About us
Our vision is to leverage human potential one sector at a time. Knowledge Networks powered by TallyFox are independent, sector focused, and largely self governed by their members. We support a social concept of cooperation that encourages diversity of content, views from reputable parties, and avoids philosophical issues.
Our business model is to provide an integrated collaboration solution that delivers intelligence as you work, at a fraction of the cost of stand-alone tools.
We are devoted to a policy of neutrality, security and reliability mirroring the culture of Switzerland, where we are headquartered and where all of our hosting and data storage is located.
What's in the name? Tally sticks are an ancient form of recording numbers, quantities and messages. They catalogued valuable data as evidence, to be shared in an intelligent way. The morning we created our name, a red fox was seen at sunrise sleeping on my doorstep in downtown Zurich. This occurred just days after my beloved red haired mother, Margaret, passed away. Lore has it that a fox sighting is a signal from the spirits of the deceased, appropriate as both my mother and foxes are known for their intelligence and wisdom. Margaret believed that intelligent collaboration can improve the human condition and the world we live in, so do we - and so TallyFox was born.
TallyFox Team
Trudi Schifter, Founder and CEO, Switzerland, B.S. Engineering, MBA IMD
After twenty nine years of work experience in the US, Asia and Europe I am fortunate, to have acquired a broad spectrum of experience across business, government, Venture Capital and non profit sectors. I value the excellent business practices acquired from 13 years at GE and am particularly driven to help people achieve exceptional results. I have a passion for community and social responsibility.
TallyFox combines my dream and vision to purpose social technologies to more effectively address the world’s most important issues. I am dedicated to deliver the resources it takes to make this happen.
Tia Carr Williams, Director of Engagement, United Kingdom, B.Sc. Psychology and Study of Religions
After a twenty five year background in personnel and recruitment, I have worked for ten years in social media. My skills in interpersonal relationship building serve me well in translating the medium of the web into a powerful engine for creating, managing and maintaining social and professional networks and communities.
What I bring to TallyFox is experience that includes online education, social media marketing and online community engagement and management. Enabling TallyFox to develop services and products through innovative technology is how I deliver value.
Hans Idink, Director of Web Development, The Netherlands. M.Sc. in Biology
I have 15 years of experience in IT, Internet and Social Media with in-depth knowledge of complex ecosystems to monitor, build and grow complex technological systems.
What I bring to Tallyfox is technical experience in the creation and support of large community driven projects. I am committed to building TallyFox within the Drupal open source community.
David A Butler, Director of Web Operations, Switzerland
Having worked on social and humanitarian projects for over 15 years in more than half a dozen countries, on four continents, I can truly say I have acquired a first hand understanding of global issues. This has given me a wealth of insight and allows me to bring a global perspective to TallyFox and its vision and mission.
As a social entrepreneur, what I bring to TallyFox is experience in how social technology can provide a powerful solution to architecting new ways of sourcing insight and innovation.
Elena Steiner, Business Development Specialist, Switzerland
Having grown up with socially-minded parents in an environment that brought me into close contact with people from many different nations and backgrounds. My sojourns in a variety of countries and continents has enabled me to view the world with a more global perspective and understand the needs of individuals from diverse cultures.
TallyFox is building a platform that brings the world together around some of our most important global issues, enabling even the smallest voice to enact world-wide impact. This seems a very significant project and I am delighted to have the opportunity to bring my polycultural experience into play.
Stella Thomas, The Water Network, Chairman of the Board, Greece & Switzerland
Stella Thomas is the Founder and the Executive Director of the Global Water Fund, whose aim is to raise awareness of the global water crisis and to find financial and technical solutions to problems of water scarcity and sanitation. Ms. Thomas serves as a liaison to governments, international organizations, and business on issues related to sustainable development and the environment including: US Congress, United Nations, NATO, United Nations Development Program, OECD, World Bank, World Trade Organization, Council of Water, League of Arab Nations.
B.A.s in International Relations and Political Science, Michigan State University, Economics from the University of Cambridge and The London School of Economics. Masters in Natural Resources & Conflict Resolution The School of International Relations & Diplomacy/University of Paris, Water Science, Policy & Management The University of Oxford.
Silvan Gebhardt, Systems Architect, Switzerland
I am the founder and CEO of OpenFactory, an IT support and services company in Zurich. Since I founded my first company at the age of twelve I consider myself a natural entrepreneur. My expertise includes software, architecture, and security, business IT applications and media.
At TallyFox I am responsible for architectural review, communications, back up and security. I am from a Swiss farming background and, therefore, am concerned about the future of water and all things having to do with responsible stewardship of our planet.
Thomas Billeter, Director, PhD in Economics, MBA, MSc, Switzerland
I have spent most of my professional career building businesses in the telecoms, IT and media industries. After setting up and managing a network technology unit for Ascom, I spent most of the nineties as a McKinsey consultant. Later on, I engaged in the media space, where I contributed to establishing FIFAworldcup.com as the first fan website covering the soccer world championships. Among other recent engagements I spent two years building the international business for Zattoo, a market breaking Internet TV service.
I bring to Tallyfox a passion for the Internet as well as an extensive network in both the large corporate and the technology / new media worlds. Tallyfox is a company on a great mission, which I am proud to be a part of.
Dr. Gerhard Baumgard, Non-profit Organizations and New Networks, Germany & Switzerland
Social Entrepreneur, previously investment banker (Salomon Brothers, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs), scholar and entrepreneur, co-founder and principal People in Need - Gerhard Baumgard Foundation, Masters Economics, Ph.D..
Jordi Duran I Batidor, Acting CTO, Switzerland
Technical Consultant, Entrepreneur, Co-Founder and CTO Biz News, CTO AdForum, Co-Founder and CTO iWith.org, Co- Founder and CTO of Ole (acquired by Telefonica became Terra, the Yahoo of Spain).
Farley Duvall, Executive Producer, Spain
As a professional networker, event organizer and advisor to early-stage firms, my career has been spent as a “human” social media platform. Finding the right software tools has always been a challenge…and a goal. Creating tools for people like me is a passion!
My background for almost 20 years, has been with a mix of Fortune 500 firms and startups. What I do is connect people, ideas and technology. The TallyFox user-experience will link all of the things that I love to do, and I am proud to be a part of this effort.
Eton Digital, Web Development, UK and Serbia
EtonDigital is a strategic partner of TallyFox providing a dedicated team of Drupal developers, designers, system architects and project managers. Eton is a world class web design and development company of top professionals.
Combining the vision of TallyFox with the expertise of Eton Digital has resulted in an innovative architecture that deploys Drupal to its fullest potential and integrates best of class open source collaboration utilities with taxonomic tagging and intelligence delivery tools in a user friendly interface.
Advisors
Ed Zander, USA
CEO and Chairman of the Board of Motorola from January 2004 until January 2008. Previously COO and President Sun Microsystems & Managing Director at Silver Lake Partners. Science advisory board of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Advisory Board of the Boston University. Director at Seagate Technologies from 2002 to 2004, and at Time Warner Inc. from January to May 2007. BS EE Rensselaer Polytechnic, M.B.A, Honorary Ph.D. Boston University.
Bob Ottenhoff, USA
President & CEO Guidestar. Bob has 25 years of management experience in public broadcasting and high-tech companies, including 9 years as chief operating officer of the Public Broadcasting Service. He currently serves on the board of Vision TV, Grameen Foundation USA, AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, and the e-Philanthropy Foundation. Bob holds a master's degree in planning from Rutgers University.
Professor Dr. Woodrow Clark, USA
Co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize, along with former Vice President Al Gore. Author & political advisor. Senior Fellow, Milken Institute; CEO Clark Communications. Fulbright Scholar, master’s degrees at the University of Illinois, Urbana, Roosevelt University and Loyola University, Chicago, Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley.
Professor Dr. Didier Sornette, Switzerland
Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks, Department of Management, Technology, and Economics, Swiss Federal Institute Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH).
Political and Academic Consultant
Professor Dr. Michael Cornfield, USA
Political scientist and author about the Internet and American Politics. Vice President for Research and Media Strategy at 720 Strategies. Adjunct Professor at The Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM) of The George Washington University. Senior Research Consultant to the Pew Internet Project. B.A. Pomona College, Ph.D. Harvard University. Previously Professor at the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary.