Adrian Holovaty (born 1981) is an American Web developer, journalist and entrepreneur living in Chicago, Illinois. He is co-creator of the Django Web framework and a noted advocate of "journalism via computer programming."

Holovaty, a Ukrainian American, grew up in Naperville, Illinois. He graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 2001 and worked as a Web developer/journalist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lawrence Journal-World and The Washington Post before starting EveryBlock, a Web startup that provides "microlocal" news, in 2007. ^[1]

While working at the Lawrence Journal-World from 2002 to 2005, he and other Web developers (Simon Willison, Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Wilson Miner ^[2]) created Django, an open source web application framework for Python. He and Kaplan-Moss are the framework's Benevolent Dictators for Life, meaning the two lead the frameworks development, resolving disputes and generally having the final say. Holovaty co-wrote The Django Book, whose first edition was published in 2007.

Aside from Django, Holovaty has released a number of open-source tools and experiments ^[3] with the general theme of making data useful to people -- including a 2004 "site-specific browser extension" for the All-Music Guide ^[4], that later inspired Aaron Boodman to create Greasemonkey ^[5].

In 2005, Holovaty launched chicagocrime.org, a Google Maps mashup of Chicago Police Department crime data. ^[6] The site won the 2005 Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism ^[7] and was named by The New York Times as one of 2005's best ideas ^[8]. As one of the first Google Maps mashups, it helped influence Google to create its official Google Maps API ^[9]. Newspaper sites such as the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have incorporated a map from EveryBlock, the successor to chicagocrime.org, into their Web sites.^[10]

In 2007, Holovaty was awarded a $1.1 million Knight Foundation grant and left his job as editor of editorial innovations at washingtonpost.com to start EveryBlock, the successor to chicagocrime.org. ^[11] On August 17, 2009 EveryBlock was officially acquired by msnbc.com, the terms of the deal were not disclosed.^[12]

Holovaty is also an accomplished guitarist. In 1999, he recorded an album of his own guitar compositions ^[13], and since 2007 he has posted videos of his acoustic guitar arrangements on YouTube, building an audience of more than 10,000 subscribers. ^[14]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Holovaty.com -- personal site
• EveryBlock
• YouTube videos