I haven't worked on an open source project before but what you're saying sounds reasonable. Can we just do a fork from the current github project?

It sounds to me like the author is MIA since we have heard nothing, neither a permission to continue or a denial, so it may be left up to us. But regardless we are going to need coders and someone to maintain the project.

I'd say yes, if you want to put up another post for contributors required that would be a start.