Simon Willison is a programmer

Programmer

A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...

 and co-founder of the social conference directory Lanyrd. Originating from the UK, he is also a consultant on OpenID

OpenID

OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities...

 and client- and server-side Web development, a frequent public speaker and a co-creator of the Django Web framework. Before going freelance, Simon worked on Yahoo!'s Technology Development team and on very early versions of the Fire Eagle

Fire Eagle

Fire Eagle is a Yahoo! owned service that acts as a store for a user's location. It was created at Yahoo Brickhouse by a team which included among others Tom Coates, Simon Willison, and Seth Fitzsimmons....

 geolocation service, and prior to that at the Lawrence Journal-World

Lawrence Journal-World

The Lawrence Journal-World is a daily newspaper published in Lawrence, Kansas by The World Company.-History:Though the Journal-World title only came into existence in 1911, according to the volume number of the current masthead of the paper, the paper dates itself back to 1858.The Simons family...

, an award winning local newspaper in Kansas.

Simon Willison was hired on 2008 by the UK newspaper The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 to work as a software architect.

In late 2010 he launched the social conference directory Lanyrd with his wife and co-founder, Natalie Downe. They received funding from Y Combinator

Y Combinator

Y Combinator is an American seed-stage startup funding firm, started in March 2005. Y Combinator provides seed money, advice, and connections at two 3-month programs per year...

in early 2011.

External links

• simonwillison.net - personal web development weblog