The Java Champions Project

Who are the Java Champions?

The Java Champions are an exclusive group of passionate Java technology and community leaders who are community-nominated and selected under a project sponsored by Oracle. Java Champions get the opportunity to provide feedback, ideas, and direction that will help Oracle grow the Java Platform. This interchange may be in the form of technical discussions and/or community-building activities with Oracle's Java Development and Developer Program teams.

Members come from a broad cross-section of the Java community:

Java luminaries, senior developers, architects, and consultants
Academics
Authors of Java-related content (online & print) and industry conference speakers
Java User Group (JUG) leaders and the managers of Java-related portals

Java Champion Spotlight

Andres Almiray was bitten by the Java bug since the early days and has been involved in web and desktop application development since then. He has also been teacher of computer science courses in the most prestigious education institute in Mexico. His current interests include Groovy and desktop application development. He is a true believer of open source and has participated in popular projects like Groovy, Griffon, Grails, JMatter and DbUnit. He is a founding member and current project lead of the Griffon framework. He has spoken at several Java/Groovy and JUG conferences around the world. When not hacking around, he likes to spend time with his beloved wife, Ixchel.

You can see bios of all current Java Champions here.

Who is a good candidate?

Here are some of the guidelines for selecting new champions (one or several principles may apply):

Java Champions are leaders; ideal candidates are leading Java-related projects, JUG communities, and so on.
Java Champions are technical luminaries; the candidate should be a Java engineer or architect who is relatively senior and has lots of experience.
Java Champions are independent-minded and credible; Java Champions may author or publish content that is pro, neutral, or negative toward Oracle.
Java Champions are involved with some really cool applications of Java Technology or some humanitarian or educational effort. The application must be openly available to the Java community (vs. a company-proprietary or government-classified project).
Java Champions are able to evangelize or influence other developers through their own professional activities (via consulting, teaching, writing, speaking, etc.)

How are Java Champions nominated?

Nominees are named and selected through a peer review process. (Note that current Oracle employees are not eligible.) If you know someone who is a candidate based on the guidelines above, send us an email with the following information:

Their name
Their email address
Their profile: Engineer/Architect, Author, Professor/Instructor, Consultant, Trainer, Other
Name and email address of nominee's Java Champion sponsor
Reasons for nomination. Should include examples of work that reflect the profile of a Java Champion. Please include all relevant URLs.

The candidate's contributions to the Java community must be available to its members either online or in readily available print media. (Proprietary or government classified projects, while innovative, are not available to the general public.) Nomination MUST cite specific examples (URLs, book names, presentations, etc) of the candidate's direct contributions in order for them to be considered by the selection committee.

How are Java Champions selected?

Java Champions are an independent group who use a peer review process to select new members. A committee of Java Champions review qualified nominations and make recommendations to the group. The group must reach consensus to accept a nomination.