Hi, I'm David Mason. I spend most of the 1980s messing around with the constrained but fascinating computer systems of the day, programming in BASIC and Assembler. Then I got online via bulletin board systems, and working with others wrote software that was used on a network of systems.

In 1993, working with others I started the first consumer Internet Service Provider in Canada, Internex Online. Being more of an entrepeneur and hacker than a businessman, I sold my shares and spent a few years exploring the edges of the emerging net.

In 2003, I was technical lead of the world's first national foreign policy dialogue, recognized internationally. In 2005 I was part of a research team that, within Canada's largest hospital network, put patient records online, and established patient-provider and patient-patient communications.

Most recently I completed a Graduate Diploma in Community Economic Development, and am exploring and participating in a number of projects related to mass participation and open, re-usable data. I have a particular focus on Semantic Mediawiki, which expands on the flexibility of wikis to allow anyone to create and share their own data, queries and views, while providing a nicer front end. Free/Open Source software and content, participation and accessibility are main interests.

Current interests wiki,

Please feel free to contact me.