Ilya Zhitomirskiy (12 October 1989 – 12 November 2011) was a Russian-American

software developer Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, Computer programming, programming, software documentation, documenting, software testing, testing, and Software bugs, bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applic ...

and entrepreneur. Zhitomirskiy was a co-founder and developer of the Diaspora social network and the

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

free software that powers it.

Biography

Early life

Zhitomirskiy was born on 12 October 1989, in Moscow, Soviet Union, to Alexei Medovikov and Inna Zhitomirskaya. Both his father and maternal grandfather are mathematicians. In 2000, his family emigrated to the United States, eventually settling outside Philadelphia, where he graduated from Lower Merion High School in 2007. Zhitomirskiy first attended Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Acton, Massachusetts. He then studied mathematics, economics and computer science at Tulane University, University of Maryland, and New York University. In his free time, Zhitomirskiy

unicycle A unicycle is a vehicle that touches the ground with only one wheel. The most common variation has a bicycle frame, frame with a bicycle saddle, saddle, and has a human-powered vehicle, pedal-driven direct-drive mechanism, direct-drive. A two spee ...

d and was a competitive ballroom dancer.

Diaspora

At NYU, he studied computer science at The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, where he met the three friends with whom he founded diaspora*, a

social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

, in 2010. The project was conceived after the founders had attended a lecture by Columbia Law School professor and free software activist Eben Moglen in February 2010 about the threat to privacy posed by commercial Internet services. According to Moglen, Zhitomirskiy was "immensely talented" and "the most idealistic of the group... He had a choice between graduate school and this project, and he chose to do the project because he wanted to do something with his time that would make freedom".

Death

On the evening of 12 November 2011, Zhitomirskiy was found dead in his San Francisco home by police responding to calls about a suspected suicide. An autopsy report from the Medical Examiner's office formally ruled the death as a suicide in April 2012. He died from an intentional inert gas asphyxiation using helium. While press reports questioned whether the pressure of working on Diaspora had led to his suicide, Diaspora co-founder Maxwell Salzberg disagreed. Salzberg stated, "Yes, I agree that being a startup founder is stressful. But it wasn’t the stress of work that killed Ilya. He had his own issues. He was sick." Zhitomirskiy’s mother, Inna Zhitomirskiy, did not comment on reports of his history of mental illness, but she did say on his participation in Diaspora, "I strongly believe that if Ilya did not start this project and stayed in school, he would be well and alive today." '' The Village Voice'' said that Zhitomirskiy was "often described as the most idealistic and privacy-conscious member of the group" and declared his death "a devastating setback" for Diaspora.

References

External links

* . * *
Personal Website on GitHub
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhitomirskiy, Ilya 1989 births 2011 suicides 21st-century American businesspeople American computer programmers American technology company founders Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences alumni Free software programmers Lower Merion High School alumni Russian emigrants to the United States Suicides in California