Page 603 - Asterisk™: The Future of Telephony

About the Authors

Jim Van Meggelen is President and CTO of Core Telecom Innovations, a Canadian-
based provider of open source telephony solutions. He has over 15 years of enterprise
telecom experience, for such companies as Nortel, Williams, and Telus, and has ex-
tensive knowledge of both legacy and VoIP equipment from manufacturers such as
Nortel, Cisco, and Avaya.
Jim was the architect of two of the world’s largest managed enterprise voice networks,
each solution serving roughly 20,000 users in more than 1,000 communities across
Canada and providing telecommunications in five different languages through six time
zones, administered completely from a central location. These networks pioneered the
use of extensive automation and database control in a branch voice network—func-
tionalities not generally available in proprietary telecommunications systems. Jim has
now moved on from the world of proprietary telecom, and is committed to open source
telephony.

Jim is one of the principal contributors to the Asterisk Documentation Project. He
enjoys teaching, public speaking, improvisational acting, and writing.
Leif Madsen is a graduate of the Telecommunications Technology program from the
Sheridan Institute of Technology and CEO of LeifMadsen Enterprise, Incorporated, a
documentation and consulting firm specializing in Asterisk. He was one of the first
Digium Certified Asterisk Professionals (dCAP), and assists with the Astricon confer-
ences and trainings organized by IPsando, LLC.

Leif first took an interest in Asterisk while attempting to find a voice conferencing
solution for himself and his friends. After someone suggested trying Asterisk, the ob-
session began. Wanting to contribute and be involved with the community, and
noticing the lack of Asterisk documentation, he co-founded the Asterisk Documenta-
tion Project.
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback
from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to
technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.
Jared Smith is one of those rare individuals whose beloved hobby is the same as his
profession. The son of a computer store owner, Jared wrote his first computer program
at the age of seven on his Commodore 64. The obvious choice of major for this geek-
in-embryo was Computer Engineering, and Jared received his Bachelor of Science
degree with a minor in Computer Science from Utah State University. He now has more
than a decade of professional systems administration and programming experience in
the simulation, market research, and web analytics industries. As a key architect of one
of the world’s largest Asterisk installations, Jared has a wealth of hands-on telephony
and VoIP knowledge, which he shares through users groups and various public speak-
ing engagements. He is an active member of the Asterisk community and a co-founder
of the Asterisk Documentation Project.