Roni Bhakta

Roni Bhakta is an Indian full-stack and backend software engineer specialising in open-source digital library infrastructure, OPDS catalog protocols, and reading systems. Beginning his career as a 2025 Google Summer of Code Fellow at the Internet Archive, he co-created Lenny^[1] from scratch with his mentor Michael E. Karpeles (Mek), Program Lead of Open Library. Lenny connects directly to Open Library so libraries and communities can install their own instance on their servers, own and store their own EPUB copies on the internet, and share them over Open Library and its OPDS 2.0 feeds (powering reader.archive.org) without subscription-based commercial lending lock-in.

Alongside his role as Lenny Ecosystem Lead & Contract Open Library Engineer at the Internet Archive, Roni works under contract as a Backend Engineer at the European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab) in Paris — the non-profit laboratory that also oversees Readium (readium.org) and Thorium Reader. At EDRLab and Readium, he builds the global OPDS 2.0 Catalog Registry and the Readium Speech Server for Thorium Readers and other open-source reading apps. He also works closely with journalist and information activist Maria Bustillos at BRIET (briet.app) and The Brick House Cooperative as a consultant — where BRIET supports ongoing work on Lenny so libraries can own their digital books rather than rent them, and where Roni directly engineers briet.app and connects partner libraries to adopt Lenny.

In 2026, Roni was selected from over 25,000 applicants for Y Combinator's Startup School India, receiving $25,000 in AI and cloud credits. Using these credits to explore different markets and test ideas from scratch, he solo-founded the community event platform Espeya (espeya.com) and created the open-source side project ZON Format^[2].

Roni grew up in Solapur, Maharashtra, India. He completed a Diploma in Computer Engineering at A.G. Patil Polytechnic Institute (2019–2022), where he built his first student analytics system and published the research paper “Analytics of Student Database”^[3] (DOI: 10.15680/IJIRCCE.2022.1004113).

He completed his Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) in Computer Engineering at A.G. Patil Institute of Technology (AGPIT), focusing on data structures, distributed systems, full-stack web development, and cloud computing. During college, he founded the campus Google Developer Groups (GDG) chapter (reaching 450+ students), served as Code Club President and Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador, built team projects like Calxsecure with his B.Tech teammates, participated in a Stanford University PhD research study on AI coding tools in open-source software development, and transitioned directly into contract engineering at the Internet Archive.

In 2025, Roni was selected as a Google Summer of Code Fellow at the Internet Archive, mentored by Michael E. Karpeles (Mek), Program Lead of OpenLibrary.org. Within ArchiveLabs, Roni co-created Lenny^[4] from scratch with his mentor Mek — designing its core lending workflows, database schemas, OPDS feeds, one-time passcode authentication, and in-browser reading, along with a one-step installation script (lennyforlibraries.org/install.sh) that brought sidewalk libraries online with over 800 open-access ebooks. His work was featured in Open Library's Celebrating Our Community in 2025 review^[5].

Following his fellowship, Roni joined the Internet Archive under contract in November 2025 and serves as Lenny Ecosystem Lead & Contract Open Library Engineer across both the core Open Library platform and the ArchiveLabs open-source ecosystem. Within ArchiveLabs, Roni co-created and leads Lenny, the Lenny App (web administration dashboard), the Lenny Website (lennyforlibraries.org), and pyopds2_lenny. By connecting directly to Open Library, Lenny enables libraries and communities to install their own instance on their servers, own and store their EPUB copies on the internet, and share them over Open Library and its OPDS 2.0 feeds without subscription-based commercial lending lock-in.

On the core Open Library platform, Roni architected Open Library's official OPDS 2.0 catalog service (opds.openlibrary.org) and co-maintained its pyopds2_openlibrary data provider, serving millions of catalog records with faceted search, curated homepage shelves, language-aware browsing, real-time borrowable availability checks, and Memcached caching to power reader.archive.org (Internet Archive's Book Explorer). Within internetarchive/openlibrary, he also built the Trusted Book Providers (TBP) acquisitions database pipeline and feed registry, the automated Better World Books daily OPDS 2.0 catalog importer, borrowable ebook search filtering, direct PDF and EPUB reading links for open-access books, and contributed to the Public Readium Service (PRS) supporting Readium Manifest CLI and Thorium Web Reader integration.

Roni works under contract as a Backend Engineer at the European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab) in Paris. EDRLab is the non-profit laboratory that also oversees Readium (readium.org) and the Thorium Reader ecosystem (operated under the same organization across separated project scopes for standards vs. laboratory initiatives).

Across EDRLab and Readium, Roni is building two flagship production systems: the global OPDS 2.0 Catalog Registry (along with its web administration portal and Registry website for users), which serves as a global registry of digital library catalogs built into Thorium Reader worldwide; and the Readium Speech Server (live demo), an open text-to-speech server built for Thorium Readers and other open-source reading apps.

Alongside his work on Lenny, Roni works closely as a consultant with journalist, editor, and information activist Maria Bustillos — founding editor of Flaming Hydra, Popula, and The Brick House Cooperative, and co-founder of BRIET (briet.app)^[6].

Aligned with Maria Bustillos's advocacy for libraries and digital ownership, BRIET supports ongoing work on Lenny so libraries can own their digital books rather than rent them. Alongside demoing Lenny instances to partner libraries and installing it on their servers, over the past two months Roni stepped in to directly handle and engineer briet.app with Maria Bustillos and the BRIET team — connecting partner libraries to adopt Lenny and own their digital collections.

Selected from over 25,000 applicants for Y Combinator's Startup School India '26, Roni received the $25,000 YC AI Student Starter Pack in cloud and AI credits. Inspired by his mentors and large-scale production systems work, Roni uses these credits to explore unfamiliar markets, build products end-to-end from scratch, and test real market mechanics in the wild.

As part of this approach, Roni solo-founded Espeya (espeya.com) using his YC credits to explore and test the community event-hosting and ticketing market from scratch.

Earlier, in late 2025, Roni also started the open-source side project ZON Format (zonformat.org), a lightweight data serialization format for Python and TypeScript that cuts LLM token consumption by roughly 50% compared to JSON while remaining human-readable.

Roni's core stack includes Python and FastAPI, TypeScript, Next.js, and React, PostgreSQL and SQLAlchemy, Docker and Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, and Cloudflare, and generative-AI tooling.

• Lenny — Co-creator and ecosystem lead (alongside the Lenny App and Lenny Website). Open-source digital lending platform connected to Open Library that lets libraries install their own instance, own their EPUBs on the internet, and share them over Open Library and its OPDS feeds. Live at lennyforlibraries.org.
• EDRLab OPDS Catalog Registry — Global OPDS 2.0 catalog registry and Registry website built at EDRLab & Readium for Thorium Reader (GitHub), live at registry.thoriumreader.com.
• Readium Speech Server — Open text-to-speech server built at EDRLab & Readium for Thorium Readers and other open-source reading apps (live demo · GitHub).
• Open Library OPDS Service — Open Library's official OPDS 2.0 catalog service powering reader.archive.org.
• Public Readium Service (PRS) — Internal service at the Internet Archive supporting Readium Manifest CLI and Thorium Web Reader integration to enable secure in-browser reading of borrowed ebooks across Open Library and Lenny (GitHub).
• BRIET (briet.app) — Digital-lending platform built with Maria Bustillos and The Brick House Cooperative, connecting partner libraries to adopt Lenny (briet.app).
• Espeya (espeya.com) — Solo-founded event-hosting platform built with YC Startup School credits to test a new market.
• ZON Format — Open-source side project started in late 2025 for compact LLM data serialization (zonformat.org).
• Calxsecure — B.Tech team project built with college teammates exploring peer-to-peer payments, ledger consistency, and atomic wallet transfers (calxsecure.ronibhakta.in).

• “Analytics of Student Database”^[3], International Journal of Innovative Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, DOI: 10.15680/IJIRCCE.2022.1004113 (2022).
• Co-authored with Mek Karpeles: “Bringing Sidewalk Libraries Online”^[4], Open Library Blog, 29 August 2025.
• Personal technical blog at ronibhakta.in/blog documenting the GSoC 2025 journey and open-source engineering.

• Lenny (software)
• Zero-Overhead Notation format
• Internet Archive & Open Library
• European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab) & Readium.org
• Maria Bustillos & BRIET (briet.app)

1. ^ “Lenny: Open Source Lending System for Libraries”. lennyforlibraries.org. Retrieved 2026-03-30.
2. ^ “ZON: Zero-Overhead Notation Format”. zonformat.org. Retrieved 2026-03-30.
3. ^ “Analytics of Student Database”. IJIRCCE. DOI: 10.15680/IJIRCCE.2022.1004113. 2022.
4. ^ Bhakta, Roni; Karpeles, Mek. “Bringing Sidewalk Libraries Online”. Open Library Blog. 2025-08-29.
5. ^ “Celebrating Our Community in 2025”. Open Library Blog. 2025-12-25.
6. ^ “Maria Bustillos — Founding Editor, Flaming Hydra, Popula & The Brick House Cooperative”. mariabustillos.com. Retrieved 2026-10-21.

• Official portfolio (ronibhakta.in)
• Roni Bhakta on GitHub
• Lenny for Libraries
• EDRLab OPDS Catalog Registry
• BRIET (briet.app)
• Espeya (espeya.com)
• ZON Format