Canberra school student Pascal Klein has been named by Linux Australia as the inaugural winner of the organisation's People's Choice Community Member of the Year award, giving him a free trip one of the world's top Linux technical conferences.

Klein, a sixteen year old student from Canberra, was selected from a field of over fifteen candidates nominated by the Linux Australia community.  His prize consists of a complimentary ticket to the technical open source software (OSS) conference, linux.conf.au (LCA), and money to help cover travel and accommodation expenses. This year's linux.conf.au is to be held at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand from 23-28 January.

The coming year promises to be a big one for Linux and open source, with linux.conf.au being followed by the staging of Australia's first enterprise Linux and open source expo and conference, Linux World Australia, at Darling Harbour Sydney from 28-30 March

Competition organiser and Linux user group (LUG) Roundup podcast presenter Karin Purser said the decision to award the prize to Klein was unanimous.

"We felt his dedication to the community and work with a number of different projects, combined with his youth and obvious enthusiasm, meant he would get the most out of the opportunities presented by attending LCA," Purser said.

Klein said he was "blown away" with the prize and going to the conference will "allow me to speak to some of the best names in the business, like (Ubuntu Linux founder) Mark Shuttleworth."

Linux Australia vice president Pia Waugh said the organisation is proud to be able to help "up and coming" community members to fulfill their interest in open source.

"Getting Pascal to Linux.conf.au will no doubt help him in the future, and also benefit the community," Waugh said.

Waugh said this year's conference is "going to be great" with several overseas speakers including Linux International's Jon 'Maddog' Hall, PHP creator Rasmus Lerdorf, and Mark Shuttleworth.

"Being able to attend will give Pascal access to some of the best and brightest both from the local community and the world," Waugh said.

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