A FOSS enthusiast, her main interest is adapting and delivering technology to non techies, and training them in making it their own.
She co-founded the Egyptian GNU/Linux Users Group (EGLUG) in 2004, and has extensive experience in working with NGOs, human rights activists, and children on web technologies and new media. She won the Best of Blogs (BOBs) and Reporters without Borders award together with her husband in 2005.

Manal Hassan holds a BA in Statistics and Computer Science from the Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo. Prior to working with OpenCraft, she has been working in the ICT4D field with Center for Knowledge Society and ArabDev. These days she splits her time between community coordination for Arab Techies and project coordination for the African Network for localisation (ANLoc) on training and software
localisation, and still takes joy in helping with the Arab Digital Expression Camps from time to time.