https://harihareswara.net/about/

1
2
3
4<!DOCTYPE html>
5<html lang="en">
6
7<head>
8
9    <meta charset="utf-8">
10    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no">
11    <meta name="description" content="">
12    <meta name="author" content="">
13
14    <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS Feed for www.harihareswara.net" href="/rss/" />
15    <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom Feed for www.harihareswara.net" href="/atom/" />
16
17
18    <meta property="og:title" content="About | Cogito, Ergo Sumana">
19    <meta property="og:site_name" content="Cogito, Ergo Sumana">
20    <meta property="og:url" content="https://www.harihareswara.net/about/">
21    
22        <meta property="og:description"
23              content=' | Cogito, Ergo Sumana | Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder'>
24    
25    <meta property="og:type" content="website">
26
27
28
29
30
31
32    <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary">
33    <meta name="twitter:site" content="@changesetllc">
34    <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@changesetllc">
35    <meta name="twitter:title" content="About | Cogito, Ergo Sumana">
36    
37        <meta name="twitter:description"
38              content=" | Cogito, Ergo Sumana | Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder">
39    
40    <meta name="twitter:domain" content="harihareswara.net">
41
42
43    <title>About Sumana Harihareswara | Cogito, Ergo Sumana</title>
44
45    <link href="/static/css/style.css" rel="stylesheet">
46    <link href="/static/css/media-queries.css" rel="stylesheet">
47    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/animate.css">
48
49    <!-- Bootstrap core CSS -->
50    <link href="/static/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
51
52    <!-- Font -->
53    <link href="/static/css/font.css" rel="stylesheet">
54
55    <!--Font Awesome -->
56    <link href="/static/fontawesome-pro-6.1.1-web/css/all.css" rel="stylesheet">
57
58    

58<script src="/static/css/lightgallery.css"></script>

58
59    

59<script src="/static/css/fullscreen.css"></script>

59
60
61
62</head>
63
64<body>
65
66
67<!-- Header -->
68<header class="fixed-top blog-top">
69    <div class="nav-top">
70        <div class="container">
71            <nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg row">
72                <a class="navbar-brand col-xl-4 col-lg-4 col-md-4 col-sm-6 col-7" href="/">
73                    <img src="/static/img/changeset-logo-blog.svg" class="img-fluid" / alt="Changeset.nyc">
74                </a>
75                <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarNav"
76                        aria-controls="navbarNav" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
77                    <i class="fas fa-bars"></i>
78                </button>
79                <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarNav">
80                    <ul class="navbar-nav ml-auto text-xl-right text-lg-right text-md-right text-sm-center text-center">
81    <li class="nav-item ">
82        <a class="nav-link" href="/">Home</a>
83    </li>
84    
85    <li class="nav-item">
86        <a class="nav-link" href="http://harihareswara.net/collections/">Collections</a>
87    </li>
88    
89    <li class="nav-item">
90        <a class="nav-link" href="http://harihareswara.net/about/">About</a>
91    </li>
92    
93    <li class="nav-item">
94        <a class="nav-link" href="http://harihareswara.net/links/">Links</a>
95    </li>
96    
97
98    <li class="nav-item">
99        <form id="search-bar" action="/search/" method="get" >
100            <input type="search" placeholder="Search" name="query">
101        </form>
102    </li>
103</ul>
104                </div>
105            </nav>
106        </div>
107    </div>
108</header>
109
110
111    <!--Content-->
112    <div class="content-info mt-5 py-5">
113        <div class="container pt-5">
114            <div class="row">
115                
116                    <div class="col-12">
117
118                        <div class="title">
119                            <h1>About</h1>
120                        </div>
121                    </div>
122                
123
124                <!-- Clients -->
125                <div class="col-12">
126
127                    <div class="content-client py-5">
128                        <!-- Box -->
129                        
130                            
131
132<div class="container">
133      <div class="row">
134        <div class="col-xl-8 col-lg-8 col-md-8 col-sm-12 col-12 offset-xl-2 offset-lg-2 offset-md-2 offset-sm-0 offset-0">
135          <div class="blog-article mb-5">
136            <div class="body-post">
137<div class="photo text-center mb-4">
138    <img alt="sumana-head-shoulders-shot-by-jeff-fortin.jpg" class="img-fluid" height="1201" src="/media/images/sumana-head-shoulders-shot-by-jeff-fortin.width-1200.jpg" width="1200">
139
140    <div class="info-photo text-center mt-2">
141        <p>Head-and-shoulders picture of Sumana Harihareswara, taken by Jeff Fortin
142            
143        </p>
144    </div>
145</div>
146</div>
147          </div>
148        </div>
149      </div>
150</div>
151
152
153                        
154                            
155<div class="container">
156      <div class="row">
157
158          <div class="blog-article mb-5">
159            <div class="body-post">
160<p data-block-key="omdwq">I&#x27;m Sumana Harihareswara. I&#x27;m the founder of <a href="http://changeset.nyc/">Changeset Consulting</a>, providing project management services to open source software projects. Since 2007 I&#x27;ve been contributing to and leading open source software communities.</p><p data-block-key="ksefs">More generally, I&#x27;m a programmer, technology executive and open source expert who practices and teaches technical and people skills (<a href="/documents/3/sumana-harihareswara-resume.pdf">my resume</a>), and a reader, writer, and stand-up comedian. <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/sumanah">I&#x27;m on LinkedIn</a>, <a href="http://github.com/brainwane">GitHub</a>, <a href="http://gitlab.com/brainwane/">GitLab</a>, <a href="https://social.coop/@brainwane/">Mastodon</a>, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/harihareswara.net/">Bluesky</a>, and <a href="https://www.metafilter.com/user/98835">MetaFilter</a>, and was on <a href="https://twitter.com/brainwane">X/Twitter</a> and <a href="https://brainwane.cohost.org/">Cohost</a>.</p><p data-block-key="gu0ag">I often give public <a href="http://harihareswara.net/texts/talks/">talks</a>, including keynote addresses at conferences. And in my spare time, I write this blog and write for other venues, and sometimes perform stand-up comedy and make the occasional zine, program, or fanvid. <a href="http://harihareswara.net/texts/writings/">Here&#x27;s a list.</a></p><h3 data-block-key="26m9a">Interests and background</h3><p data-block-key="g1q8r"><b>Family</b>: My parents hailed from Karnataka, a state in southern India, where the native language is Kannada and the people are Kannadigas. Like my parents, I am a Hindu. For several years <a href="https://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2005/03/06/2">they edited and published</a> the Kannada/English magazine <i>Amerikannada</i>, many issues of which now reside in the <a href="https://search.library.berkeley.edu/

160permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991035200919706532">collections</a> of the University of California at Berkeley. My sister, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nandini">Nandini Harihareswara</a>, is an executive in digital financial inclusion. <a href="http://www.crummy.com/">Leonard Richardson</a> and I got married in April of 2006. Leonard is the wit who came up with the title &quot;Cogito, Ergo Sumana.&quot;</p><p data-block-key="a01mo"><b>Places</b>: I live in New York, New York in the United States of America. I was born in the northeastern US and moved through Pennsylvania, Missouri, and northern California before coming to New York. If you think you went to school with me, you probably did. In 2001 I spent a summer studying in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 2012, and then again in 2014, I did the Coast-To-Coast walk across northern England.</p><p data-block-key="eoocr"><b>Education</b>: I earned a bachelor&#x27;s degree in political science at <a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/">the University of California at Berkeley</a> and a master&#x27;s in technology management at <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/">Columbia University</a>, and participated in the Fall 2013 and Fall 2014 batches of <a href="http://recurse.com/">the Recurse Center (formerly Hacker School)</a>. In 2016 I became a certified <a href="https://carpentries.org/community/instructors/">Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry instructor</a>. As of January 2024 I have a <a href="https://www.nols.edu/en/wilderness-medicine/">NOLS</a> certification in Wilderness First Aid.</p><p data-block-key="uj8ia">Want to become a better programmer? <a href="https://www.recurse.com/scout/click?t=513d1d21f35e6d69b407e1bd339a06e2">Join the Recurse Center!</a></p><p data-block-key="zyvoe"><b>Work</b>: Before founding Changeset, I worked at Cody&#x27;s Books, <a href="http://www.salon.com/">Salon.com</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch,_Inc.#History">Fog Creek Software</a> (later Glitch), <a href="https://www.orioninc.com/news/orion-acquires-behavior-design-and-cabeus/">Behavior</a> (now part of Orion), <a href="https://www.collabora.com/">Collabora</a>, the <a href="http://gnome.org/">GNOME Foundation</a>, the <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/">Wikimedia Foundation</a>, and several other places, such as a Voice-over-IP startup and a web hosting startup.</p><p data-block-key="o5y1b"><b>Community service, activism, and volunteering</b>: I <a href="https://otherwiseaward.org/about-the-award/motherboard">serve on the Motherboard of the Otherwise Award</a>, <a href="https://harihareswara.net/posts/election-assessments/">write about local elections</a> in my region of Queens in New York City, <a href="https://harihareswara.net/posts/2025/you-can-just-show-up/">run a weekly outreach table to help neighbors learn of events and volunteer opportunities</a>, and <a href="https://harihareswara.net/posts/transparency-in-government-code">push towards transparency in government data and in software used by my governments</a>. I also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sumanah">edit English Wikipedia</a> and contribute to other Wikimedia projects. From late 2019 till early 2024 I was a <a href="https://ssl.engineering.nyu.edu/people#visitingscholars">a Visiting Scholar at the Secure Systems Lab at New York University</a>. I also previously served on <a href="https://www.metafilter.com/board-rc.mefi">the global BIPOC advisory board for MetaFilter</a> (in the 2020s) and the advisory board and board of directors for <a href="http://adainitiative.org/about-us/">the Ada Initiative</a> (in the 2010s). Before that, I also volunteered at a local public radio station and my state legislator&#x27;s office.</p><p data-block-key="p5vj2"><b>Interests</b>: I&#x27;m interested in free and open source software, books, careers, good teaching, political science, political organizing, tax history, hiking, stand-up comedy, good cinema, innovation, COVID caution, science fiction and fantasy, the cultural/political aspects of technology, project management, and so on.</p><h3 data-block-key="wk6vl"><b>Contact</b></h3><p data-block-key="svzvc"><a href="https://www.harihareswara.net/documents/34/my-name.webm">How to pronounce my name. (1MB video, download.)</a></p><p data-block-key="b0nff">My pronoun is &quot;she&quot;. You can email me at <a href="mailto:[email protected]">sumanah`@`fastmail.com</a>. <a href="http://www.panix.com/~sumanah/pix/my-name.webm">Here&#x27;

160s a videorecording that demonstrates how to pronounce my name.</a> In case you want to purchase me something off <a href="http://harihareswara.net/texts/wishlist/">my wishlist</a>, my mailing address:</p><p data-block-key="hr859">PO Box 721160<br/> Jackson Heights, NY 11372<br/> United States of America</p><p data-block-key="gbja3"></p><p data-block-key="1f0i0">I used to share my PGP/GPG public key and fingerprint here, but it fell into disuse. Instead, I use Signal. I sometimes change my Signal username, so you can email me for it.</p>
161            </div>
162          </div>
163
164      </div>
165</div>
166
167
168                        
169
170                    </div>
171                </div>
172                <!-- /Clients -->
173            </div>
174
175        </div>
176    </div>
177
178<footer class="py-5 blog-footer">
179    <div class="container my-5">
180        <div class="row">
181            <div class="col-xl-6 offset-xl-3 col-lg-6 offset-lg-3 col-md-8 offset-md-2 col-sm-8 offset-sm-2 col-12 offset-0 text-center mb-4">
182                <img src="/static/img/changeset-logo-blog-white.svg" class="img-fluid px-4"/>
183                <div class="footer-by">
184                    <p>Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, <span>Changeset</span> founder</p>
185                </div>
186            </div>
187            <div class="col-xl-6 col-lg-6 col-md-6 col-sm-12 col-12">
188                <div class="footer-title">
189                    <p>Get in touch for a free initial 30-minute chat:</p>
190                </div>
191                <div class="footer-info">
192                    <p><i class="fas fa-phone-alt"></i> <a href="tel:+19292554578">+1
193                        (929) 255-4578</a></p>
194                    <p><i class="fas fa-map-marker-alt"></i> P.O. Box 721160 Jackson Heights, NY 11372</p>
195                    <p><i class="fas fa-envelope"></i> <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>
196                    </p>
197                    <p><i class="fa-brands fa-mastodon"></i> <a rel="me" href="https://social.coop/@brainwane">@[email protected] on Mastodon</a>
198                    </p>
199                    <p>&nbsp;</p>
200                    <p>This work is licensed under a <br><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><i class="fab fa-creative-commons"></i> <i class="fab fa-creative-commons-by"></i> <i class="fab fa-creative-commons-sa"></i> Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License</a>.</p>
201                </div>
202            </div>
203            <div class="offset-xl-1 col-xl-5 offset-lg-1 col-lg-5 offset-md-0 col-md-6 offset-sm-0 col-sm-12 offset-0 col-12">
204    <iframe
205scrolling="no"
206style="width:100%!important;height:220px;border:none !important"
207src="https://buttondown.email/Changeset?as_embed=true"
208></iframe>
209                
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222                        <div class="footer-info mt-4">
223                            <p><a href="/rss/"><i class="far fa-rss-square"></i> RSS feed</a> </p>
224                            <p><a href="/atom/"><i class="far fa-rss-square"></i> Atom feed</a> </p>
225                        </div>
226
227
228            </div>
229        </div>
230    </div>
231    <div class="signature float-right pr-3 text-white"><small>v180626 | Developed with &#9825; by <a href="https://aw-lab.net/en/" target="_blank">AWlab</a></small></div>
232
233</footer>
234
235<!-- Bootstrap core JavaScript -->

236<script src="/static/js/jquery-3.7.0.min.js"></script>

236

237<script src="/static/vendor/bootstrap/js/bootstrap.bundle.min.js"></script>

237

238<script src="/static/js/jquery.mCustomScrollbar.concat.min.js"></script>

238
239
240<!--Archives-->
241
242<!--Font Awesome-->

243<script src="/static/fontawesome-pro-6.1.1-web/js/all.js"></script>

243
244
245<!--Wow-->

246<script src="/static/js/wow.js"></script>

246

247<script>
248    new WOW().init();
249</script>

249
250
251<!--Icon Rotate -->

252<script>
253</script>

253
254
255<!-- Bootstrap core JavaScript -->

256<script src="/static/js/jquery-3.7.0.min.js"></script>

256

257<script src="/static/vendor/bootstrap/js/bootstrap.bundle.min.js"></script>

257

258<script src="/static/js/jquery.mCustomScrollbar.concat.min.js"></script>

258
259
260    

260<script src="/static/js/lightgallery-all.js"></script>

260
261    
262
263    
264        
265
266
267    
268        
269
270    
271
272</body>
273</html>