About Jon Camfield

I am a recent graduate of GWU's Center for International Science and Technology Policy at the Elliott School, where I focused on the applications of IT in international and/or community/educational development. This means I live in Washington, DC, even though I am a Texan. I claim Austin as my normal home, even though I never seem to spend much time there. I am the ICT Director at Youth Service America, where we promote global youth volunteerism.

I work in the non-profit field as a technology generalist (that's almost redundant in non-profit), and I am deeply interested in the applications of ICTs in development scenarios. I'm an active writer/editor of OLPC News.com, which tracks the One Laptop per Child project. One of my articles on the cost of the OLPC got included in Linux.com and slashdotted (?) .

I graduated in 1999 from the University of Texas' Plan II Honors Program, with minors in Spanish, Philosophy, and Science, Technology and Society (STS).

Post-graduation, I joined the dotcom goldrush, and worked at eCertain, a firm specializing in secure and legal online transactions. We lasted longer than many, but lost funding in the end. I learned way too much about security, attended DefCon, helped found the DefCon CoffeeWars, and enjoyed the dotcom life.

Post-bust, I did some contract webwork and miscellany while applying for Peace Corps and other positions abroad. In January 2002, I left the States to go teach English in Merida, Venezuela. In July, I left Venezuela for Peace Corps, where I worked as an IT Adviser to the Jamaican Ministry of Education.

Upon return, I applied for grad school and returned to Austin for a few months, where I worked for UT's technology commercialization office and defended my historic home against destruction (but lost in the end).

This website is hand coded, and an odd mix of "static" html and other tools. My HTML is CSS-driven, following the glish.com/css "Look Ma, no Tables" style of design. Most of the page elements (navigation, footer text, etc.) are actually included at the time of viewing by the web server (server side includes).