Acquia Co-Founder Dries Buytaert Recognized as a 2012 CIO of the Year
BURLINGTON, Mass. – May 3, 2012 – Acquia, the enterprise guide to Drupal, today announced that Dries Buytaert has been recognized by the Boston Business Journal and Mass High Tech as a 2012 CIO of the Year in the Emerging Technology category. Winners of the prestigious award will be honored during an awards presentation on Tuesday, June 12, from 7:30 A.M. to 10:30 A.M. EST at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel.
Recipients of the second annual award were chosen by a team of editors from the two publications. Winners were selected for exemplifying how innovation in the use of information technology and in IT strategy can bring success to an organization in driving profits or providing improved services to customers, end users or the public.
Dries Buytaert is the original creator and project lead for the Drupal open source web publishing and collaboration platform. Originally built from Buytaert’s Ghent University dorm room as a message board for his friends, Drupal has dramatically changed the pace of innovation and economics of web development by allowing site builders to assemble sites rather than code them. It has attracted a huge community of nearly 800,000 individuals in 228 countries, and today is the platform for more than 1.5 million websites worldwide. A leading figure in open source, Buytaert also serves as president of the Drupal Association, a non-profit organization formed to help Drupal flourish.
Buytaert is also co-founder and CTO of Acquia, a venture-backed software company offering products and services that enable organizations, such as Verizon, NPR, the World Economic Forum, Mercedes Benz and Twitter to leverage the power, technical innovation and economic value of Drupal. In 2011, Acquia was named to Forbes’ list of 100 Most Promising Companies.
A native of Belgium, Buytaert holds a Ph.D. in computer science and engineering from Ghent University and a Licentiate Computer Science (MSc) from the University of Antwerp. He has been selected as one of BusinessWeek’s Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and recognized as one of the Technology Review’s 35 top innovators under 35.
“It is truly an honor to be recognized as a top innovator in the IT ecosystem by the Boston Business Journal and Mass High Tech,” said Buytaert. “I share this recognition with the Drupal community and the entire Acquia team. Together we’re focused on optimizing the channels of content on today’s web, from Facebook to YouTube to Pinterest, with a platform capable of unifying the disparate systems inside of an enterprise today.”
The 2012 CIO of the Year honor comes on the heels of Acquia's recognition last month as one of Boston Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in Massachusetts.
About Acquia™, the enterprise guide to Drupal
Acquia empowers enterprises with the open source social publishing system Drupal. Co-founded by Drupal’s creator in 2007, Acquia helps customers manage their growth and scale their online properties with confidence. Acquia’s products, cloud infrastructure, and support enable companies to realize the full power of Drupal while minimizing risk, as it has done for nearly 2,000 enterprise customers including Twitter, Warner Music Group, Turner Sports, Intuit, World Economic Forum, Stanford University, Mercedes-Benz and NPR. See who’s using Drupal at http://www.drupalshowcase.com, and for more information please visit www.acquia.com or call 888-9-ACQUIA.