Greg Newby (R.I.P. 1965 - 2025)

 Project Gutenberg
   Over 50 years ago the American, Michael Hart began assembling a digital library of eBooks which would be freely available to everyone. There are now over 75,000 works in the collection which can be accessed by anyone with a computer. Thousands of volunteers are involved and one of the major ones was the Canadian, Greg Newby who was born in Montreal. He died in Whitehorse on Oct. 21, 2025 and his passing is worth noting.
   A thorough obituary by John Last is found in The Globe and Mail, Oct. 31, 2025: "Project Gutenberg CEO Greg Newby Helped Put a Trove of Literature Online." It begins this way:
   "Greg Newby was eight years old when he wrote a letter to Santa Claus and finished it with a simple request: “Make sure other people get things too.” 
   It was that spirit of generosity that drove Mr. Newby throughout his life as he helped spearhead one of the most significant public service projects in modern internet history: Project Gutenberg, a massive online library of more than 75,000 free, public domain texts....
   He is remembered by his colleagues at the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the non-profit overseeing the Project Gutenberg collection, as a “Fourth Industrial Revolution visionary,” who helped marshal the chaotic, creative forces of the early internet to help serve the public interest....
   Mr. Newby quickly became “undoubtedly the most consequential volunteer” in the history of the project, according to Simon Rowberry, a historian and author of The Early Development of Project Gutenberg, c.1970-2000. "
   

   He was clearly an interesting fellow, who ended up in the very far north.
  "The following year, Mr. Newby relocated to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he soon swapped his massive collection of science fiction books for a collection of altogether different type: retired sled dogs. Always animal lovers, Mr. Newby and Ms. Kingsley already owned five dogs when they moved into a house with eight retired huskies onsite. “All of a sudden, we had 13 dogs,” Ms. Kingsley recalls.“
   At first … we had a ‘no more than seven dogs in the house’ rule,” she said. But Mr. Newby could not resist a puppy dog stare, sneaking more and more dogs into the house while Ms. Kingsley was away. “Soon, we had 16 dogs in the house.” His family says he cared for more than 80 dogs over his lifetime.Mr. Newby’s time in the North also saw him develop his passion for outdoor pursuits, nurtured throughout a childhood of family camping trips and Boy Scout excursions. While he participated in his first ultramarathon as early as 1998, he later competed in several 100-mile sled races and Arctic ultramarathons – resulting in frostbite to his toes.
   Mr. Newby cycled through several other jobs in his last few years: a stint at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, where he oversaw the purchase of a $100-million supercomputer; a role with Compute Canada, a national research group; and finally, a period as eServices manager at the Government of Yukon. He and Ms. Kingsley have called an off-grid cabin on the shore of Lake Laberge their home for the past five years. 
   But this remoteness did not isolate him from the community of internet pioneers he had helped nurture. On message boards across the internet, news of his passing was greeted with great sadness by former students and collaborators, who admired his stoic nature and steady leadership. His final years with Project Gutenberg saw the pioneering use of new artificial intelligence technology to convert thousands of public domain texts into audiobooks, in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Microsoft. The technology was made publicly available, for free. In 2023, Time magazine named it one of the best inventions of the year."
Sources: 
   Mr. Newby's website is here: "Greg Newby's Personal Pages."
   See the Wikipedia entry: "Gregory B. Newby." 
   More is found on the Gutenberg.org website. 
   For Canada, see also, Gutenberg Canada. 
The Bonus:
   Remember also, another massive volunteer project - INTERNET ARCHIVE.
"Closing the Book on 2025
   As another year comes to a close, we are so grateful to share all of the achievements and projects that 2025 brought us, with all of you—our amazing supporters and patrons. See below for some of our most significant moments from this year, none of which would be possible without your continued support. 
What We’ve Achieved
1 Trillion Web Pages Archive
   This year, the Wayback Machine archived its 1 trillionth webpage—making us the largest publicly available repository of web history. These web pages represent more than just numbers; they have a real impact on people's lives, research, and memory. Since 1996, the Internet Archive has worked with libraries and partners around the world to build a shared digital library of humanity’s online history: capturing websites large and small—from breaking news to forgotten personal pages—so they remain accessible for future generations. Details are provided here."