Adjunct Technical

Jon Hall, friend of the Centre

Jon "maddog" Hall is the Executive Director of Linux International
(www.li.org), an association of computer users who wish to support and promote the Linux Operating System. During his career in commercial computing which started in 1969, Mr. Hall has been a programmer, systems designer, systems administrator, product manager, technical
 

He has worked for such companies as Western Electric Corporation, Aetna Life and Casualty, Bell Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and SGI. He currently works as an independent consultant, and is the CTO and Ambassador for Koolu (www.koolu.com) a Canadian firm that is involved with bringing environmentally-friendly computing to emerging marketplaces.

 

Mr Hall has worked on many systems, both proprietary and open, having concentrated on Unix systems since 1980 and Linux systems since 1994, when he first met Linus Torvalds and correctly recognized the commercial importance of Linux and Free and Open Source Software.

He has taught at Hartford State Technical College, Merrimack College and Daniel Webster College. He still likes talking to students.
Mr. Hall is the author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles, many presentations and one book, "Linux for Dummies" Mr. Hall has consulted with the governments of China, Malaysia and Brazil as well as the United Nations and many local and state governments on the use of Free and Open Source Software.

Mr. Hall serves on the boards of several companies, and several non-profit organizations.

Mr. Hall has traveled the world speaking on the benefits of Open Source Software, and received his BSc in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University, and his MSCS from RPI in Troy, New York.

 

Mr. Wire Lunghabo James is a Ugandan entrepreneur who has spent the last 10 years living his dream of investing in and promoting ICT business. He is widely travelled globally and has particular interest in African countries having been to South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Rwanda among others.
He is the Managing Director for Linux Solutions, Uganda's premier Free and Open Source Software and ICT Solutions company that has grown significantly over the last 8 years of its operations.
He is the Charman, Board of Advisors for the East African Centre for Open Source Software (EACOSS). This is the first of its kind FOSS specialised training institution in East Africa.
He is the General Secretary of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA).
This is a continental body that promotes the use of FOSS in Africa and aims at influencing policies to be more FOSS friendly in the African countries.
Above all, he is a renowned ICT consultant and is involved in a number of local and international project activities with various organisations.
 
 
 
 
 
Kofi Bentil is currently a lecturer in Business Strategy at Ashesi University and Entrepreneurship at the K.A.C.E. He is also a lecturer at the Univ. of Ghana Business School where he teaches Services Marketing.
Kofi is the Executive Director of Finssol Consulting, a business strategy and Marketing Consulting firm in Accra.

Kofi's s earlier professional; life was in managing IT projects, He was Business Development manager at Coalition Ventures Limited (now Zipnet). He later formed Support Group Limited an It consulting firm.

Kofi Co-founded and is a Board member of Ghana's first indigenous BPO sited outside Accra, and is also a founding member of GASSCOM, the Industry association for IT and related services.

In 2005, Kofi Won the World Bank GDM Award in Entrepreneurship. In 2008 he was selected as a fellow of the Aspen Institute's sponsored African Leadership Initiative fellowship program.

Currently he holds an MBA in Marketing, with specialization in the Marketing of Financial Services.