Seldom without a computer of some sort since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1978, I have been a full-time Linux user since 2005, a full-time Solaris and SunOS user from 1986 through 2005, and UNIX System V user before that.
On the technical side of things, I have spent a great deal of my career as a consultant, doing data analysis and visualization; especially spatial data analysis. I have a substantial amount of related programming experience, using C, awk, Java, Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS and lately Groovy. I'm looking at Julia with great interest. I have also built a few desktop and web-based applications, primarily in Java and lately in Grails with lots of JavaScript on the front end and PostgreSQL as my database of choice.
Aside from that, I spend a considerable amount of time writing proposals, technical reports and - of course - stuff on https://www.opensource.com.
Authored Comments
Interesting comments, Rick.
Based on my own experience working in aboriginal contexts, I suggest that your idea that protecting and encouraging an aboriginal culture should be profitable to some external investor would not be found to be generally acceptable.
If you travel to isolated first peoples' communities in northern Canada or southern Chile, you will encounter many community leaders who are dismayed by the "siren call" of pop culture and are working hard to make their traditional ways interesting to the youth of their community. You will also encounter people (and not just young people) who have lost their cultural connection and are suffering for that.
Suggesting that those problems should, or even could, be solved by an external investor figuring out a way to profit from the exploitation of that culture could be a bit of a tough sell.
As to your comment "I would absolutely love to see someone step up to the challenge of better explaining why this problem hasn't already been solved", here are some thoughts for you
https://www.quora.com/How-can-we-help-promote-indigenous-languages-and-…
Thanks for the comment FabioLolix. Cantata does look interesting; I will take a look at it!