Coraline Ada Ehmke

Coraline Ada Ehmke

Big-time open source troublemaker and sworn enemy of the status quo.

I'm an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, activist, and software engineer with over 25 years of experience in the technology industry. I work diligently to promote diversity, equity, and justice in open source communities and the tech industry as a whole.

My work has appeared in the media in sources including CNN.com, the BBC, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, WIRED, The Guardian, The Register, The Mary Sue, Buzzfeed, Vice, The Verge, ZDNet, The Daily Beast, and Business Insider.

I'm best known as the creator of Contributor Covenant, the first and most popular code of conduct for open source communities. It's been adopted by over 40,000 projects including Linux, Golang, JRuby, Swift, F#, Rails, and the open source portfolios of organizations including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and Intel.

I was recognized for my work in the Ruby community with a Ruby Hero Award in 2016.

I'm a founding panelist on the Greater Than Code podcast, which explores the human side of software development. Our topics have included imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias, and social justice.

In 2018 I spoke at the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights on the topic of human rights abuses by technology companies.

In 2019 I created the Hippocratic License, an Ethical Source license prohibiting the use of open source in conjunction with human rights violations.

I am co-founder and executive director of the Organization for Ethical Source. We are a global, multidisciplinary community working to empower open source developers to fulfill their social responsibilities as creators, creating tools to ensure that their work is used for social good and in service of human rights.

I'm a prolific musician with a bent toward goth/postpunk/experimental. You can find me streaming live music recording and production most Sunday afternoons at 3pm US CT on twitch. All my music and and video projects, including work in progress, live at nosignal.zone.

You can also find me on Mastodon.