Gunnar Grímsson is CEO and Co-Founder of the Citizens Foundation of Iceland, which provides open-source civic engagement platforms and won the pan-Europe e-democracy award at the 2011 World e-Gov Forum.

Created in 2008 in the wake of Iceland’s economic collapse and loss of trust in politicians, the Citizens Foundations main goal is to encourage citizen participation in governance. Their key offering is the “Open Active Democracy” platform, which helps citizens debate and prioritize issues. A notable incarnation is Betri Reykjavik (or “Better Reykjavik”), which launched a week before elections in Iceland’s capital city, achieved a participation rate of 40% among voters, and became integrated permanently into the city’s administration. The Citizens Foundation offers a global version, Your Priorities, free for all countries in the world.

Gunnar has been working in webdesign since ’94, was Icelands first commercial webmaster and has since then taught interface and web-design in many Icelandic universities and colleges. Since ’97 he’s worked as a freelance webdesigner and consultant for, amongst others, the University of Iceland, the Icelandic Parliament, National Archives of Iceland, Reykjavík Arts Festival, Icelandair, Icelandic Supreme Court and the Central Bank of Iceland. He’s especially proud of being chosen the Geek of the year 2011 in Iceland along with his partner Robert Bjarnason.