Born in Philadelphia USA, Mr. Peter Bloom has founded and worked with numerous social organizations in Latin America, Africa and the United States on human and environmental rights, community media production and telecommunications. Since 2009 Peter has been coordinating Rhizomatica, an organization he started to promote new communication technologies in adverse contexts that works on developing affordable open-source telecommunications solutions, regulatory advocacy for community networks, and sustainability modeling for rural networks. In 2013 Rhizomatica founded the first federated, community-owned and operated GSM network in the world, which it continues to support, in Oaxaca, Mexico. Peter holds a BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master's degree in Rural Development from the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Xochimilco, Mexico. In 2014 he became a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow. In 2015 he was named to MIT Technology Review Innovators under 35 as well as to Foreign Policy's 100 Leading Global Thinkers list. In 2017 he was awarded the UBS Visionaris prize for Social Entrepreneurship in Mexico.