Sascha Meinrath

Sascha Meinrath

Sascha Meinrath holds the Palmer Chair in Telecommunications at Penn State University. He is the founder of X-Lab, a future-focused technology policy and innovation think tank, and promotes the "Internet in a Suitcase" effort to create ad hoc mesh wireless technologies. Meinrath founded the Open Technology Institute in 2008 and directed the Institute while also serving as Vice President of the New America Foundation. He is also the co-founder and executive director of the CUWiN Foundation, a non-profit launched in 2000 that aims to develop "decentralized, community-owned networks that foster democratic cultures and local content," and in 2007 founded the Open Source Wireless Coalition, "a global partnership of open source wireless integrators, researchers, implementors and companies dedicated to the development of open source, interoperable, low-cost wireless network technologies." In 2012 he was elected as an Ashoka Global Fellow for leading support for Internet freedom in the United States and around the globe, as well as named to Newsweek's Digital Power Index Top 100 influencers among other “public servants defining digital regulatory boundaries” for his efforts to develop open-source, low-cost community wireless networks and his role in fighting Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). In 2013 Time named Meinrath to the TIME Tech 40: The Most Influential Minds in Tech for his work to protect Internet freedom.

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