Meet the Team.
We are small company of research addicts trying to promote quality research and make collaboration possible throughout the research process.
Our Values
Passionate
Some people call it OCD; others call it passion. We love good research. We want to make it easier to do good research. We believe that software should work the way researchers work, not the other way around. That is what drives us—crazy.
Quality Over Quantity
We figure that if you’re going to spend the time to do research, you might as well do it right. We want to make it easier for you to do good research. And after you’ve done a great job, we want to help you show it off. (You know you want to.)
Small And Focused
We’re small…and we like it that way. Being small helps us to move faster and be more responsive to the needs of our customers. It also helps us keep our expenses down. Even when we cross the divide from a struggling startup to a profitable company (hopefully sooner than later) we want to stay small and connected.
We Eat Our Own Dogfood
Necessity is the mother of invention. At least it was for us. We’re genealogy junkies and needed something that would help us keep track of our family history research. In our hunt, what we found was a surprising lack of software that really understood the research process (in genealogy or any other research field). So we decided to make it ourselves. We thought it would be selfish not to share it, so here we are!
Committed
We are committed to making research easier. This is our primary objective. We also want to keep data open. To do this we are building on open standards. We are trying to accomplish something great. We are determined to see it through—for the long haul.
Open
Openness is all about collaboration. For us, this means open research, open source, and an open business model. We wouldn’t be here without the open contributions from many in the technology and research communities. We are happy to have a chance to contribute back. We invite you to join with us to build something amazing together.
Our Mission
Pentandra’s mission is to open up the knowledge of the world, so that light and understanding will be more accessible to everyone.
We hope that the effect of our mission will be to help bring open research into the mainstream, so that human, enterprise, and organizational silos will be opened and true research collaboration will take place, making it easier for anyone to participate in the research process, seeking truth in a spirit of mutual cooperation, across disciplines, subjects, and skill levels, allowing knowledge to be shared with clarity and in context, so that the bringing together and organization of the knowledge of the world will be accelerated.
We have set out to achieve our mission through the following means:
- Creating, implementing, and promoting open standards that further open research and help transition research to the World Wide Web.
- Developing open-source infrastructures and tools that preserve the process of knowledge creation and make open, transparent, real-time, collaborative, cross-discipline research possible.
- Helping researchers, organizations, and funding agencies discover and transition to policies and incentives that reward collaborative open research, providing consulting services and technical or moral support when needed.
- Educating interest groups, governments, and the general public about the short- and long-term benefits of open research, and supporting their efforts as they work to expand the influence of open research on the world.
- Lowering the barrier of entry for the common man and practitioners to participate meaningfully in high-quality research projects, throughout the entire research process.
A Social Business
We looked at a lot of business structures and found that social business was the best fit for what we are trying to achieve. What’s a social business, you say? A social business uses business practices and methods as tools to tackle difficult problems of society. It’s a very new idea, so you could say we’re pioneering it.
Currently we’re organized as a benefit corporation, since there is not yet an established legal structure for social business in the USA. At least for the moment, this is the closest thing to it.
Investing
If you’re interested in investing, keep in mind that as a social business, dividends come in the form of social benefits to the world, not personal financial gain. If you’re still interested after that disclaimer, feel free to contact us.
If you like what we’re doing, but are not interested in the technicalities of investing, please consider donating. As we’ve started out, we’ve relied on the generous contributions of many to keep us going while we work to reach sustained profitability.
Our Roster
Core Team
Chris Chapman
Co-founder and Super Coder
Chris loves to tackle difficult problems and dreams (literally) about making research easier. He is our systems thinker.
Katie Chapman
Co-founder and Exception Thinker
Katie loves to solve a good puzzle and thrives on the details. She is also our finance and tax geek and actually enjoys it.