Tetsuya Kitahata

Tetsuya is open to network communications with all professionals across and over various disciplines as it is his strong belief that we are all citizens of the world and we can all learn/gain from each other in a mutually beneficial manner. Every new person met has the potential to be a true "MASTER MIND"​, we will only discover this by getting out and interacting.

Business development Consultant and Information Technology Consultant. Co-owner of the guesthouse in Southeast Asia. Backpacker. Ex-Sponsor (Bronze / Individual) of the Apache Software Foundation.

How will you contribute to the board:

I have long been very interested in fostering a healthy open source industry and engaging sponsors, and in fact have been pondering how a sponsorship culture can grow in the open source industry, including becoming the first individual to be a Bronze sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation.

cf. https://www.slideshare.net/jimjag/acus08-asf-sponsorship-presentation/21

I have been backpacking around South East Asia for several years, helping with education in many economically disadvantaged countries and the various materials needed for education.

If technology is the core of open source, then sponsorship is the secondary star that pairs with that core star.

As a board member, I would like to be able to use my own background in developing sponsorship to help OSI navigate the various perspectives of the open source industry in identifying future challenges, not just licensing, and to support sponsorship.

I have also been able to witness the importance of open source through information technology education, as it is very beneficial for the people there to have open source within easy reach even in economically disadvantaged countries.

I have also personally developed extensive sponsorship activities as an educational foster parent in disadvantaged countries and regions in South East Asia.

Why you should be elected:

When I was active in the open source industry as an individual sponsor myself, I have made proposals to many Japanese companies to become sponsors as well, but as you all know, Japanese companies do not often become sponsors. I will try to overcome these past problems by becoming a member of the OSI Board of Directors, and I have also tried to find out how I can offer the benefits of sponsorship and show the attractiveness of sponsorship not only to Japanese companies, but also to many companies from emerging countries and other nationalities. I would like to take several innovative measures.
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I also have experience from The Apache Software Foundation, where I set up a team to publish a Newsletter as part of the introduction of a marketing approach. I hope to also introduce a marketing approach at OSI that will bring together news from across the open source industry.

I have a bachelor's degree in Law from the University of Tokyo, Japan. I see it as very meaningful for me to be on the board of OSI, even as one of the enablers of diversity in OSI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tetsuya/