2011 - John Lewis - Unicon

Biography

John A. Lewis is the Chief Software Architect for Unicon Inc, the leading independent provider of open source training, consulting, and support in higher education. He is primarily responsible for the technology strategy of the company's solutions portfolio for higher education. John is a 19 year veteran of the software engineering industry. His passions are large-scale enterprise architecture, open-source technologies, and agile software development methods. Prior to joining Unicon in 2005, he was the Chief Technology Officer for Arcanum Education Solutions, which has been providing specialized IT solutions to the K-12 education community since 2000. John is an engaging and perspicacious person who seamlessly integrates the latest technologies into Unicon's higher education solutions and makes it possible for the company to deliver unique world-class services to our customers.

After several years of rigorous software development work and study, Mr. Lewis joined Andersen Consulting in 1993 and discovered his enthusiasm for providing technology-driven business solutions to customers. With Andersen, he was an integral part of designing and implementing mission-critical systems for customers including Intel and AT&T. In 1995, John joined Sybase, Inc. to start a new Professional Services practice for the company. He and his team delivered strategic technologies to customers including American Express and Motorola. In 1998, John united with several key associates to establish Arcanum International Corporation as a premier Systems Integration firm that provided enterprise-class systems architecture and design services to customers including Motorola and Cisco.

John has been a long-time advocate and contributor in various open source software community for 15 years. He was the lead developer of Spring Portlet MVC, the Java Portlet development framework that is part of the wildly popular Spring Framework project. He is also active in a number of higher education open source communities, including Jasig, Sakai, Kuali, and Internet2. He has served on the Jasig Board of Directors for the past three years.

Mr. Lewis' education includes a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Pepperdine University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, and graduate studies in Computer Science at Arizona State University.

Platform Statement

I humbly and gratefully accept the nomination to stand for election to the Jasig Board of Directors. It would be a distinct pleasure to continue to serve the broader Jasig community in this capacity.

I have just completed my first three-year term as a member of the Jasig Board. During that time I have built a comprehensive License and Intellectual Property program that has improved the sustainability and viability of all our projects. I have also been a leading force in working to combine the Jasig and Sakai organizations into a broader meritocracy-oriented open source community governance structure supporting higher education.

I have been actively involved in Jasig since 2005. I have attended every conference and unconference since, at which I have routinely presented sessions and seminars. I was honored to deliver the keynote address at the Winter 2006 conference, entitled "Jasig Projects In Actions", in which I presented a compelling vision and demonstration of the value that technologies like uPortal and CAS provide to higher education. I have served on a number of committees and working groups and have strong relationships with all the key players in the Jasig community. I recently helped establish the uMobile project and have been part of the working group driving that project forward.

Over the past 15 years, I have been involved in a large number of open source projects and communities, including Linux, Perl, Apache, Tomcat, and Spring. I have also been active in the Sakai community for the past five years, where I recently helped form the Sakai CLE Technical Coordination Committee, which provides governance to the Sakai CLE project and I am currently a voting member of that body. I am well versed not only in the technology of all these projects, but in the governance and licensing models that they employ. Through all this I have gained a great sense of the best practices for managing open source projects and communities, and a strong belief in the power of meritocratic organizations.

As the Chief Software Architect for Unicon, I believe I bring an important and valuable perspective to the Jasig Board of Directors. Unicon is recognized as the clear leader in providing training, consulting, and support services to users of many Jasig projects and to the members of the Jasig community. Unicon has been active in Jasig since its inception over eleven years ago and became the founding Commercial Affiliate in the new membership program. Unicon has done more uPortal development than any other organization. I personally played a pivotal role in driving the successful release of uPortal 3.0 and helped heal a rift that had formed within that community. Unicon serves a wide range of clients across higher education and the publishing industry and I will help to represent the needs of these users to the Jasig community.

I believe Jasig has continued to evolve in a positive way and is more relevant today than ever. As a existing member of the Jasig Board of Directors, I will provide continuity in the many positive directions we have moved over the past few years.

Most importantly, I will continue to work towards combining the Jasig and Sakai organizations, where I believe the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. This new entity will be able to provide a broader set of resources, both for the entire organization as well as for its various constituent communities and projects. It will garner the attention of more higher education leaders who see the value of its broad portfolio of projects, and this will attract more new membership, new support, new projects, and new communities. It will become the leading organization for meritocracy-oriented open source software projects and communities in higher education, all of which will ultimately make our individual projects and communities that much more vibrant and sustainable.

I hope you will elect me to the Jasig Board of Directors and I promise to continue to work hard on behalf of the entire Jasig community in this continuing role. Thank you.