Biographical Sketch

Erik Borra is New Media developer at the University of Amsterdam's New Media program, freelance programmer and web researcher. He is lead programmer and researcher for Govcom.org, a foundation dedicated to creating and hosting political Web tools. This consists of mapping issue networks on the Web by using the Issue Crawler software, as well as devising new tools such as the Issue Feed (beta), Issue Scraper - which makes comparative analyses of webspheres (e.g. news spheres and blogospheres), a surfer pathway browser, and tag ecology visualizers. In addition Erik works for the recently created University of Amsterdam's Digital Methods Initiative through which he is involved in the 'Mapping Controversies in Science and Politics' European research project (MACOSPOL).

The remainder of his time Erik works together with artists and designers, in projects such as the Delicious Network Visualizer (displayed at infowarroom.org), the Oracle Machine - an interactive application connecting on- and off-line public space, iTea - an interactive RFID installation designed as a coffee table, vriendjespolitiek.net - a post-demographic recommendation tool, and tapemixer.com, a playlist recommendation mash-up between YouTube and Last.fm.

Erik earned his BSc and MSc in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Amsterdam. He is about to finish his second, New Media Master program, as a means to obtain a different perspective of the matters he’s been involved in for years already.

Further Info

• Curriculum Vitae
• Universitary log whilst being a New Media student
• MSc thesis for AI
• Universitary log whilst being an AI student (in Dutch)
• Gpg key