'Til All Are One

My name is Srid­har Dhanap­a­lan. I live in Sydney, Aus­tralia (UTC +1000).

Amongst a vari­ety of FLOSS con­tri­bu­tions, I have pre­vi­ously been a board mem­ber of Linux Aus­tralia and Pres­id­ent of the Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG). I am cur­rently very act­ive in the One Laptop per Child community.

I have given present­a­tions at vari­ous events includ­ing linux​.conf​.au, OSDC, SLUG, Soft­ware Free­dom Day and Doc­u­ment Free­dom Day. I also have pro­fes­sional exper­i­ence in run­ning train­ing work­shops for groups large and small.

My blog is syn­dic­ated across a vari­ety of aggreg­at­ors across the Inter­net. I have also given many talks and inter­views.

Pro­fes­sional

I am cur­rently the Engin­eer­ing Man­ager (CTO) at One Laptop per Child Aus­tralia.

My role involves driv­ing tech­nical innov­a­tion to achieve social change. My primary duty is to ensure a reli­able tech­no­logy plat­form to facil­it­ate learn­ing and know­ledge shar­ing in remote communities.

See my LinkedIn pro­file for more details on my pro­fes­sional life.

Activ­it­ies

The bulk of my activ­it­ies these days is in the realm of One Laptop per Child (OLPC wiki user page).

Here are some other efforts I’m involved in.

Cur­rent:

• Leader of the OLPC Aus­tralia tech­nical com­munity (formerly, OLPC Friends)
• an Admin­is­trator of the Ubuntu Eng­lish (United King­dom) Trans­lat­ors team
• Founder and prin­cipal doc­u­ment­a­tion writer of the Ubuntu Eng­lish Trans­la­tion initiative
• I run events for OLPC Aus­tralia, Linux Aus­tralia and the Sydney Linux Users Group, includ­ing monthly meet­ings, train­ing work­shops and stands at shows such as CeBIT and the Sydney Edu­ca­tion Expo.
• Mem­ber of Sugar Labs
• Mem­ber of Ubuntu (act­ive in the Ubuntu Aus­tralia team)

Pre­vi­ous:

• Pres­id­ent of the Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG), 2008–2010 (Com­mit­tee mem­ber, 2007–2010)
• Ordin­ary Com­mit­tee Mem­ber on the Linux Aus­tralia Coun­cil, 2009–2010
• In pre­vi­ous employ­ment, I con­trib­uted large amounts of doc­u­ment­a­tion to the Pen­taho open source community
• I have writ­ten Linux Australia’s Intro­duc­tion to Linux, Free Soft­ware and Open Source (which has been trans­lated into Belarus­sian!)
• I was (2000−2006) a Senior Admin­is­trator and Editor at PCLinuxOn­line, which at the time was the largest com­munity Web site ded­ic­ated to Mandrake/​Mandriva Linux (and later, PCLinuxOS)

In the free and open source soft­ware community:

• Refer to my Ubuntu wiki page for a pré­cis of my con­tri­bu­tions to free and open source software
• My Launch­pad page sum­mar­ises my activ­it­ies within the Ubuntu community
• I am act­ive in sev­eral other groups, includ­ing Ubuntu-​​Au

Oth­ers:

• I am a par­ti­cipant in Grameen Found­a­tion Aus­tralia.

Interests

I have an interest in trans­par­ency, which I believe is vital for demo­crat­isa­tion, and well-​​running soci­et­ies and mar­kets in the long run.

I view free and open source soft­ware with open stand­ards as import­ant vehicles to achieve and main­tain that. From an account­ing per­spect­ive, triple bot­tom line meth­ods are very relevant.

Inter­twined with this is my interest in devel­op­ment geo­graphy, which, inter alia, encom­passes sus­tain­able and eco­nomic devel­op­ment, as well as the use of appro­pri­ate tech­no­logy.

I have tend­en­cies towards human­ism and to some extent fol­low prin­ciples of eth­ical con­sumer­ism.

More about me

• Google Plus — social networking
• Face­book — social networking
• LinkedIn — pro­fes­sional networking
• Last​.fm — what I have been listen­ing to
• TripIt — where I have been travelling

Con­tact

E-​​mail: srid­har AT dhanap­a­lan DOT com

XMPP (Jab­ber; Google Talk): srid­har AT dhanap­a­lan DOT com

IRC: yama on irc​.freen​ode​.net

Open­PGP key: 0x049D38B4

Silly bio

Here’s a silly bio that I use for con­fer­ence sub­mis­sions and the like:

Srid­har Dhanap­a­lan grew up in the 1980s, as the per­sonal com­put­ing revolu­tion was heat­ing up. With only two tele­vi­sion chan­nels in his town, he turned to his com­puter for solace. He wishes he had dis­covered FLOSS before the late 1990s, because down­load­ing GNU Emacs over an acous­tic coupler would have been fun. Srid­har is a former board mem­ber of Linux Aus­tralia, and a past pres­id­ent of the Sydney Linux Users Group. He is cur­rently the Engin­eer­ing Man­ager (CTO) at One Laptop Per Child Australia.