Dave Lane - Curriculum Vitae

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Personal Statement

Dave Lane headshot

Professional goal: to earn and maintain trust in my expertise, judgment, honesty, enthusiasm, discretion, and good nature.

An extreme generalist with deep understanding in many aspects of IT, markets, and people. Ran IT and development services business for fourteen years, and then two more years working for a much larger firm, providing opportunities to work in most aspects of business. Has given me lots of ideas, big and small, and a sense of perspective.

I love to learn and I get great fulfilment from teaching as well – it feels great to achieve constructive communication, at the right level and I enjoy developing new angles for communicating a complicated topics.

"Openness", a rich Commons (both digital and physical), and fairness are among my many passions. I write about these topics frequently. I'm fairly outspoken about a lot of things, particularly where it has to do with ethics and living up to ones own...

Have plenty of energy to assist – or lead – worthy causes which align with my ethics.

Professional Experience

Open Source Technologist - Open Education Resource Foundation

June 2015 – present

Administer and enhance the Foundation's open source infrastructure to enable collaboration among its member institutions and provide software development services contributing towards a global online compendium of tertiary curriculum materials on WikiEducator and on the OERu website. All of this content is licensed under Creative Commons terms to encourage reuse. Work with the Foundation's thirty+ tertiary institution partners to facilitate collaborative development of Open Educational Resources, and identify technical and social aids for building the growing global OER community.

I maintain a Technology Blog to help others make use of the same open source technologies employed by the OERu. Here're some of the technologies I currently implement, support, and use daily.

Publication:

Lane, D. C., & Goode, C. (2021). Open For All: The OERu’s Next Generation Digital Learning Ecosystem. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(4), 146-163. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v23i1.5763.

Director - Lane Ventures

May 2015 – present

Created a new company as a business vehicle to take full advantage of future professional and business opportunities and to support contracting opportunities in the short term.

Senior Consultant - Catalyst IT Limited

December 2012 – April 2015 (2 years 5 months)

Became senior consultant in the new Christchurch office when Catalyst IT acquired Egressive on 1 December 2012. Performed many roles to help establish the Christchurch office, undertaking commercial work, integrating Egressive customers, maintaining relationships, and helping to build a harmonious, peerless technical team.

Commercial activities included designing complex IT projects, complex multi-stakeholder consultation including mediation, business and requirements analysis, managing projects, tender (RFP, RFI) responses and presentations, and even licensing and contract negotiations. I participated in marketing, presented at conferences, did Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) advocacy, and lobbied government.

Began developing technical IT training materials and conducting training for external and internal customers including other Catalyst trainers.

Director - OpenStrategies Holdings Ltd

2000 – July 2013 (13 years)

Owned and licenced materials and technologies to operating companies OpenStrategies (NZ and UK) Ltd. Both operating companies promote the system developed and refined by four Christchurch-based founders, providing a unique method for creating large scale, multi-stakeholder strategies which can be rigorously validated. Supported by a graphical web application developed by Egressive. In 2013 we transferred the company's assets to the NZ operating company. Co-founded and hold shares in all three companies.

Director - Egressive Limited

September 1998 – December 2012 (14 years 3 months)

Started Egressive to meet demand for reliable, secure and cost-effective networked business IT infrastructure. Initially focused on system integration, installing Linux business servers providing a broad range of services like network file storage, backup, security connectivity, and email. Expanded over time into IT consulting and bespoke web application development, all built on and with FOSS tools.

Employed as many as twelve staff, with my role becoming more focused on software team management, and business development, marketing, and account management. When acquired by Catalyst IT in 2012, had seven staff and a hundred customers - governmental, non-profit, and commercial, specialising in scientific organisations - throughout NZ and in Australia to whom we provide some combination of development and hosting, system integration, communication, support, and consulting services.

After 7 year developing bespoke PHP web applications in 2006 we shifted to custom implementations of the Drupal CMS.  We built a strong team with web design, development, and dev-ops specialists. Moved into Test Driven Development and Continuous Integration, adopting the Ruby on Rails platform and Scrum (Agile methodology) for some projects.

Provided high availability scalable Drupal and Ruby on Rails hosting on virtualised Linux servers on our own hardware. I shared system administration responsibilities. Integrated AWS for unlimited horizontal scalability, CDN services, and static website fail over.

Director - Effusion Group

February 2002 – April 2011 (9 years 2 months)

Co-founder, co-director, and shareholder of the Effusion Group Ltd, an umbrella company supporting our IT and software development cluster comprising as many as twelve companies on the top floor of Kenton Chambers in Central Christchurch. The company was disestablished shortly after our building was destroyed in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.

South Island IT Manager – NZ Forest Research Institute

1997 – February 1999 (2 years)

Formalising my previously informal role at NZFRI's Christchurch office, in addition to my research duties.

Research Scientist - NZ Forest Research Institute

October 1994 – February 1999 (4 years 4 months)

Worked for NZFRI on a PGSF funded project to optimise “bucking”: quality grading felled Radiata Pine (pinus radiata) stems in the where felled and sawing into transportable lengths to maximise the resulting timber and pulp value. Developed TreeGrabber made up of a GPS unit, digital camera, and computer vision system (C++ on portable Linux computer) to capture stem images and compute dimensions and grade stem quality, use cellular data transfer to coordinate measurements with other forestry crews and fill outstanding timber orders. Initially based at Lincoln University's Department of Resource Engineering, spent 9 months as a visiting scholar in Seattle, WA, USA at the University of Washington, College of Forest Resources, and then returned to NZFRI's offices in the School of Forestry, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

Publications:

  • Lane, D.C. and G.E. Murphy. "A multi-image digital photogrammetry tool for tree stem geometry and quality assessment." Proceedings of IVCNZ95, Image and Vision Computing NZ Conference, Lincoln, NZ. August 1995.
  • Lane, D.C., Xin Tian, and G.E. Murphy. "New Developments in Stem Feature Recognition using Machine Vision." Proceedings of the LIRO 98 Forest Technology Seminar, Rotorua, NZ. November 1998.
  • Lane, D.C. and G.E. Murphy. "Towards An Automated Tree Stem Description Using Machine Vision." Proceedings of Digital Image & Vision Computing: Techniques and Applications, Australian Pattern Recognition Society (ASPRS), Albany, Auckland, NZ. December 1997.

Technical

System Administration and Dev-Ops

Have been administering Linux computer systems for 21 years, designing and building system and network architectures, security, hardware compatibility, application support, and development support. Implemented and supported Ubuntu and Debian Linux servers running services like Samba, OpenVPN, OpenLDAP, Asterisk, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Postfix, Dovecot, Spamassassin, ClamAV, and Solr.

Substantial virtualisation experience with platforms like Vagrant and Docker/Docker-composer.

Provide ongoing support and maintenance for a dozen or so publicly accessible services running from virtual servers and Docker containers, including implementing many. A partial list: WordPress (multi-site), Drupal, Discourse, Gitlab, Rocket.Chat, Wekan, MirantisBT, Etherpad, MediaWiki, Booked Scheduler, among others.

Specialities are high performance and high availability web hosting systems for FOSS web application stacks like PHP and Python. Experience supporting Windows XP and Windows 7, and OS X, particularly their integration with Linux systems.

Substantial experience with Let’s Encrypt (for SSL certificates) – all projects provide secure hosting by default to protect user privacy.

Experience implementing Single Sign-On solutions including SAML (via SimpleSAMLPHP) and OAuth2.

Software Development

FOSS-focused developer who has worked extensively with C and C++ (specifically the Qt cross-platform libraries), has over a decade PHP experience, especially with the Drupal CMS. Substantial HTML and CSS. Very conscious of open web standards, cross-platform browser testing. Lately implementing sites with Bootstrap, working with SASS.

Use Vagrant virtualised Puppet and Ansible-provisioned development environments. Use Git extensively (e.g. Github, Bitbucket, GitLab), and occasionally Fabric, for production deployment. Worked with the Python-based Django framework, and explored Javascript technologies like Node.JS, React.JS, and jQuery. Using Docker for many development and test implementations.

Use Vagrant-virtualised Puppet-provisioned development environments. Use Git and Fabric for production deployment. Worked with the Python-based Django framework, and explored Javascript technologies like Node.JS, Angular.JS, and jQuery.

Strategy Development

Certified practitioner of the Validating Strategies methodology taught by OpenStrategies, relevant to many strategic consulting tasks.

Communication

Comfortable and experienced with public speaking to technical and non-technical audiences on a range of topics.

Write frequently for technical, scientific, and popular audiences and pride myself in my written communication. I have composed successful government policy submissions and position papers on complex topics. My FOSS advocacy articles have been featured by a number of internationally recognised publications. I am periodically contacted by journalists both in NZ and abroad for my views, particularly on issues related to FOSS.

In my NZOSS role (below) Invited to write position papers, e.g. on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, why Win XP users should consider migration to Linux. Presented on topics like privacy in the Internet age, online voting, open data, and IT education and open source software. Received a personal commendation in NZ Parliament for work on software exclusion in the Patents Act of 2013.

Developed and delivered technical courses in areas like “Drupal Content Management” and “Drupal Site-builders” along with non-technical training materials related to teaching IT essentials to a general audience.

Presented “Plugging IT into life” at combined CITRENZ and ITX conference in 2014.

Presented keynote titled “What is Open?” at Open Source // Open Society conference in Wellington. Also led several sessions on open source software, business models, and open standards, including an “Open Source 101” session for non-technical participants.

Fluent in NZ and US English. Good reading and speaking knowledge of German (bi-lingual upbringing).

Advocacy and Volunteering

Participant in Institute of IT Professional's ICT-Connect (renamed "TechHub" in 2017) programme, speaking to high school students about what it's like to be an IT professional. Started a CodeClub at the local primary school, weekly sessions with 9-11 year olds since June 2015.

Deputy Chair - New Zealand Open Source Society

December 2020 - August 2021 (9 months)

Also a voluntary role with the Society. In August, I resigned from the Council to create opportunities for new leadership after my long involvement in the Council including 9 years as President (now called Chair). I continue to manage all the NZOSS' online services.

President – New Zealand Open Source Society

August 2011 – December 2020 (9 years)

Voluntary role with the Society, a registered charity. Chair monthly council meetings, presided over sponsorship and educational activities. Implemented and support NZOSS' online services.

Advisory Group – Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand

July 2014 – July 2017 (3 years)

On the Advisory Board of CCANZ, concerned with enhancing the knowledge and use of Creative Commons attribution rights (implemented on Copyright Law) in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Awards

2022 - winner of the "Rusty Wrench" award for contributions to Free and Open Source Software. Awarded by Linux Australia.

2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 - participated as a judge for the NZ Open Source Awards.

2008 - winner of "Open Source Use in Business" award at the NZ Open Source Awards.

Education

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME)

June 1992 - August 1994 (2 years and 2 months)

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.

Areas of study: axiomatic design and cross-disciplinary work in computer modelling and simulation, graphics programming, computer vision, image processing (all in Electrical Engineering), and photogrammetry (Civil Engineering). MS thesis title: "A Prototype System for Step-Wise Close-Range Digital Photogrammetry and Automated Terrain Reconstruction."

Throughout my MS course, I was a Research Assistant working with the Forest Systems Engineering group in the College of Forest Resources, funded by the US Forest Service. I undertook flight tests of a helicopter mounted camera boom for use in close-range stereo aerial photogrammetry. Designed, documented, fabricated, and tested a companion video camera and mount system for targeting. Acquired “Supplemental Type Certification” for the camera boom and video camera mount assembly from the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Bachelor of Science in Physics (BSc)

August 1988 - May 1992 (3 years 9 months)

Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041, USA

In addition to a full physics curriculum complemented with maths, and computer science, at Haverford I also undertook a full “liberal arts” curriculum including coursework in diverse areas like Economics, Philosophy, Urban Planning, Anthropology, Political Science, German, Music, Fine Art. I conducted independent research in fluid dynamics (bifurcation theory, resonance, symmetry) which resulted in my undergraduate thesis: "Surface wave interactions in a non-square four-fold symmetric cell," and a peer reviewed publication: Crawford, J.D., J.P. Gollub, D.C. Lane. "Hidden symmetries of parametrically forced waves." Nonlinearity 6 (1993) p. 119-164.

References

Available on request.

Personal

US citizen by birth (February, 1970), emigrated to NZ in 1994. Naturalised kiwi (dual NZ/US citizen). Full NZ drivers' licence.

Married with two sons. Non-smoker, in good health.

Interests: exploring, participating in and advocating for FOSS; cycle commuting/mountain biking; singing, making and appreciating music; sourdough bread baking; cooking; Aikido; R/C aircraft; photography; drawing; writing all kinds of things; solar power/storage; tramping; woodworking; gardening; canoeing and sailing; robust discussion, e.g. regarding socio-economic theories; ultimate (team field sport played with a Frisbee®); dancing swing; savouring a great meal (favouring spicy cuisine), funny and intelligent films, a pithy novel, an aromatic hoppy handcrafted pale ale, a well balanced wine, and a proper coffee.