Congratulations to the Outstanding Contribution Award Winners for The Open Group OSDU® Forum, Houston, Texas, October 2024
During The Open Group Houston Summit in October 2024, Patrick Kelly, Chevron, OSDU Forum Chair and Jane McConnell, Spinning Yarns, OSDU Forum Vice Chair, along with Dennis Stevens, OSDU Forum Program Director and Steve Nunn,
President and CEO, The Open Group, proudly announced the winners of the OSDU Forum Outstanding Contribution Awards. The awards were hosted by Daniel Bachmann from ExxonMobil.
The full list of awards and winners can be found below:
- Community Impact
- Awarded to Tamas Kerekjarto [Shell], Steve Tomlinson [Shell], and Tartan Collier [ExxonMobil]
- Strength of Standards
- Carl Godkin [DGI], Bert Kampes [Shell]
- Technical Excellence
- Charith Tangirala [Thoughtworks] and Zhibin Mai [SLB]
- Outstanding Contributor
- Michael Arneson [INT]
After The Open Group Houston Summit, I caught up with some of the Award winners where they spoke about how they felt winning their respective awards.
Tamas Kerekjarto, one of the winners of the Community Impact award:
“It is a great honor and a little bit of a surprise to receive this award. Establishing and leading the Software Architecture subgroup has been a very exciting journey. I’d like to thank everyone for their continued participation and contributions, and would also like to encourage others to engage or join us. I believe we created a great venue and community to identify, discuss, and work on the deeper and more intertwining technical and technological dilemmas and opportunities the Platform continuously faces. I also feel that the next step for this group is to get even more connected and embedded into other interest groups and start driving more changes on the implementation level.”
Steve Tomlinson, one of the winners of the Community Impact award:
“I’m really disappointed that I could not receive the award in person and thank the OSDU Forum community for the award. I find working in the OSDU Forum very enjoyable and to get an award from my peers is icing on the cake. Many thanks to you all.”
Michael Arneson, winner of the Outstanding Contributor award:
“I was utterly shocked when I received the Outstanding Contributor Award.
It is an honor to be nominated by INT, and I want to thank INT and everyone who voted for me. Since 2019, I have been involved with the OSDU Forum, when INT added support for the OSDU Data Platform into IVAAP. During my involvement with the OSDU Forum, I have worked with the pre-shipping team to help validate and visualize seismic data. I have also worked with other teams and groups in the OSDU Forum to help validate, ingest, and visualize data ingested into the OSDU Forum. I am honored to have worked with so many good people involved with the OSDU Forum, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with others in the OSDU community.”
Zhibin Mai, one of the winners of the Technical Excellence award:
“It is truly an honor to receive this award, and I want to take a moment to reflect on the incredible journey that has led me here. My involvement with the OSDU community began in 2021, and since then, I’ve had the privilege of contributing to solving some of the most exciting challenges in the realm of index and search.
Tackling these challenges has always been a personal passion of mine, and I’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate with some amazing people along the way. One of the highlights of my contributions was working closely with Thomas Gehrmann to initialize the ADR for the Index Augmenter. Together, we were able to lay the groundwork for a solution that has made a real impact, and the process was as rewarding as it was challenging. But this achievement isn’t just mine. I owe much of my success to the fantastic people I’ve had the privilege of working alongside in the OSDU community.
It has been a pleasure to collaborate with so many talented contributors and supporters who share a common goal of driving innovation and excellence. I’d also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to SLB and my team at SLB. Their support has been instrumental in allowing me the time and resources to contribute meaningfully to the community. Without this backing, my involvement would not have been possible.”
As I continue on this journey, I remain deeply grateful for all the experiences and connections I’ve made so far. There’s much more work to be done, and I look forward to further contributing to the growth and success of the OSDU community.
Finally, congratulations to all those who were nominated and to the winners of the OSDU Forum Outstanding Contributor Awards. Thank you also to the nominators, as the success of the OSDU Forum is built upon the efforts and contributions from everyone.
Ash Patel – CDMP, Marketing Specialist, joined The Open Group in 2020, initially working in the Certification Team as a Certification Services Agent, before moving into the Marketing Team where he now works on marketing collateral, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and co-hosting The Open Group, Open Comments Podcast. Ash holds a First-Class Bachelor’s Degree in Media Production (BA hons) from Coventry University. He is based in the UK.
