Events

Nicole Allen is the Director of Open Education for SPARC. In this role, she leads SPARC’s work to advance openness and equity in education, which includes a robust state and federal policy program, a broad librarian community of practice, and a leadership program for open education professionals. Nicole joined SPARC in 2013 to develop and launch a program on open education. Under her leadership, SPARC’s open education program has been a driving force behind numerous state and federal policy achievements, which include securing $35 million in appropriations for a pilot grant program and establishing an open licensing policy at the Department of Education. Nicole was also instrumental in organizing opposition to the Cengage/McGraw-Hill merger. Since 2020, Nicole has also played a significant role in organizing the Open Education Conference, the open education community’s largest annual event. You can follow her on Twitter @txtbks

Maha Bali is an Associate Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo. She has a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Sheffield, UK. She is co-founder of virtuallyconnecting.org (a grassroots movement that challenges academic gatekeeping at conferences) and co-facilitator of Equity Unbound (an equity-focused, open, connected intercultural learning curriculum, which has also branched into academic community activities Continuity with Care and Socially Just Academia and a collaboration with OneHE: Community-building Resources. She writes and frequently speaks about social justice, critical pedagogy, and open and online education. She blogs regularly at http://blog.mahabali.me and tweets @bali_maha