'Til All Are One

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

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 at One Laptop per Child Aus­tralia.

My role puts me in charge of the tech­no­logy under­pin­ning the flag­ship One Edu­ca­tion ini­ti­at­ive, which involves driv­ing tech­nical innov­a­tion to achieve social change.

Activ­it­ies

Amongst a vari­ety of con­tri­bu­tions to the world of free and open source soft­ware, 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.

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)
• Coun­cil 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
• 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@​dhanapalan.​com

XMPP (Jab­ber; Google Talk): sridhar@​dhanapalan.​com

IRC: yama on irc​.freen​ode​.net

Open­PGP key: 0x049D38B4

Bios

This is my offi­cial bio on the OLPC Aus­tralia site:

Srid­har man­ages the effect­ive use of tech­no­logy to under­pin OLPC Australia’s edu­ca­tional mis­sion. His pro­fes­sional exper­i­ence includes enter­prise tech­no­logy con­sult­ing and imple­ment­a­tion, pro­ject man­age­ment, cor­por­ate train­ing, tech­nical sup­port and pro­cess man­age­ment. Srid­har is a leader in the Free and Open Source soft­ware com­munity and is a fre­quent speaker at con­fer­ences and events.

My (much longer) bio for the pre­vi­ous incarn­a­tion of the OLPC Aus­tralia Web site:

In his role as Engin­eer­ing Man­ager, Srid­har is respons­ible for OLPC Australia’s integ­ra­tion of tech­no­logy. His primary duty is to ensure a reli­able tech­no­logy plat­form to facil­it­ate learn­ing and know­ledge shar­ing.
With nearly fif­teen years of act­ive involve­ment in Free and Open Source Soft­ware, Srid­har has a firm ground­ing in prin­ciples and tech­no­lo­gies under­pin­ning OLPC. Amongst a vari­ety of respons­ib­il­it­ies held, Srid­har has pre­vi­ously been a board mem­ber of Linux Aus­tralia and Pres­id­ent of the Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG). He has also presen­ted at inter­na­tional conferences.

His pro­fes­sional focus has been in real­ising the bene­fits of open source and open stand­ards for organ­isa­tions ran­ging from start-​​ups to large fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions. With exper­i­ence includ­ing pro­ject man­age­ment, IT oper­a­tions, busi­ness intel­li­gence, data ware­hous­ing, sys­tems admin­is­tra­tion, satel­lite and wide area net­work­ing, know­ledge man­age­ment, train­ing and mar­ket­ing, Srid­har is adept at cross­ing dis­cip­lines to achieve hol­istic results.

Srid­har holds a Sci­ence degree from the Uni­ver­sity of New South Wales, with spe­cial­isa­tions in the His­tory and Philo­sophy of Sci­ence and Tech­no­logy, and in Gov­ern­ment, Polit­ics and Inter­na­tional Rela­tions. Also pos­sess­ing a Cer­ti­fic­ate IV in Net­work Engin­eer­ing and numer­ous industry cer­ti­fic­a­tions, Srid­har holds an appre­ci­ation for the inter­sec­tion of factors that make OLPC such a unique and encom­passing project.

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.