Adrian Holovaty (born 1981) is an American Web developer, journalist and entrepreneur living in Chicago, Illinois. He is co-creator of the Django Web framework and an advocate of "journalism via computer programming."
Holovaty, a Ukrainian American, grew up in Naperville, Illinois. He graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 2001 and worked as a Web developer/journalist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lawrence Journal-World and The Washington Post before starting EveryBlock, a Web startup that provides "microlocal" news, in 2007.[1]
While working at the Lawrence Journal-World from 2002 to 2005, he and other Web developers (Simon Willison, Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Wilson Miner[2]) created Django, an open source web application framework for Python. He and Kaplan-Moss are the framework's Benevolent Dictators for Life, which means the two lead the frameworks development, resolve disputes and generally have the final say. Holovaty co-wrote The Django Book, whose first edition was published in 2007.
In 2005, Holovaty launched chicagocrime.org, a Google Maps mashup of Chicago Police Department crime data.[3] The site won the 2005 Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism[4] and was named by The New York Times as one of 2005's best ideas.[5] As one of the first Google Maps mashups, it helped influence Google to create its official Google Maps API.[6] Newspaper sites such as the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have incorporated a map from EveryBlock, the successor to chicagocrime.org, into their Web sites.[7]
In 2007, Holovaty was awarded a $1.1 million Knight Foundation grant and left his job as editor of editorial innovations at washingtonpost.com to start EveryBlock, the successor to chicagocrime.org.[8] On August 17, 2009 EveryBlock was officially acquired by msnbc.com. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.[9]
Holovaty is also a guitarist. In 1999, he recorded an album of his own guitar compositions,[10] and since 2007 he has posted videos of his acoustic guitar arrangements on YouTube, building an audience of more than 20,000 subscribers.[11]