Thandava Krishnan Padmanabhan

RHCE of the Year, APAC, 2007

"[...] We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which makes everything possible."

Programmer

Thandava Krishnan Saidapet Padmanabhan has applied the skills and knowledge that he obtained through the Red Hat® Certified Engineer (RHCE®) program to a non-profit organization called donorweb.org. This project was started for the Singapore Red Cross in hopes of applying IT in community work to make processes more efficient. "One of the main departments that needed help was the Blood Donor Recruitment Programme (BDRP). They recruit, retain, and recall blood donors during times of necessity and emergency, and until the new program was produced, the department was doing this through phone calls and post mail," said Padmanabhan.

Padmanabhan created an application called SMS gateway. This is a web-based system for sending and receiving SMS that was built on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux® using the kannel open-source WAP/SMS gateway and a GSM modem. This application enables the Singapore Red Cross staff to inform, remind, and recall blood donors instantaneously and it costs significantly less than sending letters and making phone calls. Padmanabhan said that the savings was more than 80 percent. "We continued to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux on our other programs, such as a calender software for blood drives, forums, donor pledges, and so on," said Padmanabhan. "It has been nothing but successful, and when Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 was released, we automatically began updates and deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5-beta software for all of our applications."

Padmanabhan says his donorweb team is planning to deploy the Regional Resource Center (RRC) for information-sharing among the regional Red Cross establishments in South East Asia, all based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. "When I was asked if our server infrastructure can support such a critical resource, I answered back resoundingly that we are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which makes everything possible," said Padmanabhan.