Team

Christof Tschohl

was one of the founding initiators of AKVorrat in 2009 and has - together with his friend and colleague Ewald Scheucher, epicenter.work's attorney - worked on the successful mass complaint against data retention to the Constitutional Court and is cited in it as the first appellant. He is a communications engineer and holds a doctorate in law, specializing in fundamental and human rights in the information society. Full-time, he is the scientific director of the Research Institute - Center for Digital Human Rights. Since 2015 he is the chairman of epicenter.works. He sees himself as the "legal ant" behind the numerous complaints and campaigns. Christof is recognized throughout Europe as an expert in data protection and teaches i.a. European data protection and telecommunications law at the University of Vienna and at the University of Hannover. He regularly contributes to the education and training of Austrian judges.

Edgar Blocher

has been pursuing the activities of AK Vorrat and epicenter.works as an interested citizen for quite some time. The defender of fundamental rights now operates as a treasurer on the board of the association. He wants to help to create an organizational structure for the association, which also meets the current growth and increasing legal requirements. He brings more than ten years of banking experience and volunteer involvement in various associations.

Herbert Gnauer (@HerbertGnauer)

is a practicing radio producer and emeritus IT-machinist. He has been on the internet since 1992, and therefore is just as long faced with digital rights issues. Yet, he is always surprised by the developments in this field, albeit less of the directions taken than their dynamics. Herbert entered into AKVorrat as co-signatory on the lawsuit against data retention filed with the Austrian Constitutional Court or ECJ, and is a member of the Executive Board since mid-2015.

Thomas Lohninger (@socialhack)

✉ thomas.lohninger <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 1B79 2E14 2E31 0E7E 2742 3990 BE16 D613 7FC1 9312

was a programmer and anthropologist in his former life. Digital rights had been his hobby until he intensively accompanied the EU Net Neutrality Act as Policy Advisor for European Digital Rights. Thomas was one of the driving forces behind the www.savetheinternet.eu campaign and has a strong work focus on net neutrality, data protection, and mass surveillance. Since 2010 he has played an active part at epicenter.works and since 2014 he is the managing director of the association. He also writes on Netzpolitik.org, is a regular guest in the Podcast Logbuch:Netzpolitik and is involved in the Digitale Gesellschaft e.V. (digital society club).

 

Tanja Mally (@TanjaMally)

✉ tanja.mally <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 9FEE 7E03 0712 AF51 39D8 93AB 296C 0017 6840 96CE

spent most of her professional life in the media industry. Since 2014, she has supported charitable institutions with her experience in networking and partner management. As an attentive citizen with a pronounced sense of justice, her fundamental rights are particularly important to her. Tanja is the Managing Director of epicenter.works, with additional responsibility for fundraising as well as the support of the steadily growing number of cooperation partners. Solid funding and strong allies are the foundation of the successful work of our organization.

 

Iwona Laub (@iwonalaub)

✉ iwona.laub <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 0B16 EE29 AD00 10ED 1B66 35BA 5E99 5434 777A 4308

Despite her initial studies in Media Informatics, she preferred to focus on communications instead and worked in one of the country's first social media agencies, before moving to the journalistic sideline of an Austrian daily newspaper. After a few years of self-employment in the PR industry, she wants to actively contribute to epicenter.works' commitment to a fair digital future for Austria and Europe.

 

Lisa Seidl

✉ lisa.seidl <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: D2F7 1977 E523 785C 4BBE 8835 731C 3C16 E224 41C4

works as a policy advisor in the epicenter.works team. As a lawyer and former journalist, she has worked in the fields of compliance, data protection, copyright and public relations – always with a focus on fundamental rights. She aims to widen access to laws and legal issues, which is the basis for enforcing these rights. To this end, clear and simple language is necessary.

 

 

Peter Berry (@peterberry91)

✉ peter.berry <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 1CB6 7C78 763F 151F F75B 1AB1 47D4 9656 C83A D0CC

moved to Vienna in 2013 and has gained experience in a variety of areas since then. After two years as a Fellow with Teach for Austria, he changed course and moved into the political arena, developing a party manifesto for the Viennese regional elections in 2020. As part of his voluntary position in a youth party, he worked on the campaign against the DSM-Directive and is now handling this topic for epicenter.works.

 

Andreas Czák (@Sonstwer)

✉ andreas.czak <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 009C F584 C95B 61A6 82FF DBBD DB12 7891 BC81 D478

has been a campaigner at epicenter.works since 2015 (at that time still AKVorrat). He had been interested in digital rights and surveillance long before his studies in business informatics with a focus on IT security. His social involvement became apparent as a teenager, where, together with his sisters, he became leader of a scout group. After various jobs as an administrator in medium to large companies, he started his NGO career at ATTAC Austria in 2015, where he helped to shape the Austrian campaign and the protests against TTIP and CETA. Afterwards he came to AKVorrat and, after working voluntarily, he is now a fixed part of the office & campaign team. Whether in the fight against the state protection law, the "Bundestrojaner" (federal trojan), or for the maintenance of net neutrality, with joy and commitment, in joint actions, he helps to point out problems to people and deficits to politics.

 

Benedikt Gollatz

✉ benedikt.gollatz <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 0892 5E6F B231 6374 4B05 0331 E7FF 8355 D2A2 D0E6

is entrusted with the administration of the technical infrastructure and the IT security of the association, as well as with technical, scientific, and skeptical questions.

 

Bernhard Hayden (@burnoutberni)

✉ bernhard.hayden <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 269D D855 11A9 E06D A8FC 9C31 D5BC 191C 013C C7D6

has been involved in digital rights since his early years. He initially volunteered at the Network Freedom Initiative before gaining initial public relations experience in the European Parliament. As president of the youth umbrella organization Young Pirates of Europe, Bernhard designed youth participation projects in the field of digital rights with a focus on copyright, including the Copyfighters.eu campaign. In addition to his role as Communications Manager at epicenter.works, he studies International Migration and is part of the SALTO / Erasmus + Think Tank on Youth Participation. | Currently on educational leave

Lukas Daniel Klausner (@Vilinthril)

lives on the net and studied mathematics at TU Wien. He is currently a researcher at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, where he does research on security, privacy, data science and science and technology studies. In terms of digital rights, he is particularly interested in transparency and digital administration, the problems of big data and linked data in the modern surveillance state, the transparency of algorithms (“explainable AI”) as well as ethics and bias of algorithms (e. g. in machine learning applications) as well as democracy and electoral laws. As a mathematician, he knows that e-voting is fundamentally incompatible with free and secret elections.

Daniel Lohninger (@aesthesism)

brings a multimedia education from the Federal Education and Research Institute for Graphics in Vienna and studies information and communication pedagogy. Daniel first joined epicenter.works as a graphic designer and has been coordinating our activities in Styria since 2017. He is particularly concerned about surveillance and data protection. He also acts as a contact for data protection in education. Workshops and lectures are also included in his field of activity.

Michael Preisach

studies computer science and law at the JKU. Motivated by lectures given by Thomas Lohninger at various events, he has been fighting since 2014 for a free Internet and a free digitized society. Michael has been coordinating our activities in Upper Austria for some time now.

Karola Riegler (@karolariegler)

So that the memories of our actions and press conferences do not fade, Karola captures them photographically. Of course she does not just take the pictures for the album - Karola's pictures are often used by media because they tell stories.

Julia Wolfschütz

has studied Political Science, Sociology and Anglistics & American Studies at the Leopold Franzens University Innsbruck. For her, the digital transformation is the crucial point of social and political development in the 21st century. Therefore, she is committed to a free Internet, digital education and a society that uses technology critically and sustainably. As a member of the local hackerspace, she always participates in the latest developments. Julia supports epicenter.works from Innsbruck and coordinates our activities there.

Ali Al Awadi

studies law and specializes in IT law. He is very interested in surveillance and has written his diploma thesis on the new EU privacy policy for police and law enforcement agencies. After completing an HTL for information technology, he has worked as a database developer. He knows the dangers of large data collections first-hand.

He strengthens epicenter.works by combining his legal and information technology skills.

Erwin Ernst Steinhammer (@eest9)

is a digital rights activist and studies Political Science. He worked as a software consultant for a long time and has also dealt with the social impact of automation. As an advocate of fundamental rights, in particular the Freedom of Information Act, he soon became interested in the state protection law. When the "Federal Trojan" (Bundestrojaner) was introduced, he was one of the first to criticize the parliamentary review process. Today, he keeps a close watch on epicenter.works' digital rights developments, both in parliament and in government.

Herbert Waloschek

is a creative practitioner of ripe old age and works as an auditor at epicenter.works. His motto is the architecture of the future: designing tomorrow's world with today's fantasy about the world. He is always learning, critical, and open to new ideas. Occupation and vocation are one to him, because it is always about the design of human-machine interfaces with humane demands.

Marlene Kreil

✉ marlene.kreil <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: B0BF C50B B56C 42AB 9609 CBD7 F058 FCAD F8F6 F4C4

is a lawyer and is studying Political Science at the University of Vienna. Her great interest in fundamental and human rights prompted her to become involved with epicenter.works as a legal trainee since October 2018. She is primarily involved in the preparation of the new edition of HEAT (Handbook for the Evaluation of Anti-Terror Laws). Prior to joining epicenter.works, she worked as an asylum counselor.

 

Cornelia Hoffmann

✉ cornelia.hoffmann <AT> epicenter.works

Fingerprint: 4841 53A3 176C ED3E D9B7 EB2B FA94 BABC A690 123A

is a historian and lawyer. As a historian, she knows that fundamental rights have been hard-won and as a lawyer, the use of data protection and fundamental rights are important to her. She enriches epicenter.works both through legal work and in communication projects.