Today I decided to nominate myself as a candidate for a position on Drupal Association At-Large Director.

You can read more about the election process at Nominations Open for Drupal Association At-Large Director.

Important dates

• Self Nominations: 1 February 2015 through 20 February 2015
• Elections process: 9 March 2015 through 20 March 2015

So let me tell you something about me and my motivations to propose my name.

About Me

Colombian by birth, Costa Rican by choice, I have spent the last 13 years living in that narrow piece of land between North and South America. I co-founded and had been running a successful Drupal workshop called AnexusIT. I am 38, married and father of two brilliant kids: Axel and Zoe. I enjoy long walks through the hallways of Drupal Groups and have a knack for putting together community events.

I got into Drupal 6 in early 2008 after working for many years building websites from scratch using PHP and after many months contributing to a couple of PHP projects with the intention to automate the way websites were built.

Experience

My first Drupal project was a real challenge just because the deadlines were very tight (surprise surprise) and I had no idea how to start working on that thing. I was even the one who had to lead the way and teach others. Anyway, the process was very frustrating but yet that the project was delivered with a delay of a few days I ended up hating the project but loving the CMS platform.

My first contact with the community was in 2009 at the 1st Drupal Camp Centroamericano in Nicaragua where I did two lectures and learn a lot about the community and how strong the product could be.

After two years working for other’s companies doing Drupal, I decided to start the first Drupal oriented workshop in Costa Rica around 2010. AnexusIT was the first company of it’s kind in Central America. I lead the technological and technical areas of the company. I get to wear many hats, but Chief Technology Officer is my official title. My favorite role though is Drupal developer, where I get to motivate, lead, supervise and encourage my peers while still coding for at least 8 hours every single day.

After the Drupal Camp Centroamericano in Nicaragua, I started organizing Drupal Meetups in Costa Rica and building up the Drupal community in Costa Rica. As a result, we organized the 1st Drupal Camp Costa Rica (and 3rd Drupal Camp Centroamericano) in late 2011. We have been hosting this event in Costa Rica yearly with the latest edition being held in August 2014.

During all this time I was leading the community in Costa Rica without an official title, because we lacked a formal structure. To remediate that, in January 2015, we (the community) founded an NGO called “Drupal Costa Rica” where I am the co-founder and first President. We are planning on using the NGO to facilitate the chores of putting together Drupal activities in Costa Rica.

Motivation

In recent years the DA has started looking more world-oriented with the inclusion of members from Europe and Australia, but even that the vision is still through the eyes of people from highly developed countries.

After some conversations with a friend from Vietnam Tom Soqyu about experiences of activities aimed at building a Drupal community and tasks oriented to create the First Drupal in Vietnam we detect we face similar problems because we live in non-developed countries or emerging markets if you want to use another term.

So what ideas I will support in Drupal association, well I love initiatives to sponsor speakers to training people in developing countries especially if they speak the language of emerging country and French and English in many countries in Africa. If I get a position in Drupal Association, I will support the project in that direction.

So based on my experience of 5 years working with Drupal as Developer, Community Lead and Company Owner in a developing country I want to bring to DA a different perspective about our challenges and ideas about how to improve the presence of Drupal in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Contact me

Feel free to ask me any question via facebook, twitter, email or using the comments in this post.

So as you can imagine I’m asking you to vote for me. But also I invite you to check all candidates and determine who match better with your mindset and your feeling. Also, don’t forget to invite your friends to vote.