Péter Gervai (born 7 January 1972) is a Hungarian IT development engineer, the founder of the Hungarian Wikipedia and the chair of Wikimedia Hungary. He was one of the pioneers of Internet culture in Hungary, as operator of the LifeForce BBS and the author of a snarky webpage about chain emails which was widely used to educate senders of such mail.[1]

Péter Gervai
Péter Gervai in January 2011
Born
Péter Gervai

(1972-01-07) January 7, 1972 (age 52)
NationalityHungarian
Other namesGervai Grin Péter or grin (online alias)
Alma materKandó Kálmán Műszaki Főiskola
TitleFounder of the Hungarian Wikipedia
Board member ofWikimedia Hungary
Awards
Lifetime Achievement Award
eFestival 2009
Websitehttps://grin.hu/
Wikipedia Hungary meeting with Jimmy Wales
2005.10.16.
"The first presentations team."
Gabor Hanak, Frank Schulenburg, Szilveszter E. Vizy, Peter Gervai, Maria Ludassy, Tamas Vicsek
Open Government Data Workshop Budapest
Péter Gervai, Rufus Pollock, Jonathan Gray
2011.05.20.

Personal life edit

Péter Gervai is married and has two children. Besides his native Hungarian, he speaks fluently in English and German.

Career edit

He graduated from Fazekas Mihály Gimnázium in 1990. Then he studied at Kandó Kálmán Műszaki Főiskola in Budapest. He worked at FidoNet as a moderator, and he was the maintainer of the LifeForce BBS, which was among the pioneers in Hungary. The starter of the Mozilla Open Directory's Hungarian part,[2] He participated in several open source projects. He was elected as president of the newly formed "Hungarian Wikimedia Association" on 27 September 2008. He has a diverse interest mainly focused on technical areas, computers, mostly internet access and service providing, security, network design and programming, but he also likes reading and writing literature.

Milestones edit

  • 1984–1999, BBS sysop, FidoNet node (and OtherNets nodes), moderator
  • 1993–1994, KKVMF, software engineer
  • 1994–1997, Budapest Bank, software engineer
  • 1994–1997, ExaBit Bt., Executive Director
  • 1996–          ObjectREXX course, (OS/2)
  • 1997–2005, Cory-Net Kft., Technical Director
  • 2004–2008, Council of Hungarian Internet Providers - a Member of the Presidency
  • 2008–          President of the Hungarian chapter of Wikimedia Foundation (Wikimédia Magyarország Egyesület)[3]

Conferences edit

  • Hungarian Inventors' Day, Budapest, 2011, June 16. lecturer,[4]
  • Open Government Data Workshop, Budapest, 2011. May 20. (Friday, May 20, 2011 from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM (GMT+0100))[5]
  • "Ten years of Wikipedia" conference, 2011, January 15, Buda Castle, National Széchényi Library[6]

Interviews edit

Publications edit

Awards edit

References edit

  1. ^ Lánclevelek küldőinek tanfolyama
  2. ^ DMOZ Open Directory Project
  3. ^ "Wikimédia Magyarország Egyesület". Archived from the original on 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  4. ^ Hungarian Inventors Day
  5. ^ Open Government Data Workshop, Budapest
  6. ^ 10 éves a Wikipédia
  7. ^ "eFestival 2009". Retrieved 2009-11-24.

External links edit