Board & Advisors

His Excellency, Amb. Prof. Muhammadou M.O. Kah is an academic, diplomat, and technology policy leader advancing data and AI governance, digital transformation, and Africa's sustainable development through multilateralism. He is The Gambia's Ambassador to Switzerland and Permanent Representative to UNOG, the WTO, and other international organisations. He formerly chaired the UN CSTD and now vice-chairs its Data Governance Working Group, coordinates the WTO LDC Group, and has chaired WIPO dialogues on AI and intellectual property. He previously served as Vice President (Africa) of the UN Human Rights Council. A Professor of IT and Computing and former Vice Chancellor of the University of The Gambia, he also holds positions as Visiting Scholar at Rutgers University–Camden's AI Ethics Lab, Senior Fellow at Tufts University's Fletcher School, and Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg. In 2025, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the UN DPI Safeguards Strategic Advisory Board and the CERF Advisory Group. As a founding board member, Prof. Kah brings decades of experience in technology policy, data and AI governance, and international diplomacy to ODSI, anchoring its work at the point where open source meets the policies that will shape Africa's digital future.

• Policy & Diplomacy
• UN CSTD Chair
• Data & AI Governance
• Academia

Olawale Fabiyi helps governments and institutions build open source digital systems that work for everyone, not just those with the latest infrastructure. He currently serves as Technical Advisor for the HEMIS project at The Gambia's Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science & Technology, leading architecture and stakeholder alignment for a World Bank-funded platform serving the sector, regulators, and funding bodies. His work centres on a hard problem: building systems that serve institutions at every level of technological maturity, from modern cloud platforms to those still working on paper, without leaving any of them behind. That challenge produced the Capability Bridging Framework, an open, freely available integration approach validated at national scale. He brings a practitioner-researcher perspective, with an MSc in AI, years adapting international standards for resource-constrained environments, and a track record of building tech education and entrepreneurship ecosystems across The Gambia. As Founder and Executive Director, Olawale brings the conviction that Africa's digital future must be built by Africans, in the open, with no one left behind. ODSI is the expression of that belief: making the continent's open source work visible so it can shape the policies, and the sovereignty, that follow.

• Founder
• Enterprise Architecture
• HEMIS Technical Advisor
• Open Source

Malik Khan is a technology entrepreneur, cloud strategist, and ecosystem builder with more than two decades of experience helping organisations use technology to grow, operate securely, and create meaningful impact. He is the Founder and CEO of PointClick Technologies and has led initiatives across Africa, Europe, and the United States focused on digital transformation, cloud infrastructure, AI capability building, and talent development. Through his work with Disruptive Lab and the Let's Vibe AI Builder Network, Malik is committed to expanding access to practical technology skills, collaborative innovation, and real economic opportunities for African builders. As a founding board member, Malik brings deep technical and industry expertise to ODSI, along with a strong belief that open source technologies can create more inclusive, locally relevant, and sustainable digital solutions across the continent.

• Industry
• Cloud & Infrastructure
• PointClick Technologies
• Global Operations

Patrick Masson brings over 25 years of senior leadership across higher education and non-profit organisations. He has served as CTO in the Office of the President at the University of Massachusetts, CIO at the State University of New York at Delhi, General Manager and Board Director of the Open Source Initiative, and is now Executive Director of the Apereo Foundation. His work has centred on building and managing highly distributed organisations dedicated to education and open source, fostering collaborative communities where innovation emerges through iterative, community-led practice. He is an international author and speaker on information technology, agile project management, and open source software and communities. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University at Albany, founder and co-leader of the EDUCAUSE Openness Community Group, and an Advisory Board Member with Brandeis University's Graduate Professional Studies in Technology Management. As a founding board member, Patrick brings a lifetime at the forefront of open source and higher education, from the Open Source Initiative to the Apereo Foundation, helping connect ODSI to the global open source community and its collaborative, community-led way of working.

• Strategy
• Apereo Foundation
• Open Source Communities
• Higher Education