Bio

Photo by Eric A. Reid.

Devin is a New York City based technologist passionate about bringing open source and open data solutions to the world. He is the CEO of Pruvn, a software development firm, and a director of Sarapis, a nonprofit that makes software in the public interest and a board member of Sahana Software Foundation, a nonprofit that makes open source software for disaster relief initiatives. He leads WeGov.NYC, a program to improve how the New York City government uses technology. Currently he is the Director of Product and Technology at GridMarket, a distributed energy consultancy and is an Entrepreneur in Residence with Columbia Technology Venture’s Lab-to-Market Accelerator Network.

Longer Bio

Photo by Kyle Depew

Devin works at the intersection of the nonprofit sector, the free/libre/open-source (FLO) movement, and grassroots community organizing initiatives to help each benefit from the best practices of the others.

He currently serves the president of the Sahana Software Foundation, a nonprofit organization that produces the world’s most popular open source information management system for disaster relief and humanitarian aid. He regularly speaks about disaster relief and urban resilience at events organized by groups such as the American Red Cross, US Department of Defense, American Institute of Architects, International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and New York City Emergency Management (NYCEM), and the United Nations.

He also serves as the executive director of Sarapis, a nonprofit that helps other nonprofit organizations leverage open source tools and techniques to more effectively advance their respective missions.

Painting by Michael Cronin
Painting by the late great Michael Cronin

He began his career as an entrepreneur who developed a challenge-based crowd funding platform for nonprofit organizations. During this experience, he realized that a lack of collaboration among nonprofits was limiting the nonprofit sector’s effectiveness as much, if not more so, than a lack of funding.  At the same time, he was being exposed to the radically collaborative free/libre/open-source (FLO) movement that was building amazing software and hardware technologies.  He was captivated by the potential of FLO to provide people with the tools they need to create the world they want.  With a strong desire to participate and contribute to the emerging FLO movement, Devin open sourced his proprietary code base and abandoned his for-profit venture to focus on building capacity within the FLO movement to support a more collaborative and networked nonprofit sector.

Since then, Devin has been applying FLO methodologies to civil society’s challenges by developing and deploying software tools and operational techniques for a wide range of groups including software development communities, grassroots organizing initiatives, new media publications, social service providers, agriculture networks, and most recently, disaster relief coalitions.

Devin holds a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University and a Permaculture Design Certificate from the Center for Bioregional Living.