Meinhard Benn
Personal Details
Professional Experience
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01/2003 - current
Nomadic Web Monkey
Europe
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01/2008 - current
Web Consultant
Hamburg/Germany
- Adopting a Symfony based community and content rendering framework from German to several other languages
- Extending eZ Publish according to the needs of the different country editorial teams
- Hands-on coding (PHP mostly), quality assurance, planning, documentation
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07/2002 - 11/2002
Quality Assurance Tester
Vivendi Universal Games
Dublin, Ireland
- Dealing with internationalisation related software issues in Vivendi’s video games titles for PlayStation2, Xbox, GameCube and PC
- Bug reporting and regression, translation
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05/2002 - 07/2002
Technical Support Agent
Compaq/HP Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
- Phone-based customer care for Compaq desktop products to Compaq resellers and contract customers in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
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12/2001 - 03/2002
Chief Executive Officer
netzteil AG
Schwerin, Germany
- Leadership and administration of netzteil AG, a start-up company that ran coint-operated Internet kiosks in German youth hostels and produced Linux-based kiosk software
- Management of 2 full-time and 10 part-time employees and sub-contractors
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08/2000 - 11/2001
Chief Technical Officer
netzteil AG
Schwerin, Germany
- Managing software and hardware development
- Business development
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03/2000 - 07/2000
Technical Manager and Co-founder
netzteil GbR
Schwerin, Germany
- Development of netzteil’s business model
- Technical development, prototyping hard and software
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10/1999 - 12/1999
Web Designer
Düsseldorf, Germany
- Integration of new functionalities to NBC Giga’s website as sub-contractor in collaboration with NBC employees
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06/1999 - 09/1999
Market analyst
silver.screen GmbH
Berkeley, USA
- Market research and contract negotiations in the San Francisco Bay Area for Hamburg based silver.screen
- Subject: American IT companies entering the European/German market
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07/1998 - 05/1999
Web Designer
Agency for New Media
Schwerin, Germany
- Self-employed, clients include: Sony Germany, Lycos Europe, McKinsey & Co Germany, silver.screen GmbH
- Running a local search engine at Schwerin.com
- 1 employee
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10/1996 - 01/1997
Web Designer
Hamburg, Germany
- Work on MME’s clients’ websites vh1.de, kraft.de, expo2000.de
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05/1995 - 09/1996
Web Designer
Schwerin, Germany
- Maintenance and development of Schweriner Volkszeitung’s website svz.de, Germany’s first local newspaper on the web
Tutor Experience
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06/2007
G8-TV live stream setup presentation
Oslo, Norway
- How to set up an Internet live TV station entirely in Free Software
- Presentation technical setup G8-TV 2007 live video stream
- 30 people between 18 and 40 years old
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10/2006
Sustainable Computing presentation
Sofia, Bulgaria
- Introduction to Free software: Speech, screening, discussion
- LTSP: Introduction, demonstration on recycled computers
- 15 people between 18 and 30 years old
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08/2006
Sustainable Computing workshop
Zajezova, Slovakia
- Introduction to Sustainable Development and Free software
- Speech and discussion
- 15 people between 20 and 40 years old
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01/2006 - 03/2006
Classes for in-house education centre
Schwerin, Germany
- Network security, Internet legislation and copyleft/copyright
- OOP in C++ and HTML/CSS scripting
- 10-20 people per class, between 15 and 30 years old
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07/2005
Workshops “LTSP diskless Linux workstations”, “Green Computing“
Dijon, France
- LTSP: Introduction, demonstration on recycled computers
- Green Computing: Creating awareness for environmental and social issues caused by the IT industry
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03/2005
Introduction to Free Software / Linux
Zagreb, Croatia
- Speech, followed by a projection of an interview with Richard Stallman and discussion
- 100 people between 18 and 40 years old
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08/2004
Free Software / Linux and Sustainability
Woudrichem, Holland
- Speech and discussion
- 15 people between 20 and 30 years old
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07/2004
Course in web design and project work
Berlin, Germany
- A one week contract for Körber's Eustory summer seminar at the Wannseeforum Berlin
- Teaching of a group of young people from all over Europe
- 10 people between 16 and 18 years old
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06/2004
Green Computing Workshop
Pula, Croatia
- Introduction to Sustainable Development
- Connecting environmental and social activism with alternative computing
- 12 people between 22 and 30 years old
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02/2004
Introduction to Free Software and Linux
Pula, Croatia
- Speech, discussion and practical exercises
- 15 people between 18 and 30 years old
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08/2003
Free Software / Linux and Sustainability
Sheshory, Ukraine
- Speech and discussion
- 12 people between 18 and 26 years old
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04/2003
Free Software / Linux in an office environment
Dublin, Ireland
- Speech, discussion and practical exercises
- 8 people between 23 and 35 years old
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08/2002
Free Software / Linux for small NGOs
County Clare, Ireland
- Speech and discussion
- 10 people between 18 and 26 years old
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06/2000
Web Design / HTML course (2 sessions)
Schwerin, Germany
- Speech and practical exercises with sample project
- Session 1: 6 people between 16 and 19 years old
- Session 2: 10 elderly people
Formal Education
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08/1991 - 06/1996
- Sprachgymnasium (Language Grammar school) Schwerin, Germany
- German “Abitur” with a result of 2.3 (1 = highest, 6 = lowest)
Job-related Skills
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Information Technology
- 11 years of experience with web technologies (XHTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, Perl, PHP/MySQL) and web design (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop, Flash, Freehand, Illustrator, 3D Studio Max, you name it)
- At /home in Linux, MacOS and Windows
- Ability (and habit) to learn a new programming language or technology within days
- Good friends with blog and wiki software and many other FLOSS web applications (eZ Publish, Drupal, Mantis, Gallery etc.): Installation, maintainence, template hacking and writing extensions
- Strong understanding of requirements for multi-lingual content
- Wrote web applications using AJAX and Google APIs
- Advanced knowledge in Python (wrote chat server), C++ (taught classes) and Java (via processing.org)
- Ruby on Rails beginner, but just waiting for a project to deploy and learn it properly
- Running and administration of Linux Internet servers providing low-cost web space for non-profits since 1998
- Integrated online payment systems (prepaid and credit cards) and set up MySQL databases (countless)
- Set up and ran secure web, mail, FTP and LAN servers with Linux
- Set up diskless workstations with LTSP on recycled computers
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Communication
- Provided national (Germany) and international (Greece, Austria, Spain) customer relations
- Represented netzteil AG at CeBIT computer fair Hanover 2001
- Provided training in programming languages to small and medium size groups
- Taught IT classes for youngsters and adults
- Facilitated various workshops and gave speeches covering topics of alternative computing
- Trained new staff members
- Familiar with Open Space technology
- Facilitated auto-organising grassroots hack and activist meetings
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Leadership
- Led software development through a network of freelance and part-time software developers for netzteil AG
- Supervised hardware development of Internet surf kiosks
- Management of self-employment business (nano corp) since grammar school
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Numeracy
- Controlled costs of hardware and software development
- Supervised accounting
- Accounted freelancing
- Organising my personal finances in a big Open Office sheet including balance graph ;-)
Additional Skills
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Languages
- Fluent in German (native) and English
- School knowledge in Russian (5 years) and Latin (2 years)
- Basic knowledge in Romanian
- General understanding of different European languages through travels
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Other
- Hand-drawing skills
- Drivers license for classes A, BE, C1E and L (cars, small trucks, motorbikes)
Interests
References
CV v4.3 - Feb 16th 2010