Speaker(s)
Matti Picus
Matti Picus is a core developer of PyPy, contributing to the internal numpy implementation _micronumpy and to the layer that allows python c-extension modules to run on the PyPy python interpreter. He has been active in the open source community both as a contributor, teacher, and presenter at conferences. He joins BIDS to work on NumPy.
Matti got his start in programming while earning his master's degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois in 1982, teaching undergrads how to write a DFT on VAX computers in Fortran. He used image processing on a Datacube board-based system at the core of a machine to sort date fruit in Israel's southern Arava region in the 80's that later moved to 386 PC hardware. He then left programming to become an electrician and electrical systems designer, working at an architectural firm that designed neighborhoods and community structures for the kibbutz movement. After a completing a doctorate in the area of statistics of sorting agricultural produce at the Technion in 1996, he was the second hire at a startup to add a virtual dressing room to online purchasing sites such as Lands' End. The product Click&Dress briefly went live on the German Otto Versand shopping site before the startup folded. Matti then turned his volunteer activity in ecological and coe-existance NGOs in the north of Israel into a career, managing and finding resources for various projects. He fell in love with python when he came back to the world of programming, working on image processing systems. He quickly became an advocate for the Open Source movement, and in his free time became involved with the PyPy project. Before coming to BIDS Matti was consulting for large companies wishing to integrate open source into their software stack in a safe and secure way, and teaching python to engineers whose primary language was matlab or C.
Matti has again turned his volunteer activity into working on open-source software fulltime, and is grateful to BIDS for this opportunity.