Sadly, I cannot be there this year, but JCON is definitely a premier event everyone should be trying to get to and make sure you chat with the IBM team that will be there!
Also, Cologne is an amazing city to visit!
Time flies when you’re connecting great people. 3 years already.
Being an IBM Champion was never about the badge for me. It’s about the conversations, the shared ideas, and building bridges between the IBM Java community and the wider Java ecosystem.
Looking back, it’s a lot of small moments. Meeting people at events. Spontaneous hallway chats. Turning “we should do something” into actual collaboration.
Next stop: JCON EUROPE ... IBM is joining as a Platinum sponsor and will be on site with some awesome folks. If you’re there, come by and check out the cool Java tech IBM has built.