Apereo's Executive Director, Ian Dolphin, Announces Intention to Retire

By: Apereo Board Chair, Anne-Marie Scott

Our Executive Director, Ian Dolphin, has announced his intentions to retire at the end of June 2021.

All of the Apereo Board offer Ian our heartfelt thanks for his service and warmest wishes for a relaxing, long, and well-deserved retirement.

The Apereo Foundation was created by the 2012 merger of the Jasig and Sakai educational software communities. Ian was appointed the first Executive Director of Apereo, drawing on his long history with both the Jasig and Sakai communities.

Under Ian’s leadership over the last 9 years, Apereo has firmly established itself globally, with 70 members and memoranda of understanding with the LAMP consortium (USA) the ESUP-Portail consortium (France) and most recently the AXIES consortium (Japan). This brings the total number of organisations in the close Apereo network to just over 300.

A number of software projects have found both their home and a community in Apereo, many of them supported into maturity by the incubation process that Ian worked with community members to establish. Projects include OnTask, Xerte, Karuta and OpenCast, reflecting the breadth and diversity of open-source education technology that now lives underneath the Apereo umbrella.

Ian has also supported the global Apereo community through our flagship OpenApereo conference, creating opportunities to network, collaborate, and share; as well as through participating in many local conferences including Apereo Africa and ESUP-Days, and software project specific conferences such as OpenCast or Sakai.

Ian said: “It’s been an honour to work with so many talented members of the Apereo community over the years, and to gain insights into higher ed in so many countries. Apereo has a great role to play in networking open and affordable technology solutions for higher ed. I have complete confidence in our diverse Board stewarding Apereo into the next chapter”.

Board Chair, Anne-Marie Scott said: “On behalf of the Apereo Foundation Board I would like to thank Ian for his work over the years establishing and growing Apereo, and in promoting the potential of open source in higher education.

He leaves with our very best wishes, and will be sorely missed within our communities, where he has many friends as well as colleagues.”

As we consider the post-pandemic University, our vision for the role of open-source software in education has never been so important. The process of recruiting a new Executive Director will begin in the next few weeks. More information about the expected timetable will be shared on the Apereo open list.