I am a frequent speaker at events worldwide, and I welcome invitations to deliver keynotes and addresses at relevant events. If you would like me to speak at your event, please complete my enquiry form (opens in a new window or tab).
I will expect you to cover my living costs and my travel expenses from my home in the UK (Southampton). If the event charges an admission fee or is outside my own existing volunteering I will expect a speaker honorarium or consulting fee commensurate with the time involved preparing for, travelling to and attending your event. If this won’t be OK for you, it would probably be better for you not to ask. My events agent will get straight back to you with the relevant information when she gets your e-mail.
Promotional Materials
- My full-length biography is on the About page.
- Promotional photographs are available and Faces Of Open Source has some too.
- I am gradually building a list of events I have spoken at in the past.
- Alternative biography:
Computer industry veteran Simon Phipps has engaged at a strategic level in the world’s leading technology companies. He has worked in roles such as field engineer, programmer and systems analyst, as well as run a software publishing company. He worked with OSI standards in the 80s, on collaborative conferencing software in the 90s, and helped introduce both Java and XML at IBM.
He spent a decade at Sun Microsystems where he helped pioneer Sun’s employee blogging, social media and community engagement programmes. In 2005 he was appointed Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems, co-ordinating Sun’s extensive participation in Free and Open Source software communities until he left in 2010. In that role he oversaw the conversion to Free software of the Java platform, Solaris UNIX, the SPARC architecture and the rest of Sun’s portfolio, all under OSI-approved open source licenses. An outspoken advocate of the value of Open Document Format (ODF) for businesses and governments, he has been an advisor to local and national government agencies across Europe, the Pacific Rim and Latin America as they have devised and implemented strategies around Free and Open Source software and Open Standards.
Today he the managing director at Meshed Insights Ltd, which supports open source and digital rights strategies for businesses worldwide. He is the founder and executive director of Public Software CIC. He is a former President of the Open Source Initiative, the global non-profit organisation that advocates for open source software, builds bridges between open source communities and maintains the canonical list of open source licenses. He is a former director of the UK’s Open Rights Group. He holds a degree in electronic engineering and was a Fellow of the British Computer Society.
- A bit shorter:
Simon Phipps is managing director at Meshed Insights Ltd, advising companies globally on the dynamics of open communities and rights. He was previously head of open source at Sun Microsystems and a founder of IBM’s Java business unit. He is also executive director of Public Software CIC.
He was served for a decade on the board of the Open Source Initiative, twice as President, and guided its transformation to a member organisation. He has been widely involved in standardisation activities, including as a founding director of the Open Mobile Alliance and as one of the Sun executives sponsoring the donation of resources to OASIS to create Open Document Format (ODF); he is currently a delegate at ETSI and ISO. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society as well as an Open Forum Fellow.
- Shorter still:
Simon Phipps is managing director of Meshed Insights Ltd, providing policy and practice guidance on open source and digital rights. His career has included early engagement in establishing Java, XML and blogs as computer industry technologies as well as contributions to open standards in a variety of fields. As chief open source officer at Sun Microsystems he supervised the open source relicensing of Solaris Unix, Java and many other software systems. As President at the Open Source Initiative he transformed the charity into a representative body.
- Take a look at the sample list of talks that I know work well with a variety of audiences before we discuss your precise requirements.
- Social media: I actively use Twitter and Google+ and it’s OK to link to my profiles there. I don’t use Facebook for public activity so don’t linke me there. I’m on most other services somewhere but please ask before publishing links to me.
If you’d like to refer someone to this page, the short URL for it is http://webmink.us or http://webmink.me
Wild Webmink 