Nathan Torkington bio / election statement
Nat Torkington runs Kiwi Foo Camp, a informal invitation-only meeting for technology, business, media, arts, and politics in New Zealand. Nat has had a career in IT since 1992, when he started Victoria University's web site. He has worked at an ISP startup in Colorado, been an independent Perl trainer, and ran events and trend-spotted for O'Reilly Media where he chaired the Open Source Convention (OSCON) for a decade. He was briefly a cat-herder for the Perl project and remains on the board of The Perl Foundation.
Nat currently has a biweekly radio segment on the Radio New Zealand's "Nine to Noon". When he returned to New Zealand in 2005 after a decade in the US, he wanted to do something for his country to pay back for the good it had done him. He is on the Health Information Strategy Advisory Committee (HISAC) and Library Information Advisory Commission (LIAC), as "the man from the Internet".
Nat has two children attending primary school in Leigh. He is on the school board and volunteers in the classroom teaching computer skills and programming. He spoke about this at OSCON: <http://oscon.blip.tv/file/1137045/>.
Why am I standing for InternetNZ Council?
I recognise that the success of the Internet is wholly due to the end-to-end principle, and don't want to see that ruined by government or greed. I hope to bring my experience, international contacts, and calm no-nonsense attitude to support InternetNZ in its ongoing efforts to keep the New Zealand Internet open and uncaptured.
