Sanjiva Weerawarana is a CEO, software developer and open source evangelist. He is known for:

• His work on the Web Services standards including WSDL
  Web Services Description Language
  The Web Services Description Language is an XML-based language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a Web service. A WSDL description of a web service provides a machine-readable description of how the service can be called, what parameters it expects and what data structures...
  
  , BPEL, and WS-Addressing
  WS-Addressing
  WS-Addressing or Web Services Addressing is a specification of transport-neutral mechanisms that allow web services to communicate addressing information...
  
  .
• Founding WSO2, an Open Source middleware company.
• His involvement with the Apache Software Foundation
  Apache Software Foundation
  The Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, U.S., in June 1999.The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers...
  
  , including work on Apache SOAP, Apache Axis and Apache Axis2.
• Setting up the Lanka Software Foundation.
• Involvement with the Sahana FOSS Disaster Management System
  Sahana FOSS Disaster Management System
  The Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System was conceived during the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami. The system was developed to help manage the disaster and was deployed by the Sri Lankan government's Center of National Operations , which included the Center of Humanitarian Agencies...
  
  .

He is currently Chairman and CEO of WSO2 Inc.

WSO2

WSO2 is an open source application development software company focused on providing service-oriented architecture solutions for professional developers...

  He lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

. He is a visiting professor and lecturer at the University of Moratuwa

University of Moratuwa

The University of Moratuwa, located on the banks of the Bolgoda Lake in Katubedda, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, is a technological university in Sri Lanka. Apart from the academics including the undergraduate and postgraduate studies, university of Moratuwa presents a variety of social and cultural...

 and a board alumnus of the Open Source Initiative

Open Source Initiative

The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...

.

Background

Weerawarana attended Kent State University

Kent State University

Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...

, majoring in applied mathematics / computer science, before completing a PhD at Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

. He then joined IBM Research

IBM Research

IBM Research, a division of IBM, is a research and advanced development organization and currently consists of eight locations throughout the world and hundreds of projects....

 working in Hawthorne, New York, until he left to found the startup WSO2

WSO2

WSO2 is an open source application development software company focused on providing service-oriented architecture solutions for professional developers...

.

Open Source

Weerawarana has been involved with the Apache Software Foundation

Apache Software Foundation

The Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, U.S., in June 1999.The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers...

 since 2000 when he worked on the original Apache SOAP project. Weerawarana is an elected Member of the Foundation and is a committer on several projects. A complete and current listing of Apache projects in which he is involved is available here: Apache Committers.

In 2004 he founded the Lanka Software Foundation to encourage involvement in Open Source from Sri Lankans. And he is a director there.

Publications

Weerawarana has many research publications. A full list is available here: http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/w/Weerawarana:Sanjiva.html
Notable research publications include:

• Colombo: Lightweight middleware for service-oriented computing IBM Systems Journal 44
• Enterprise Services Communications of the ACM 45

External links

• Sanjiva Weerawarana's Blog - Sanjiva Weerawarana's Blog
• W3C Working Draft - W3C Working Draft on WSDL ver 1.2
• Sanjiva Weerawarana's profile Page - Sanjiva Weerawarana's profile Page
• WSO2 home page - WSO2 home page
• Lanka Software Foundation - Lanka Software Foundation
• Open Source Initiative Board Members - Open Source Initiative Board Members
• Sanjeeva Weerawarana in Business Week