Federal 100: Gunnar Hellekson

A Red Hat certified engineer, Hellekson is a founding member of Open Source for America (OSFA), an organization that encourages the adoption of open-source software by the government to improve its efficiency, effectiveness and transparency.

Hellekson has been a driving force behind OSFA’s Openness Report Card project, an evaluation of federal agencies based on a list of questions and metrics in response to the Open Government Directive, the Obama administration’s vision for a transparent, participatory, collaborative government.

“Gunnar has been instrumental in raising awareness of the benefits of open-source software and how the government’s use of open source can enable transparency while reducing costs, increasing performance and enhancing security,” said Tom Rabon, executive vice president of corporate affairs at Red Hat. “Gunnar has also actively promoted the benefits of open source through his work with the [Nationwide Health Information Network] Connect Code-a-Thon,” a marathon session of health IT coding in which programmers stamp out bugs, apply patches and perform other fixes to the Connect open-source software gateway.

Read more about the 2010 Federal 100 award winners.