User:Vid

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I'm David Mason. I participate in a number of projects related to linking systems, mass participation and open, re-usable data in science, government, healthcare, and human rights. I have a particular focus on practical uses of the Semantic Web, client and server side Javascript, the participatory culture of wikis, and Free/Open Source systems situated in non-commercial startups.

I spent 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 businessperson, I sold my shares and spent a few years exploring the edges of the emerging net.

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

In February 2011 I had the opportunity to speak before a Canadian Parliamentary committee on the topic of Open Government. The text and media are here.

I designed Deflect, a robust system to protect media, democracy and human rights web sites. I served as a senior systems developer at Concordia University, while continuing to lead and support diverse projects in the evolving health system. In the past few years, I helped establish GovInvest.

I'm now open to new projects, especially data-driven participatory systems.