Ivana Pavic (Multimedia Institute Mama, Zagreb, Croatia): a radiant girl with wicked and ever-changing hairstyles and contagious laughter. Her facial expressions reveal a strong personality and determination. Her eyes widen as she listens tentatively to what you are saying. Not imposing her point of view, Ivana makes argumentative and persuasive points, charming you as she talks.
Living in Split (Croatia) at the time, a sociology student, Ivana entered the world of ICTs yearning to be in contact with her boyfriend who lived hundreds of kilometers away. She read in a magazine about something called the Internet: a powerful technology that provides cheap communication. Indoctrinated by her father (“the lawyer – a paper intellectual”) with the idea that PCs are all about games, she was challenged to master the complex technology. She was confronted with a non-graphic interface: UNIX on PCs in the computer center at the university.
While gaining useful knowledge in the area of ICTs working as an activist, Ivana got an offer “she couldn’t refuse” to work for a commercial company. She stayed there for two years, observing the private sector world from within. But she never lost touch with activism and realized at last that the commercial world is not “her cup of tea”.
Now, twelve years after she had her first “close encounter” with a PC, she is a true Linux wizard, running through the command line on her laptop at the speed of light. Ivana is an activist who has now worked five years in a Multimedia Institute (http://www.mi2.hr/) in Zagreb. She’s a fan and a passionate and infectious advocate of free software, digital rights and digital freedom.