2017/06 - 2021/08. Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The Fantasy Network.

October 2016 – August 2021

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

The Fantasy Network, Bellevue, WA. - www.thefantasy.network

MARKET: Entertainment Media, Live Events, Online Events, Streaming, OTT, SVOD, Communication.

Turned the CEO’s vision into a reality from walking him through the business and technology scoping phases, to early R&D and prototyping, through the full software development life cycle (SDLC) of 5 full software versions (0 through 5.x).

Hawke in the news on Python.org - Plone SimpleWiki: https://www.hawkenterprising.com/news/hawke-in-the-news-on-python-org-plone-simplewiki

Narrative

Coming Soon.

Statistics, Roles, & Responsibilities

• The Fantasy Network (TFN) over-the-top (OTT) subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service delivers creator-owned genre television & film content in a more accessible, shareable, & discoverable way across the web & via IPTV apps on iOS, Apple TV, Roku, Android, Android TV, Amazon Fire, Amazon Prime Video, and many others.

• Personally built & developed from scratch, the MVP and 1.0 through 3.0 platform delivering end-to-end interactive movie & live streaming studio & on-site productions, broadcasting, community connected, & supply-chain delivery of physical & digital media products. Developed & implemented customized server, desktop, & mobile platforms. AWS DevOps lead and new DevOps staff trainer.

• Version 4 extended platform to support large-scale live real-time interactive conventions, communities, tabletop gaming, & other live events worldwide.

• Scaled Jitsi & Matrix to over 20,000 concurrent live video chatroom users in conventions/event settings on self-hosted hardware and cloud with customized opensource code. Nearest competitor in Hollywood spent over $30M & 3 years only to have their platform launch fail catastrophically. We successfully launched while saving TFN more than $1M USD in initially planned development costs, I was able to deliver entire working platform for only $10,000 in development costs, using a combination of opensource and custom code in just a few months.

• DETAILS: https://www.hawkenterprising.com/archives/resumes/experience/the-fantasy-network-chief-technology-officer-cto

• MARKETS: Entertainment Media, Live Events, Online Events, Video Conferencing, Multimedia, Streaming, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, eCommerce, OTT, SVOD, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, Communication, B2B, B2C, B2E, E2E

End-to-end movie and live streaming studio and on-site production, broadcasting, and supply chain delivery of physical and digital media products.

Later extended to large-scale live interactive events platform.

Taking the CEO's vision and turned it into a reality. Literally built and ran 1.0 of the platform in my living room. The Fantasy Network (TFN) over-the-top (OTT) subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service delivers creator-owned genre television and film content in a more accessible, shareable, and discoverable way across the web and via IPTV apps on iOS, Apple TV, Roku, Android, Android TV, Amazon Fire, and Chrome TV.

In developing architecture for TFN versions 1 through 3, from scratch I scoped, designed, built, modified, implemented, and extended, personally evaluated, installed, configured, cobbled together, hacked, & prototype tested over 80 technologies, eventually whittled down to 6 core technologies & other supporting products and third-party service providers fully integrated into a single sign on user-friendly experience. Integrating Gluu enterprise identity management, WP, Grenadine, Discord, Zoom, Jitsi, and other technologiesinto single sign-on (SSO) smooth user experience.

With version 4, expanded team size, hosting, partnerships, and developers, to expand the platform to additionally provide live-events support through integration with multiple platforms including Zoom and Jitsi, providing interactive participant audience of over 20,000 concurrent users for large virtual live international convention and film festival events, in video chat, panels, awards, ceremonies, game tables, and more.

A few example events hosted on TFN platform in 2020:

• Seattle Film Festival

• New Zealand WorldCon 78 CoNZealand and Hugo Awards

• Indianapolic GenCon Film Festival

• Australia Technorama

• Realm Makers

• USA ZoeCon

Version 4.5.x branch is now only in maintenance/security support mode, as we design, prototype, and implement version 5.0 as we add additional SSO integration for Mux, VidApp, Wordpress, WooCommerce, Miniorange SSO and API, and other technologies extending the platforms features and smoother user experiences.

Example events saved from cancellation in 2020 due to our platform:

• ZoeCon IV

• Technorama Australia 2020

• Realm Makers 2020

• 78th Annual WorldCon / CoNZealand / Hugo Awards

• GenCon Online Film Festival 2020

• Seattle Film Festival 2020

Hands-on administrative and custom modifications:

• Odoo / OpenERP, Moodle online learning platform, CollectionSpace museum collection management platform

• Jitsi Meet with Prosody, Jicofo, Jits-Videobridge, Rocket Chat, Odoo, Moodle, OpenEduCat, MatterMost, and many others.

• Zoom integration with our own internal SSO and subscribers

• Gluu, SSO, OAuth, OpenID, Passport, SAML, SCIM, etc.

• Modoboa email services platform

• Multiple API integrations

• SSO and other development and integration for:

  • Discord Integration, Application, Bot development, and extensions

  • Grenadine integration

  • Wordpress and WP modules customization and integration

  • Woocommerce

  • Miniorange

  • Uscreen

  • Jwplayer

  • Mux

  • VidApp

  • Patreon

  • Gumroad

  • Paypal

  • Discourse forum software

  • Plone

  • MediaWiki

• Linux distros: CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu

• DNS management and hosting

• Openbroadcast Server (OBS), Streamlabs, Youtube & Twitch live audience-interactive broadcasting events

• Various virtual hosting and cloud services: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, KVM. VirtualBox, KVM, vmware.

• Apache, Nginx, httpd

• HTML, CSS, XML

• PostGreSQL, MySQL

• Node.js (and many related apps), Bash, JavaScript

• Github

• Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Intrusion Protection Systems (IPS)

• Project Management\

Summary

Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The Fantasy Network 4.0 to 4.5 upgrade, April 2020 - Current. – Architect, PM, R&D, developer, systems & network administrator. www.thefantasy.network Included Hugo Awards WorldCon 78 New Zealand, GenCon Online Film Festival (www.gencon.com), and other international events supported on the platform. (Remote/Global).

Recommendations

• Ben Dobyns (COO)

Details

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

The Fantasy Network Corporation (“TFN”), April 2020 - Current

4152 Meridian St, Bellingham WA 98226

Company Phone:

Vancouver: +1.778.917.5220

Seattle: +1.253.241.1360.

The Fantasy Network subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service with a mission to deliver creator-owned genre television and film content in a more accessible, shareable, and discoverable way across the web and via IPTV apps on iOS, Apple TV, Roku, Android, Android TV, Amazon Fire, and Chrome TV.

Helped executive staff through scoping process, performed R&D of technologies, and built entire platform in my living room, migrating this live-working prototype to custom built dedicated hosting facilities. Managed development teams throughout the USA and India.

Extended platform to support live community interactive events with more than 20,000 simultaneous users in video chat, panels,film festivals, awards ceremonies.

Hosted on event platform: New Zealand WorldCon 78 CoNZealand and Hugo Awards, GenCon Film Festival, Australia Technorama, Realm Makers, & USA ZoeCon.

Working directly with CEO, as consultant, architect, PM, & as volunteer acting Chief Technology Officer, helped him scope out vision. Part-time 2016 through 2020 March. Then full-time March 2020 through August 2nd, 2020.

I created in-my-own-home working live prototypes a live-streaming media & interactive community platform, later setup at other facilities.

Under my leadership, working in close partnership with CEO, developed versions 1.x through 3.x of TFN Community & Movie Streaming Platform with bug-free releases. Part-time volunteer as acting CTO, on and off as needed October 2016 through October 2019. Had to step away October through January due to life-threatening illness (since recovered).

Asked to return in April 2020 to help them in crisis to massively extend TFN 4.x to become a full convention event platform working by July 2020, to support many smaller conventions, & the much larger WorldCon / CoNZealand. Finished final launch phase on nearly impossibly tight schedule with many added features. Platform smoothly supported live events streaming with over 20,000 active and interactive users.

More details here: https://www.hawkenterprising.com/archives/resumes/web/chief-technology-officer-at-the-fantasy-network-corporation

In developing architecture for TFN 1+, I personally evaluated, installed, configured, cobbled together, & prototype tested over 80 technologies, eventually whittled down to 6 core technologies & other supporting products.

As of July/August 2020, we are now working on wrapping up version 4.5.x, & scoping 5.x.

Global Events directly impacted:

* ZoeCon IV

* Technorama Australia

* Realm Makers

* 78th Annual WorldCon / CoNZealand / Hugo Awards

* GenCon Online Film Festival

Technologies include but not limited to:

* Gluu, SSO, OAuth, OpenID, Passport, SAML, SCIM, etc.

* Odoo / OpenRPG

* Discord Integration, Application, & Bot development.

* Grenadine

* Wordpress

* Ubuntu, CentOS Linux

* DNS

* Uscreen

* Patreon, Gumroad, Zoom, Jitsi, integration

* Plone

* Apache, Nginx

* MediaWiki

Collaborated with many third parties, vendors, VARs, streams providers, software developers, project managers, clients, also multiple off-shore services (India).

WorldCon

Events directly impacted:

* ZoeCon IV

* Technorama Australia

* Realm Makers

* 78th Annual WorldCon / CoNZealand / Hugo Awards

* GenCon Online Film Festival

SKILLS:

Executive Management, build most of development and administration team from scratch, build infrastructure from scratch, overseas developer contract negotiation and management, stakeholders scoping and negotiations, project management, Github, Gluu, OpenERP, Odoo, SSO, SAML, SCIM, OAuth, API, Single Sign On (SSO), Linux, 0Auth, MediaWiki, Information Security, Wordpress, Patreon, Incident Handling, Information Security Audit, firewall, Intrusion Detection System, Project Management, Networking and Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP), Security Audit, Research and Development, Risk Management, Systems Administrator, Network Administration, Computer system administration, CI/CD. Software development and requirement analysis, Microsoft, Public Communication. Multiple cloud technologies. Uscreen, Jwplayer, Mux, AWS.