Werner Koch is the founder and principal developer of GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG), the widely used free implementation of the OpenPGP standard for encrypting and signing data and communications. He began developing GnuPG in 1997 and founded g10 Code GmbH in 2001 to support its continued development. Koch remains a core maintainer of GnuPG and serves as Managing Director of g10 Code. A longtime advocate for free software and secure communications, he is also a co-founder of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). In 2015, he received the Free Software Foundation’s Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his work on GnuPG
