** breaking news ** I've become a Java Champion!

Breaking news here folks! Yesterday, at the J-Spring conference in Bussum, Netherlands it was announced that I have been honored by being awarded the coveted title of Java Champion by an international panel of Java Leaders. The announcement was made during the keynote presentation of the J-Spring conference by Klaasjan Tukker, president of the NLJUG and a founding Java Champion himself. Besides Klaasjan I'm now the second Java Champion in the Netherlands.

Currently, there exist less than a hundred Java Champions out of a pool of over 6 million Java developers worldwide. Needless to say that I'm extremely proud of being selected into this special group of Java advocates! I'm thrilled!

If you're not familiar with the Java Champion program, check out their web site at java.net or read what Matt Thompson – Director, Technology Outreach & Open Source Programs Office of Sun Microsystems – has to say about it in an interview for Java Developer's Journal, below:

"The idea is to build a community of Java Champions that reflects the top echelon of contributors to the Java Community. I look at these folks as the heroes of the Java platform … They are truly both a wealth of knowledge for us to tap into, as well as a great resource to work with in making the Java platform easier to adopt worldwide".

The Java Champions program is sponsored by Sun Microsystems and is an effort to recognize leaders in the Java Community and invite them to participate in the development of the Java platform in collaboration with Sun engineers and Java Luminaries. Read the entire interview here.