Thomas de Graaff

Doetinchem, the Netherlands

(The guy pointing to his head, white shirt)

Links

About

Hi, I'm known online as Thomas de Graaff, which happens to be my real name. My first computer experience I got playing with a Apple II clone when I was about 11 years old. My first encounter with (Red Hat) Linux must have been around 1999, but it couldn't convince me to stop using MacOS on my first generation iMac. Soon thereafter I needed Windows at university doing CAD stuff designing architecture, and I continued using Windows. I came to Ubuntu as a typical end user when Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04) was released. I had some trouble getting it to work on my laptop, and got immediately hooked by the OS and the helpful community.

Recently I got LPI 1 certified, this I taught myself.

My contributions to the Ubuntu community are mainly in the area of Ubuntu promotion.

My Projects / Contributions

Past

In the past I:

• 2008/08 Co-founded the Releaseparty Support Group, which was founded to help community members who organize RP's with advise, sponsors, installation cd's, designing and printing flyers, talks, a website etc.

• 2009/02 Worked on the Releaseparty Wiki to facilitate community members willing to organize rp's.

• 2009/03 Designed the Jaunty flyers that were printed and spread throughout the Netherlands to promote the five Jaunty release parties.

• 2009/04 Created the Ubuntu-NL Hall of Fame.

• 2009/04 Became a Ubuntu-NL team member, leader of the renewed Events team.

• 2009/05 The supported Jaunty release parties, organized by various enthusiastic community members in Apeldoorn, Drachten, Oss, Groningen and The Hague, spring of 2009 were a great success.

• 2009/05 Founded a partnership between the Ubuntu-NL community and HCC, the biggest computerclub in the Netherlands. The first results of this joint effort were the Ubuntu release party on the 'HCC! Linux Thema Dag 2009' and the Ubuntu stand on the 'HCC! dagen 2009'.

• 2009/07 Gave a Ubuntu introduction presentation on HCC regiodag Oost event.

• 2009/09 Organized the Karmic Koala Poster Design contest.

• 2009/10 Organized the Ubuntu Releaseparty on the HCC Linux Themadag 2010.

• 2009/11 Manned a stand on t-dose to promote Ubuntu.

• 2009/12 Worked with help of the forum team and community on the new, more compact and clear forum rules.

• 2009/12 Gave a Ubuntu introduction presentation on release parties in Eemnes and Oss.
• 2010/01 Founded the Releaseparty 2010 Organization team consisting of members from Ubuntu NL and HCC!.
• 2010/02 Organized a poster design contest for Ubuntu Releaseparty 2010.

• 2010/04 Organized a community sponsored poster campaign in public buses for Ubuntu Releaseparty 2010. Each poster was sponsored by a community member. On the poster it stated: "This poster was sponsored by: Name, a satisfied Ubuntu user.".

• 2010/04 Wrote chapter about the Ubuntu-NL community in "Open Source Jaarboek 2009", book aimed at politicians, officials and managers.

• 2010/05 Organized a full page advertisement in Linux Magazine (Dutch edition)

• 2010/05 Co-organized the Ubuntu Releaseparty 2010 with 28 lectures and workshops, several commercial partners and partner communities stands.

• 2010/09 Presentation at Software Freedom Day in the Royal Library in The Hague, and manning a stand.

• 2010/11 Manned a stand on t-dose.

• 2011/01 Handed over the team leadership of Ubuntu-NL promotion team to TonH.

• 2011/04 Was elected as a member of Ubuntu-NL governance and Ubuntu-NL board.

• 2011/04 Attended the Ubuntu Global Jam.

• 2011/06 Became a governance member of non profit foundation to support Ubuntu-NL.

• 2011/06 Created a new version of Ubuntu-NL approval page.

• 2011/09 Organized the Ubuntu Global Jam AT Nijmegen.

• 2011/10 Worked on a new Drupal based website to replace the wiki based website of Ubuntu-NL.

• 2012/ Organized the Ubuntu Releaseparty Apeldoorn. Foto's can be found here.

• 2012/04 Created a new website for Ubuntu Parties: www.ubuntuparty.nl

  • Open: anyone can register a party
  • Integrated volunteer management. Party organizers can make tasks, volunteers can subscribe to tasks.
  • Location can be made, with several 'places', rooms etc.
  • Activities can be connected to 'places', and appear automaticly in the party programme.
  • Car pooling is integrated. Visitors can create a car pool, other visitors can subscribe, all using google maps.
  • Sponsors can select online what they want to sponsor, a party, a presentation etc.

Present

• I am fulfilling my duties as a member of the Ubuntu-NL governance, the Ubuntu-NL board, and the Ubuntu-NL foundation. Furthermore I'm a member of the promotion team, and as such am still involved in the organization of events (although I have put my contributions in this area on a low level until the Ubuntu-NL foundation is a fact).

Future

• I plan to keep on contributing to the Ubuntu community. More specifically I hope to contribute to successful festivities in the Netherlands celebrating the 12.04 LTS release. It amazed me in the past to see what the effort of many hands can achieve, and I hope the 12.04 release will continue to do so. In the near future I really look forward to the day when we put our signatures on the founding papers of the "Stichting ondersteuning Ubuntu-NL", this foundation will be of great practical help to the community.

Testimonials

• Thomas has been absolutely essential for Ubuntu Nederland. Currently he is mostly active in the leadership of the LoCo, more or less pulling the chart. In the past he was a vital part of the team that organized the events and he still contributes a lot there. I am amazed that Thomas didn't become Ubuntu Member sooner, because he absolutely deserves it. -- SenseHofstede

• I know Thomas de Graaff as the spinning wheel behind the most successful Ubuntu Release Parties in the Netherlands. He was the person who set the parties in motion and find the right people so everything went smoothly. Thomas has been elected for our local Ubuntu governance and board. He is a born leader who manages the meetings very well. Even for the more boring activities like writing the meeting reports you won't hear him complaining. Thomas is not only very successful in arranging meetings, release parties etc, but he is also a very nice person to work with. Always polite, social, interested in the project people work on, both on line and off line. I am confident that Thomas will stay actively involved in our community for quite some time. Thomas your awesome! -- ronnie.vd.c

• I strongly support his application for Ubuntu membership. He deserves this very, very much. -- leoquant

• I know Thomas de Graaff since a few years. He is an enthusiastic Ubuntu-supporter and shows it with his actions. He attends a lot, and organizes a few Ubuntu-Release-parties and can also be found on other events where Ubuntu is. He is also heavily involved in our local Ubuntu board. -- ertai

• Since my involvement with Ubuntu NL I had to deal with ThomasTheGrave (loosely translated). At that time he was especially active as organisator of release parties and other IRL events concerning the promotion of the Ubuntu OS. I've seen/spoke/work with him on some of the events and he is an entusiastic person when it comes to getting thins done. Nowadays he is a value member of the so called dutch (Ubuntu) governance/board. Thereby I wholeheartedly endorse Thomas for Ubuntu Membership, he deserves this acknowledgement. -- RachidBM 2011-10-03

• For two years I know Thomas de Graaff, and I am surprised that he's not an Ubuntu member yet. Thomas is not only an organiser and active in the LoCo board, but he is also a reference point and an advocate of reasonability in many discussions. Thomas absolutely deserves this. -- asphyxia

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