Welcome P2PU’s newest staff member Dirk Uys of South Africa. He’ll be joining our development whiz Zuzel Vera in making P2PU more awesome and more usable for all of us.
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P2PU: Dirk, we’re so excited to have a new staffer. What are you going to be doing for P2PU?
Dirk: I’m also very excited! I am going to be involved in the technical side of things. Specifically, I’m going to help out Zuzel with the development of Lernanta (the open source application running the P2PU website). I will also try to participate as much as possible in the other parts of the community.
P2PU: How did you find us? Have you worked in a open community before?
Dirk: I’ve been following Philipp’s blog [Director of P2PU], sharing-nicely.net, for some time now. So I always knew about P2PU. Then at the beginning of this year I saw that P2PU were looking for a software developer, so I thought that it is a good opportunity for me to set my skills to good use.
Before this I was involved with a private company, a semi-state agency doing some defense contracting and the horse racing industry. This will be the first time that I form part of an open community. I think that I have a lot to learn and I’m looking forward to sharing and cooperating with everyone!
P2PU: Imagine: time has no limits and you can learn anything outside your profession. What would you pursue?
Dirk: When I was still at school I used to love a television show called “The Pretender”. The show is basically about a guy capable of doing any job! I would love to be like that (less the pretending).
But to give a list that is not simply everything, I’d say that I would really like to learn to write a novel. One day I plan on writing a novel, but maybe only when I have small kids that will think that my writing is cool!
Other areas that I would really like to dig into are economics and philosophy.
P2PU: You’re from South Africa, the birthplace of shangaan electro music. Can you boogie like Shangaan dancers?
Dirk: I don’t know if all my limbs will stay attached if I attempt that. I can however “langarm“, but I’m not a big fan of the “langarm” music.
P2PU: That’s still pretty cool. Perhaps you can teach us your moves at the next P2PU event. In case you don’t know, we love music, and we love to dance.