About me

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I've been involved in the open source community in a wide variety of ways, from serving on the board of the Privly Foundation and Sahana Software Foundation to acting in an advisory capacity to many projects and developers. Many folks will remember me from my time in Google's Open Source Programs Office, where I created Google Code-In, the world's first global program to involve pre-university students in all aspects of open source software development, and managed Summer of Code from 2006-2010. You can read more about my experience on my bio page. My passions continue to run toward community empowerment: helping new contributors join us, making our communities most welcoming and helping everyone to collaborate most effectively.

Why I'm running for election

I'm standing for election to the OSI Board because I would like to contribute towards the OSI's efforts in the educational space. The first ever minor in open source software for US universities was recently announced, and I was honored to support these efforts in a small way behind the scenes. I see now as a critical juncture in the effort to get open source into academia - at least the US academy - and would like to apply my experience and passion to making open source tools, development methodologies and source code itself the default in higher education offerings. 

Contact information

Feel free to ask questions via email or contact me on Twitter (@lhawthorn).