Loved coming into Moscone and seeing the huge CommunityOne balloons in white and citron green. :) In the audience at CommunityOne! And now the lights are dimming!

Dave Douglas, Sr. Vice President, Cloud Computing Chief Sutstainabilty Officer at Sun opens CommunityOne with discussion around the Citizen Engineer. Speaking to the tough times economically and socially Dave says in these difficult times, the citizen engineer has never been more important.

So what is the engineer's role in society? In 20th century it was about the individual scientist working in top-down organizations. Today technology and the individual engineer is driven by communities that are participative and open. The citizen engineer is sitting at a crossroads and it's up to you to look at how you are participating in greater society from eco to tecno to social. Take your ideas to your churches, your communities, your schools and make a difference. How can the technology you create today solve a social issue? A ecological problem? An educational challenge?

Speaking of education, Dave brings up 4 of the best and brightest Campus Ambassadors to talk about the work they are doing through OSUM, which currently has 87,000 students participating in all manners of open source projects, clubs, and activities. All four are clearly excited to be hear and are doing amazing things with their individual campus clubs.

I particularly loved what one student said: "We all speak the same language: Open Source"

Calling all Citizen Engineers: What challenge will you be solving today? ;)