Péter Gervai (born 7 January 1972) is a Hungarian IT development engineer, the founder of the Hungarian Wikipedia and the chair of Wikimedia Hungary. He was one of the pioneers of Internet culture in Hungary, as operator of the LifeForce BBS and the author of a snarky webpage about chain emails which was widely used to educate senders of such mail.

Personal life

Péter Gervai is married and has two children. Besides his native Hungarian, he speaks fluently in English and German.

Career

He graduated from Fazekas Mihály Gimnázium in 1990. Then he studied at Kandó Kálmán Műszaki Főiskola in Budapest. He worked at FidoNet as a moderator, and he was the maintainer of the LifeForce BBS, which was among the pioneers in Hungary. The starter of the Mozilla Open Directory's Hungarian part, He participated in several open source projects. He was elected as president of the newly formed "Hungarian Wikimedia Association" on 27 September 2008. He has a diverse interest mainly focused on technical areas,

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

s, mostly internet access and service providing,

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

, network design and programming, but he also likes reading and writing literature.

Milestones

* 1984–1999, BBS sysop, FidoNet node (and OtherNets nodes), moderator * 1993–1994, KKVMF, software engineer * 1994–1997, Budapest Bank, software engineer * 1994–1997, ExaBit Bt., Executive Director * 1996– ObjectREXX course, (OS/2) * 1997–2005, Cory-Net Kft., Technical Director * 2004–2008, Council of Hungarian Internet Providers - a Member of the Presidency * 2008– President of the Hungarian chapter of Wikimedia Foundation ( ''Wikimédia Magyarország Egyesület'')

Conferences

* Hungarian Inventors' Day, Budapest, 2011, June 16. lecturer, * Open Government Data Workshop, Budapest, 2011. May 20. (Friday, May 20, 2011 from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM (GMT+0100)) * "Ten years of Wikipedia" conference, 2011, January 15, Buda Castle, National Széchényi Library

Interviews

''Ígéretes magyar internetes lexikon''
2004. July 13.,
''Lelkesít a tudás átadása'' (A 168 óra interjúja Gervai Péterrel)
2005. December 15.,

2008. October 25., ITB-online,
''A komolyság világjátéka''
Népszabadság, 2008. November 15.,
''Sokak szerint az is nevetséges, hogy van szócikk a sámánokról''
2010. December 20.,

2011. January 24., IT Cafe,

2011. February 1., ITB-online,

2011. March 13., 168 Óra Online,
''"Nem gondoltam volna, hogy ez lesz belőle"'' - a magyar Wikipédia alapítójának portréja
2018. March 4., Business magazin, Budapest,

Publications

Wikipédia, az ötlettől a hírnévig. 2006. May 29.

Awards

* eFestival 2009 - ''Lifetime Achievement Award'' of the Hungarian Association of Content Industry for the establishment of the Hungarian-language Wikipedia.

References

External links

Peter Gervai

Peter Gervai on the Hungarian Wikimedia

Hungarian Inventor's Day

Hungarian Inventor's Day - video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gervai Peter 1972 births Living people Engineers from Budapest People from Debrecen