Development Seed has acquired New Rights Group, a collective of best-of-breed technology strategists working to build better societies. Ian Schuler, who founded New Rights Group after leaving the US State Department, will take over as CEO of Development Seed while I focus on growing MapBox.

The move is a huge accelerant for the Development Seed team and its continuing push of open technology in international development. With the addition of tremendous strategy chops, Development Seed will deliver new services to partners and work to realize new opportunities for open data and open technologies.

Ian has been building great technology teams for more than a decade. In his work to promote Internet freedom, open government, and credible elections, Ian has been in the trenches in over 50 countries. From deploying real time mobile data collection systems in Sierra Leone, being the first to map all the polling stations in Palestine, to coordinating emergency response to digital activists under attack — Ian’s focus has always been on tools that make a difference on the ground in critical situations.

As the new CEO, Ian will take over day-to-day operations at Development Seed, growing the team and continuing to build the future of #open in development.