About Bill Bourne - Life Behind Bars

While I’ve not given up my love of software technology completely, I’ve moved from coaching software developers to coaching young cyclists. I’m a National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) trained coach, and coach youth in the OBC’s Youth Development Program. I’m a Cycling Canada CanBike instructor, and I teach riding skills, traffic safety, and ride leading to adults.

I also volunteer, both in Ottawa and at the Mattamy National Cycling Center velodrome in Milton. I help within in my bike clubs, as well as helping to run cycling events.

Through the OCISO Career Mentoring Program, I also mentor international professionals who are new immigrants to Canada - supporting them in their quest to establish themselves in a career in Canada.

And of course, I ride… a lot! My passion is track cycling, as well as getting off the beaten path on rural gravel roads.

I started programming in 1972 (Fortran, APL, assembler) While my university degree was in Electrical Engineering, my whole career has been software related. I became a manager in the 1980s, although I tried to keep current on software technology as it evolved.

I’ve been a principal founder of a video games start-up, had 2 games on the Billboard top 40, and wrote applications for Apple and Microsoft. I’ve spent 25 years in the telecommunications industry developing firmware for phones, embedded software for optical network elements, and network management. I’ve been an architect, a product manager, and held various management positions over the years, including senior manager and director level positions.

I started Macintosh programming in July 1983 on a prototype 128K Mac with a Lisa “twiggy” disk drive. And I still love Macs… I’ve got a BSD-like UNIX, MacOS, and Windows all running on my MacBook Air. It’s the perfect machine!