Speaker - John Sullivan

John Sullivan is an independent free software activist and consultant (Alliterative Advising LLC), with specialties in communication, community organizing, licensing, fundraising, strategic planning, and nonprofit governance. He is a Debian Developer, and member of its keyring team. He is also a board member of F-Droid, and currently its vice chair. Previously, he worked for the Free Software Foundation for over nineteen years, including two as its union steward and eleven as its executive director. Prior to the FSF, John worked as a speech and debate instructor for Harvard, University of Kentucky, and Michigan State University, coaching undergraduates and high school students on public speaking, research, and critical thinking. He holds an MFA in Writing and Poetics from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (which is real) at Naropa University, and a BA in Philosophy from Michigan State, but he has been spending too much time with computers and online communities since running a 1990s BBS on his Commodore 64. Also he co-owns a pen store.