KatteKrab
Donna Benjamin
KatteKrab is my online handle, or nick. It means Catscratch in Dutch. What's a handle or nick?
I wear a lot of hats. Currently, I'm often wearing a red one. I'm working as an Engagement Lead in Red Hat's Open Innovation Labs team, and the maintainer and product owner of the Open Practice Library.
I'm also Executive Director of a boutique micro-business called Creative Contingencies and maintain a brief bio page on the cc.com.au website. But it's kind of on the back burner for now.
This blog is a mish mash of things. It's not a daily diary. It contains things I'm working on, things I'm thinking about, things that bother me, things that excite me. If I'm compelled to write, it will probably go here.
I've written a few articles in various places at various times, and have copied some of those to this site, when their previous online homes vanished.
I've run a few unconferences, and community summits, suchs as clsXlca, and at drupalcon
You'll also find me on linked.in, and tentatively stepping into Mastodon at aus.social
Core interests
- Open Source Software, particularly Inkscape, Drupal, Moodle and Sugar.
- Travel, culture and food.
- Early infotech: Paper, Printing & Type
- Politics. Sometimes. History and economics.
- Feminism.
Bio examples
Donna Benjamin is a passionate advocate of Free Open Source Software and has been instrumental in facilitating all sorts of people, projects and organisations succeed at delivering their desired outcomes. Donna served on the board of the Drupal Association for almost 7 years and was a recipient of Linux Australia’s Rusty Wrench Award in recognition of her varied open source community contributions. She is now the maintainer and product owner of the Open Practice Library, and works in Red Hat's Open Innovation Labs.
Donna Benjamin is a passionate advocate of Free and Open Source Software who works to facilitate team success through the use of open practices as an Engagement Lead, in Red Hat's Open Innovation Labs, and is the product owner, and maintainer of the Open Practice Library. She currently serves as Chair of the Open Australia Foundation, and co-chair of the session selection committee for the Everything Open conference alongside Sae Ra Germaine. Donna is a past director of the Drupal Association, past president of Linux Users of Victoria, and past Treasurer of ICT in Education Victoria (since merged with VITTA to become DLTV).
Donna Benjamin is a prominent advocate for open technology and transparent governance with over two decades of experience in the Australian and global open-source communities. She currently serves as the Chair of the OpenAustralia Foundation, the country’s leading civic-tech organization dedicated to making parliamentary and council information accessible to all citizens.
Professionally, Donna is a Senior Engagement Lead at Red Hat, where she facilitates team success through open practices and serves as the product owner and maintainer of the Open Practice Library. Her career is defined by bridging the gap between technical innovation and public policy, having led digital transformation projects across government, including engagements leading to the development of GovCMS.
Donna has a distinguished record of multi-stakeholder governance, having served as a Director of the Drupal Association, President of Linux Users of Victoria, and Director of Open Source Industry Australia. She is also recognized for her successful "Digitise The Dawn" campaign, which mobilised the community to preserve and digitise Louisa Lawson's feminist journal for the National Library of Australia.
