Board Elections 2022: Meet the candidates

VM (aka Vicky) is a corporate strategist specialising in free and open source software in the business. She has spent most of her decades in the tech industry leading software development departments and teams, providing technical management and leadership consulting for small and medium businesses, and helping companies understand, use, release, and contribute to free and open source software in a way that’s good for both their bottom line and for the community.

She is the author of _Forge Your Future with Open Source_, the first and only book to detail how individuals can contribute to free and open source software projects. The book is published by The Pragmatic Programmers and is available at https://fossforge.com. She is also in the process of writing a second book for Pragmatic covering how to use, contribute to, and release open source projects effectively and strategically for your business.

Vicky has been a moderator and author for opensource.com, an author for Linux Journal and FOSSlife, the Vice President of the Open Source Initiative, and is a frequent and popular speaker at free/open source conferences and events. She’s the proud winner of the Perl White Camel Award (2014), the O’Reilly Open Source Award (2016), and two Opensource.com Moderator’s Choice Awards (2018, 2019). She blogs about free/open source, business, and technical management at anonymoushash.vmbrasseur.com.

FOSS exists in fascinating space right now. It’s seeing ever-increasing adoption and awareness in corporate and government contexts, all accelerated by the current trend of digital transformation. This adoption and awareness is evident in the studies that show that 90% or more of a typical piece of new software is open source components. These components and the resulting software overwhelmingly runs on Linux, often in a cloud environment. Despite—or perhaps because of—this popularity, employers consistently bemoan the difficulty of hiring people with sufficient FOSS skills and expertise.

While there are other organisations working to capitalise on this situation, with its long history of training and certification and its resultingly strong brand, LPI is uniquely positioned to make a demonstrable difference in the greater FOSS ecosystem.

Which is why I see it’s important to participate in this, the first ever member-elected Board of Directors (BoD) for LPI. This evolution of the LPI governance model comes at the perfect time to catch the FOSS wave that’s sweeping the world. An injection of new ideas and perspectives can help LPI realise its potential to lead the industry in Linux, BSD, and FOSS-related training and certifications at the time when it’s finally figuring out that it needs them.

However, as the first ever member-elected BoD, this group will also perform a critical role in laying the foundation of LPI governance for years to come. This is part of what interests me in joining the LPI board now so I can work with the BoD to:

• Establish policies, procedures, and best practices to ensure the ease of onboarding and therefore the increased success of subsequent member-elected Boards at LPI.
• Lay the foundation for regular communication between the Board and the members who put them in office.
• Advise LPI staff as they develop and implement a long-term straegy to further the mission objective of promoting open source by supporting the people who work with it.
• Collaborate with the LPI BoD, staff, and committees to develop a strategy for leveraging LPI certification in order to open up new opportunities for individuals from groups historically under-represented in technology, and to ensure that certification remains within reach of these people.

_My profile image is copyright Peter Adams Photography and used with permission._

My 33+ years of experience with a global IT company and now open source software-based venture provide an additional unique viewpoint and skill-set that would add to the reputation and efficacy of the Board of Directors. My professional history with Free and Open Source Software goes back to 1999, when I worked as manager of Linux business development. In that role, I accomplished the following;

– Provided support and encouragement to the existing Japanese Linux community, such as the Japan Linux Association,
– Started new activities such as LPI for engineer development and enterprise Linux activities with Hitachi, Fujitsu and NEC in conjunction with the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL).

Following that period, I held several positions which required me to work closely with Open Source Software and hence, become intimately familiar with its value to my company and the industry in general.

Some of the other positions I have held in which I worked closely with Open Source Software were: Chairperson, Human Resource Development of Northeast Asia OSS Promotion Forum (April 2006 – March 2009), Chairperson, Human Resource Development of Japan OSS Promotion Forum (December 2005 – March 2009) and Steering Committee member, Japan OSS Promotion Forum (January 2005 – March 2009)

I have written, jointly, the following publications: “OS/2 Warp Internet Connection”, ASCII, (1996) and “IBM Linux Strategy” IDG Japan, (2003)

I have spent almost three decades working directly with Linux and Open Source Software based systems-serving on committees and in organizations dedicated to Linux and shaping Linux education and policies in Japan, and also internationally through my work with IBM and its global partners.

Serving on the board, with fellow seasoned Linux professionals would allow me the opportunity to further expand my knowledge, and contribute a unique Asia-Japan based perspective to the enhancement of the global Linux and Open Source Software community.

Graduated in Information Technology and Post Graduated in Computer Networks, my career has always been totally focused on Linux and Open Source technologies, mainly working with support and administration of systems and their services.

In 20 years of experience, I’ve worked in most of the levels that a Linux professional will go throutgh in his career, from intern to senior, leading and coordinating teams. I also had the opportunity to work in different types of companies, from small to large organizations such as IBM, Portugal Telecom and Vivo (Brazil).

In the last 5 years my focus has been on teaching and mentoring professionals in their journeys with Linux and Open Source, sharing the knowledge acquired over the years, through online training focused on Linux and especially on LPI Certifications.

I have published courses on Introduction to GNU/Linux, Shell Script Programming and Preparations for LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 Certifications, with more than 38,000 students.

The Linux Professional Institute with its certifications and initiatives have always been important in my career and I know how this can be helpful to a professional on his journey.

Both because of my experiences working directly with Linux in the last 20 years, and mainly because of the proximity I have with the community, my students and professionals who follow my work, I believe that I can help by being a means of contact, a way to bring discussions about the real needs and chalenges faced by  professionals in their careers.

In addition, personally, it will be a very enriching experience to be able to actively participate in an organization that I have admired and respected for so many years.

My name is Emmanuel NGUIMBUS, a computer engineer with 12 years of experience. I’m LPI Member, LPIC-3 certified and LPI Approved Trainer.

Since 2015, I have been a trainer for Linux and open source solutions in general. I teach operating system, Cloud and security at university. Of course, all the courses I teach are based on open source. I founded BACKBONE CORP,  my first company in 2013 and I’m still managing it. By the end of this year, BACKBONE CORP aims to become LPI Approved Training Partner.

I’m also the co-founder of some projects using only open source:
1.    Teledocta (teledocta.com), a digital health platform.
2.    OpenStudi (openstudi.com), a francophone eLearning platform for FOSS

Whether in the company I run or in the projects I am associated with, I promote Linux.
I am a consultant in the framework of several private and governmental projects, which operates 100% open source. I am a member of private and public working groups, project teams, monitoring and steering committees.
In these contexts, I was able to familiarize myself with issues of training, management, entrepreneurship, strategy and governance. All these experiences can add value to the LPI Board.

My vision is to make LPI the leader in Linux certifications area.

My objectives as a candidate for the Board :

1. LPI should be the leader in the field of Linux certifications. For example, RedHat certifications are perceived to be more valuable than LPI ones in the job market. As I’m writing (may 2022) these lines, I’m leading a Linux training session for 20 government officers. Initially, the training program was supposed to be LPIC-1; unfortunately, the trainees chose RHCSA instead of LPIC-1 because they think that Red Hat certifications are better than LPI ones! I have been really frustrated by this situation and I Would like to change it !

2. Improve LPI’s Marketing and Branding. In my opinion, the designation LPIC-3 Enterprise Professional devalues this certification. For example, LPIC2 Linux Engineer appears to have the same marketing value as LPIC-3 Enterprise Professional. After all, the Engineer title is more prestigious than Enterprise professional !

3. Improve the French-speaking side with the translation of documents into French. The translation into French of the Linux essential, LPIC-101 and LPIC-102 course materials is already part of my objectives.

4. I can say that LPI is not known enough some places like Africa, especially in French-speaking Africa. Communication efforts should be made for LPI to be better known in Africa.

5. If a maximum of IT professionals receive at least one LPI training course in their training, then they will be more willing promote LPI.