developing new ways of collaborating, with the Breathing Games commons.

Similarly, I have been exploring a broad variety of topics, from group dynamics (MAS Human Systems Engineering) to game design, and mixed methods in health. I now finish an Individualized PhD in Social Sciences at Concordia, a young university in the heart of Montreal. My research focuses on health commons, and builds on the different events and clinical studies realized for Breathing Games.

My scholarship gives me the autonomy to move and develop my project, creating collaborations between designers, programmers, artists, clinicians, researchers... and developing an open science project helps a lot, as people are generally willing to contribute to a project that can benefit all.

Spreading this new mindset is essential. This is why I also invest in projects such as

• Recherche et communs, a dossier I led for the Acfas magazine, with some very interesting articles about the cost of proprietary software, the transition to open access publications, or the co-creation of knowledge in universities.
  
• Université du XXIe siècle, a discussion with Quebec university presidents about the future of education and research (open publication in early April)
  
• Open Village, a series of activities I coordinate to promote open-source hardware for health, as part of the Geneva Health Forum and the Open Geneva festival. A short introduction video (subtitled).

Ich spreche Deutsch. Parlo italiano. Je parle français. Hablo español (un poco). ;-)

What contribution for OSI?

To clarify my position, I summarized my colleagues goals. I invite you to read their full profile – I learned a lot about them and their vision doing so. :-)

Anything else?