Rahul is the CEO of the FOSS United Foundation, which works to support and promote the Free & Open Source Software ecosystem in India. He has been contributing to the FOSS ecosystem for more than eight years, both through code contributions and by giving talks about various FOSS technologies. See Long intro and Pictures below.
- I'm a special individual member of the TeX Users Group. The resume that helped me land my previous job was made using TeX/LaTeX, and my Master's Thesis was written using LaTeX
- I'm a Supporting Member - Sliding Scale of the Python Software Foundation (PSF). Python made me want to write software again after horribly failing my undergrad course on programming with C
- I made a one-time donation to the NumFOCUS foundation. I used a number of their sponsored projects - NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib - during my undergrad and at my previous job
- I made a one-time donation to KDE. KStars was my first exposure to Free and Open Source Software as an astronomy geek
- I support Kovid Goyal via GitHub Sponsors. Kitty is my go-to terminal, and Calibre is my go-to e-book manager
- I support Mastodon via GitHub Sponsors. We need a decentralized social media platform
- I donate to forgejo/Codeberg. I'm not happy with the direction GitHub is going, I'm joining the "out club" with Daniel Stenberg
- I'm a Normal member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation. Digital maps are central to our lives, and we shouldn't have to rely on closed platforms like Google Maps
I also pay for the following SaaS subscriptions because they directly support FOSS
- I purchased storage from Zotero
- I purchased a SaaS subscription for Ente, an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos, Apple Photos, etc.
Rahul is the CEO of the FOSS United Foundation, the Head of Software at Softcircuits Labs, and an Advisor to the Saryan Vigyan Foundation.
He pursued B.S. & M.S. in Physics from IIT Madras, and got interested in Programming and Free & Open Source Software when creating simulations for toy physics models. After graduation, he lucked into a Scientific Software Developer role at Enthought, where he built software to solve Scientific and Engineering problems. While at Enthought, he got to work from Pune, India, Chennai, India, Austin, Texas, USA, and Cambridge, UK over eight interesting years. He started contributing to FOSS projects in the Scientific Python ecosystem while at Enthought, eventually becoming a maintainer for a few FOSS projects created at Enthought.
He got lucky again when he received a Scholarship from the FOSS United Foundation to pursue the Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (Tech & Policy) course by the Takshashila Institution. He started volunteering with the FOSS United Foundation afterwards, speaking at various FOSS United events, helping organize IndiaFOSS 2023, and organizing HydFOSS 2023. He eventually joined FOSS United full-time in May 2024 and has been with the Foundation ever since.
He loves to teach and has given talks and workshops on various topics like Python Programming, FOSS, FOSS Policy, and Tech Policy in general.
His wife, Dr. Preeti Saryan, co-founded the Saryan Vigyan Foundation. He and his wife argue about two things - how to run an organization and how to raise their son, Luffy.
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