VM (ak Vicky) spent most of her 20 years in the tech industry leading software development departments and teams, and providing technical management and leadership consulting for small and medium businesses. Now she leverages nearly 30 years of free and open source software experience and a strong business background to advise companies about free/open source, technology, community, business, and the intersections between them.

She is the author of Forge Your Future with Open Source, the first book to detail how to contribute to free and open source software projects. Think of it as the missing manual of open source contributions and community participation. The book is published by The Pragmatic Programmers and is now available in an early release beta version. It's available at https://fossforge.com.

Vicky is the proud winner of the Perl White Camel Award (2014) and the O’Reilly Open Source Award (2016). She's a moderator and author for opensource.com and a frequent and popular speaker at free/open source conferences and events. She frequently blog about free/open source, business, and technical management at http://anonymoushash.vmbrasseur.com