Austin Heap

Austin Heap is executive director and one of the founders of the Censorship Research Center (CRC) and a developer of Haystack. The CRC researches ways censorship is being performed, educates people about the impact of censorship, and finally, when necessary, builds software tools (like Haystack) that will enable people to get around Internet censorship.In March 2010, Austin was honored by the Guardian as the “Innovator of the Year.” He holds a B.S. from Bentley College. Austin is also the recipient of the First Amendment Coalition Beacon award, runner-up in the Huffington PostPolitical 2010 Game Changer competition, and a finalist in the 2010 WeMedia awards. Austin is an entrepreneur, technologist and activist whose work centers on developing Internet-based technologies to facilitate the rapid transfer of knowledge between people, groups, and organizations. Prior to establishing the CRC, Austin was a Chief Technology Officer at an Internet firm serving Fortune 500 companies where he developed technologies that simultaneously optimized users' networking and personalization within and between online communities and organizations. Haystack is a new program that will provide unfiltered internet access to the people of Iran. Similar to Freegate, the program directed against China’s “great firewall,” once installed Haystack will provide completely uncensored access to the internet in Iran while simultaneously protecting the user’s identity.