Brian Boyer was inspired to pursue a career in journalism by a Knight News Challenge grant. After studying computer science at University of Illinois, he spent eight years designing and developing software and managing software development teams in Chicago.

As a programmer, he uses open source tools like Python, Django, Ruby and Rails, and have been doing so for the past few years. He is extremely well versed in all things Web (HTML, CSS, SQL, Javascript, etc.) and has worked at length with C#, VB.Net, ASP.Net, and many other Microsoft technologies to build enterprise server, Web and desktop applications.

Brian writes about the intersection of technology and journalism at hackerjournalist.net.