Péter Gervai is a Hungarian Information Technology development engineer, the founder of the Hungarian Wikipedia and the chair of Wikimedia Hungary.
Education
He was one of the pioneers of Internet culture in Hungary, as operator of the LifeForce Bulletin Board System and the author of a snarky webpage about chain emails which was widely used to educate senders of such mail. 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 Bulletin Board System, which was among the pioneers in Hungary.
Career
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 the 27th of September in 2008. He has a diverse interest mainly focused on technical areas, computers, mostly internet access and service providing, security, network design and programming, but he also likes reading and writing literature.
Milestones
1984–1999, Bulletin Board System sysop, FidoNet node (and OtherNets nodes), moderator
1993–1994, KKVMF, software engineer
1994–1997, Budapest Bank, software engineer
1994–1997, ExaBit Baronet, Executive Director
1996– ObjectREXX course, (Operating system/2)
1997–2005, Cory-Net Kft., Technical Director
2008– President of the Hungarian chapter of Wikimedia Foundation (Wikimédia Magyarország Egyesület)
Hungarian Inventors" Day, Budapest, 2011, June 16. lecturer,
Open Government Data Workshop, Budapest, 2011.
May 20. (Friday, May 20, 2011 from 10:00 Department of Administration and Management – 7:00 Prime Minister (GMT+0100))
"Ten years of Wikipedia" conference, 2011, January 15, Buda Castle, National Széchényi Library
Ígéretes magyar internetes lexikon, 2004. July 13.,
Lelkesít a tudás átadása (A 168 óra interjúja Gervai Péterrel), 2005.
December 15.,
Eltűnik-e a könyv?, 2008. October 25., Bandung Institute of Technology-online,
A komolyság világjátéka, Népszabadság, 2008.
November 15.,
Sokak szerint az is nevetséges, hogy van szócikk a sámánokról, 2010.
December 20.,
Az Omegával kezdődött a magyar Wikipédia, 2011. January 24., Information Technology Cafe,
Modernkori kódexmásoló, 2011. February 1., Bandung Institute of Technology-online,
Encyclopedia on the Net: The Wikipedia Story, 2011.
March 13., 168 Óra Online.
Membership
2004–2008, Council of Hungarian Internet Providers - a Member of the Presidency.