I'm Vlad, an independent researcher working on software and philosophy that contributes to the public good. I specialise in Open Source software, low-level programming, 3D graphics, web technologies, the philosophy of economics, and political and social philosophy. Much of my current work revolves around safeguarding our global tech infrastructure by making the Open Source software ecosystem more sustainable.

Current projects:

• Peony Software — Developing next-generation spreadsheet software.
• The Open Source Pledge — Creating a new social norm of companies paying Open Source maintainers.
• thanks.dev — Helping companies identify and pay the maintainers they depend on.
• The Open Source Endowment — The first endowment aiming to solve the global Open Source sustainability crisis.
• The Hare programming language — A cosier alternative to C, useful for operating systems and video games.
• The Peony Game Engine — A 3D game engine built from complete scratch.
• clumsy computer — Teaching others to appreciate programming things from scratch.

I'm currently a researcher at:

• The University of Edinburgh — Doing a philosophy PhD on harmful social norms and work ethics.
• The Ideology Research Group — A group I co-organise dedicated to studying ideology broadly construted.
• Low Carbon Software — A not-quite-yet collective thinking about how to reduce carbon emissions caused by software.

I previously built:

• Saffron — A studio I spent 10 years running. We made software for places like the University of Oxford and the Gates Foundation.
• Submodule — We made a Game Boy cartridge reader to preserve your Pokémon save files.

Otherwise, I sometimes attempt, with mixed success, to make music, take photos, and think about languages.

^{Image by irasutoya.}