Drupal, the open source content management system that's the basis of the White House website along with thousands of others, is on the upswing. The grad school project of founder Dries Buytaert began as a message board but now boasts more than 600,000 users and developers, and over 11,000 plug-ins. And it's transformed into a commercial venture, Acquia, with a subscription service for learning and productivity tools, a cloud hosting platform and a "social website" development service. With $15 million in recent venture funding, the company plans to aggressively pursue foreign markets. In Singapore last week, Buytaert explained:

We are trying to be to Drupal what Red Hat was to Linux.

But a shortage of Drupal talent is holding the company back, Buytaert says. To address that, the company has come up with a plan to train and place Drupal developers and designers through what it calls Acquia U. To take part, though, you have to live in Boston or relocate there. The first session begins in January. It's open to "recent or imminent college graduates as well as individuals looking to change career paths," which to me sounds like most anybody, though those with computer science or engineering backgrounds will get preference. Those selected will become client advisers and receive six weeks of paid, hands-on training in Drupal and supporting LAMP skills. They'll rotate through Acquia's support, engineering and professional services teams, as well as through select partner projects. After the training, they'll be hired at Acquia full time or at a partner company. You can get more information here. Acquia plans to accept 10 applicants for the January session and to hold at least two sessions a  year. If it's successful, the program will be expanded with more sessions and more locations.