People

Kevin Littlejohn

Kevin is a senior consultant with Obsidian. He has been working in the Internet industry since around 1993, primarily in systems administration and software design/coding. Kevin's main areas of expertise are traffic monitoring/measuring/billing systems, and network security. He has previously worked on traffic measuring systems for nation-wide ISP's, and general ISP-related systems and network management.

Susan Whitham

Susan has a Master of Technology (Computing) degree with an emphasis on Intelligent Systems from RMIT. She has previously worked as an Associate System Administrator for a national ISP before being involved in consultancy work designing and implementing dynamic web-database integrated systems providing interfaces for document retrieval and virtual ISP management systems. Specialty: Information Retrieval, and Database Systems.

Sharon Tyrer

Relationship and Marketing Manager, Sharon's previous roles have included IT Project Management with the Victorian State Government where she managed a large Open Source development project for the Department of Sustainability and Environment; Professional Development and Sponsorship Management in the not-for-profit sector including managing a large international teaching conference; and Account Management within corporate public relations with accounts including Twinings Tea and Universal Magazines. Sharon has qualifications in Social Science (Policy & Research) and Public Relations.

Simon Hookway

Simon has been active in the Internet industry since his involvement with a startup Perth based ISP in 1997. After that he played a key role in the design and planning of a proposed nationwide data network for HotCopper Australia (later abandoned), prior to their takeover by Bourse Data. Since then Simon has been consulting to ISP's and local businesses around Australia.

Simon has played key roles in the design and deployment of several data networks for ISP's, local businesses and national ASP's. While having his main focus on Network Infrastructure and Management, Simon has extensive experience in Customer Support, Software Design, Systems Administration and Network Analysis.

Sam Bartlett

Sam has been working largely with web based technologies since graduating from La Trobe University, Bendigo, as a Bachelor of Information Technology with a major in Software Development. Sam's background has largely been web based in Perl but he has experienced several other languages and technologies and is always looking to expand his skillset.

Ben Hennessy

Ben has a range of IT experience working as an on-site laptop technician, A retail repair/production technician, as well as several sales roles. He is now putting his experience and previous studies of systems/network management to good use providing support for a range of Obsidian services, including Zope, WWW, E-mail and general Unix/Linux, as well as managing internal systems.

Simon Hildebrandt

Simon is an experienced web developer who's worked with a wide range of scripting languages (Perl, PHP, Python, JavaScript) and internet technologies like AJAX and SOAP. He's passionate about IP licensing, usability, information design, innovative interfaces and the intersection of work and play. He's a computer Science graduate from RMIT and has previously worked with MyInternet and Jetstar Airways.

James Munro

James is currently completing a Master of Science (Research) and holds a Bachelor of Cognitive Science/Computer Science which led to his further study. He has studied and worked in the areas of meta-data systems, accessibility, usability, Braille production systems and neural networks. James has experience with a range of languages (Java, Perl, PHP, C++, lisp, XSLT)

Mark Dawes

Mark has had extensive experience with the design, development, deployment and support of a large variety of custom software solutions varying from survey websites, to Optical Character Recognition Software, to Massively Parallel data mining and AI applications.

Robert Davidson

Robert has been involved in the ISP industry since 1998, starting off as a junior systems administrator. He has also worked as a Linux consultant to various companies, including ISPs. Robert frequently volunteers his time and skills to a non-profit community program that runs it's own ISP and has also written and/or maintained a few small open-source projects.

Robin Vysma

Robin has been an IT professional since graduating from the Queensland University of Technology in August 1988. He has served as a developer for the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as the IT manager, for the Defence Security Branch in Canberra and as the manager of the Eastern Regional Information Centre, which he established for St John of God Health Care, in Ballarat. Robin holds a Master of Technology (Computing) from Swinburne, a certificate in management from The Australian Institute of Management and a Cert IV in Workplace Assessment and Training. He has had formal training in project management from AIM and with the Thomsett company through the Australian Computer Society. He has overseen a number of multi-million dollar IT projects in the health and defence industries with an enviable record for success. Robin has joined Obsidian to return to his roots and focus on development and open systems technology.