Author: JT Smith
have demonstrations of mature Open Source programs every month in
conjunction with General Services Administration at NSF facilities. A Q&A
session will follow the presentations.
This month: March 19, Open Source at the Census Bureau
Location: National Science Foundation, Stafford II Building,
Room 555, 4121 Wilson Blvd., Ballston metro
Time: 2-4 PM
FREE, but please RSVP to stanco@seas.gwu.edu. (Picture ID required for
admission)
Description:
Open Source at the Census Bureau, Presenters: Lisa Wolfisch Nyman, Senior
Internet Technology Architect, Census and Bureau and Rachel LaPorte
Taylor, Senior Internet Technology Architect, Census Bureau
and
Overview of the Open Source Data Base Server, MySQL, Presenter: Marten
Mickos,CEO, MySQL AB
This talk will introduce several Open Source projects at Census.gov and
FedStats.gov, used for both data collection and dissemination. Lessons
learned from these projects can help advocates promote Open Source for
building a solid technology infrastructure, allowing developers to
concentrate on the less tractable aspects of web site development.
Lisa Wolfisch Nyman has 10 years of experience designing and developing
Internet-based services. As a Senior Internet Technology Architect on the
Census Bureau’s Internet Staff, she creates customer-friendly web sites,
researches new technology, and advises on accessibility concerns. Ms.
Nyman is a persistent advocate for accessible, user-centered design in
delivering government services over the Web.
Ms. Nyman began her career with the Census Bureau as a cartographer and
was a contributing editor to GIS World Magazine. In addition to her
activities at the Census Bureau, she is active in the Perl community as a
member of DC PerlMongers and a participant in the Yet Another Society, a
non-profit corporation that advocates the use of Open Source, sponsors
annual conferences around the world, and supports Perl development
efforts. Ms. Nyman also serves on the Board of Directors of DC Web Women,
an educational and service organization for women in new media.
Rachael LaPorte Taylor, Senior Internet Technology Architect, oversees
application development, content management, and system administration for
FedStats, the gateway to the U.S. Federal statistical system. In addition,
Ms. Taylor has been a significant contributor in developing the Census
Bureau’s information architecture for rapid data dissemination through the
use of the Internet.
Ms. Taylor has received numerous awards, ranging from the Census Bureau’s
Bronze Medal and Director’s Award for Innovation to the Hammer Award for
FedStats development.
Ms. Taylor has been a featured speaker at a variety of national and
international conferences describing how the Census Bureau and FedStats
has utilized open source solutions to develop dissemination strategies for
public data.
Marten Mickos will describe how open source software is changing the way
software is procured and used. The changes are profound and positively
affect total cost of ownership, integration challenges and overall
durability of software. With examples from the MySQL world, Mickos will
highlight how organizations are benefiting from open source and reducing
the time from decision to deployment of new systems. Organizations such as
Yahoo! NASA and the US Census Bureau serve as examples.
