Amateur professionalism orprofessional amateurism (shortened topro-am) is a blurring of the distinction between professional and amateur within any endeavour or attainable skill that could be labelled professional in fields such as writing, computer programming, music or film. The idea was used byDemos, aBritishthink tank, in the 2004 bookThe Pro-Am Revolution co-authored by writerCharles Leadbeater.[1] Leadbeater has evangelized the idea (in "amateur professional" order this time) by presenting it atTEDGlobal 2005.[2] The idea is distinct from the sports term "pro–am" (professional–amateur), though derived from it.
An example of professional amateurism on a large scale is the internationalopen source andfree software operating system projectLinux which along with its many spinoffs has been developed by paid professionals at companies such asRed Hat,HP, andIBM working generally indistinguishably together with amateur professional coders.
Amateur professionalism occurs in populations that have more leisure time and live longer, allowing the pursuit of hobbies and other non-essential interests at a professional or near-professional knowledge- and skill-level. Am-pro fields today increasingly includeastronomy,activism, sports equipment (e.g. in surfing and mountain biking),software engineering, education, and music production and distribution.
