# Johannes Ernst (@j12t.org)

Profile: https://sifa.id/p/j12t.org
Headline: Engineer, founder, organizer
Location: Sunnyvale, California, United States

## About

J. P. Barlow: "Were you really thinking about coming up with a network that couldn't be decapitated by a nuclear attack?"  Paul Baran, inventor of packet switching: "No. I was trying to come up with a network that didn't have a head."  We need to get back to that one.

Specialties: Have successfully negotiated deals, written code, released products and held users' hands, raised venture capital, created industry groups and herded their cats, been wrong, been wildly early in the market, taken out the trash, brewed the coffee, put in a hardwood floor (ha!), been there for my kids (or so they say), and had fun!

## Experience

- **Vice Chair, Technical at CDIF Technical Committee, Electronic Industries Association** (1993 – 1998)
  CDIF was an early semantic interoperability effort for software/systems modeling tools with participation from the chief architects of several high-profile modeling and repository vendors at the time.
  
  Initially I was involved to represent a consortium of European car manufacturers and influence standards for their needs as customers, but I continued this work after having joined vendor Integrated Systems. Editor of the State/Event Subject Area, initiator and editor of Control Systems Design Subject Area, and Editor of the Object-oriented Analysis and Design Subject Area.
  
  Was Vice Chair, Technical, for several years, responsible for technical work across working groups.
- **Co-founder and founding Director at OpenID Foundation** (2007 – 2008)
  The OpenID Foundation is the standards-bearer for open, user-centric internet identity. I was one of the founders and served on the board of directors.
  
  Helped get it started, participated in the initial bounty program, and spearheaded customer research.
- **Advisor at Health 2.0 Conference** (2007 – 2008)
  Helped frame the "Health 2.0" meme, starting at an unconference, and then with the founders of the Health 2.0 conference. Was advisor to the conference for about a year.
- **Steward (alternate) at Identity Commons** (2006 – 2008)
  Alternate steward for the Open Source Identity System (OSIS) working group. The identity commons is a loose affiliation of identity-related projects with some common infrastructure.
- **Founder at Open Source Identity System (OSIS) initiative** (2006 – 2008)
  Conceived, and ran OSIS (“Open-source Identity Systems”), an industry group that developed open, interoperable digital identity technologies until about 2013. To my surprise, I was able to recruited CA, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Verisign and others as active participants.
- **CEO, Founder at Aviatis Corp.** (1998 – 2000)
  Started company to address unmet needs in the collaborative engineering software market: productivity web applications for geographically and organizationally distributed teams building integrated hardware/software systems.
  
  Conceived and built initial product LiveDoc based on a pioneering, model-driven Java P2P architecture.
  
  As the CEO, raised $3m+ in venture capital. Notable customers included BMW, DaimlerChrysler, JPL, TRW.
- **Founder, Chair at RTAD effort in the Object Management Group** (1998 – 1998)
  Initiated the real-time analysis and design (RTAD) effort in the Object Management Group. It brought together the OMG's Object Analysis and Design effort (which led to the UML) and the Real-time Special Interest Group, and produced substantial work over the next 10 years or so consistent with the original roadmap I had laid out.
  
  Recruited all major vendors of real-time analysis and design tools into the group.
  
  I stepped down to focus on my startup.
- **Co-Founder at FediForum** (2023 – present)
  Co-organizing FediForum, the unconference for the people who move decentralized social networking and the Fediverse forward. https://fediforum.org/
- **Co-chair, Social Web Community Group at W3C** (2026 – present)
- **Member of the jury, Open Social Award at Open Social Award** (2026 – present)
- **Advisor at Social Web Foundation** (2024 – present)
  The Social Web Foundation works to grow the social web aka the Fediverse in an open, healthy, and sustainable way--working with technologists and the public to build a new global town square that works for everyone."
- **CEO at Dazzle Labs Inc.** (2022 – present)
  A startup at the intersection between the Fediverse, identity/privacy/personal data and Personal AI
- **President and CEO at Indie Computing Corp.** (2014 – 2024)
  Developing UBOS, an open-source, multi-platform Linux distribution for personal servers and Indie IoT devices; UBOSbox Nextcloud, a ready-to-use, fully managed home server for private file management, calendar sharing and others, in the privacy of your home.
- **Co-Founder at MyData Silicon Valley** (2019 – 2022)
  Bringing the conversation of ethics, privacy and personal data into the heart of Silicon Valley.
  
  http://mydatasv.org/
- **Judge at COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge** (2020 – 2020)
  Coding/data science competition In partnership with Facebook Data for Good, the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the Joint Program on Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland (UMD), the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, Resolve to Save Lives and Catalyst @Health 2.0. I'm one of the judges.
- **Co-founder at Project App Assay for COVID-19** (2020 – 2020)
- **Founding Director at Me2B Alliance (now Internet Safety Labs)** (2019 – 2020)
  Member of the board of directors of this new not-for-profit.
- **Advisor at Lunera Lighting** (2017 – 2017)
  Transitioned into a technology/product advisory role from my previous role as system architect.
- **IoT System Architect (Contract) at Lunera Lighting** (2016 – 2017)
  Brought in to help Lunera to transition from hardware-only “dumb” LED lighting products to a recurring-revenue IoT software platform company.
  
  As the most senior systems architect on the team, I lead the design and implementation of all aspects of the system, including: the IoT software platform in the cloud, all firmware, communications, big data, machine learning, their integration and quality assurance. Introduced engineering processes and selected most tools.
  
  Recruited, supervised and mentored embedded and cloud developers, quality assurance, and devops; supervising off-shore application development team. Vendor selection. Wrote first version of the embedded C++ firmware, and various components in Java, Python, PHP and Perl.
  
  ALso helped them recruit a CTO from Google.
- **Co-initiator and co-organizer at Personal Cloud Gathering** (2013 – 2014)
  Informal monthly get-together for people building Personal Clouds and everything that relates. See http://personal-clouds.org/
- **CEO / Founder at NetMesh Inc.** (2001 – 2012)
  Among others:   Developed and marketed Java NoSQL graph database, InfoGrid.
  
  Conceived and implemented first decentralized, URL/PGP-based digital identity system for the internet.
  
  Developed, deployed and supported a mobile, real-time health records web / messaging application with asynchronous enterprise integration for emergency room physicians.
  
  Performed various enterprise architecture, systems design and technology advisory projects for enterprise customers in healthcare, internet security and oil and gas industries.
- **Staff Software Engineer at Integrated Systems Inc.** (1995 – 1998)
  Hired by this Silicon Valley-based developer of modeling/simulation tools and real-time operating systems "because you know the requirements of automotive customers first-hand".
  
  Led design and implementation of modeling tools integrations and a CORBA-based co-simulation product. Component architect on a user interface framework and build system.
  
  Technical expert on many customer calls. Performed customer training in Europe and sales training. Represented company in several standards organizations (EIA, Object Management Group, ISO).
  
  Integrated Systems was later acquired by Wind River and is now part of Intel.
- **Research Engineer at FZI (Forschungszentrum Informatik), Karlsruhe, Germany** (1993 – 1995)
  Performed contract research for companies such as BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, Siemens, etc. in the areas of co-creation of specifications for electronic / software car components, distributed simulation, tool integration, cross-functional and cross-organizational development methodologies, and the OSEK real-time operating system.
- **Research Engineer at BMW Research and Engineering** (1992 – 1993)
  BMW supported my master's thesis ("Dipl.-Ing. Elektrotechnik") and later funded a 100% position for me at the Universities of Erlangen and Karlsruhe. Working on cosimulation, rapid prototyping of hardware/software systems, development methodologies, supplier collaboration and others.

## Education

- **St. Bonaventura, Dillingen** — Abitur (1978 – 1987)
- **Univ Karlsruhe, Germany (now Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)** — Doctorate (1993 – 1998)

## Skills

- Web 2.0
- Open Source
- SaaS
- Mobile Applications
- Networking
- Business Management
- Databases
- Agile Project Management
- Open Source Software
- Product Strategy
- Big Data
- Thought Leadership
- Venture Capital
- Personal Data Protection
- Integration
- PaaS
- Mobile Devices
- Management
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- System Architecture
- Architecture
- Product Marketing
- Agile Methodologies
- Enterprise Architecture
- Entrepreneur
- Consultancy
- Start-ups
- SOA
- Cloud Computing
- Distributed Systems
- Security
- Software Development
- Software Engineering
- Software Design
- Linux
- Entrepreneurship
- Perl
- Web Applications
- Business Strategy
- Strategic Partnerships
- E-commerce
- Product Management
- Enterprise Software
- Scalability
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)

## Publications

- FediForum October has been announced

## Languages

- English, German

## Other profiles

- website: https://j12.org