It's IBM Champion time! Time to celebrate the hard work of the folks who are the most to our community. Nominations are NOW Open The nomination period for IBM Champions will run from 3 September through 22 November for new nominations this year. Current IBM Champions who want to renew have through 9 November.   <-Deadline just extended! Want to re-nominate yourself or nominate a colleague or community member ? You can also nominate yourself! Tell us about your activity that advocates for IBM or IBM products, and supports the community.  ... [More]

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  IBM Champion Martin Otto is a Senior Solution Expert at Avantum consult AG .   Martin enjoys running the Cognos User Group D/A/CH. This year, Martin also planned and ran the group's spring conference. Best part about being an IBM Champion for Martin? Being connected to all of his IBM Champion colleagues through the Slack Channel!   Fun fact about Martin is he studied brewing science in Bavaria/Germany. Cheers to that!   To keep up with Martin and learn more about the Cognos User Group , head over to their LinkedIn page!   IBM Champions... [More]

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IBM Champion Gokhan Yildirim is the founder of Spektrum Teknoloji . With a focus on IBM Storage, Gokhan's most recent IBM Champion-related activity includes social media sharing in regards to the Beta Program for Spectrum Protect EAP. Outside of being a dedicated Champion, Gokhan is a CMAS SCUBA Diving Instructor! Who's up for a swim? Gokhan enjoys the awesome perks of being an IBM Champion, including event discounts. Discounts and perks aside, Gokhan especially enjoys helping and supporting those within the IBM Champion community. Keep... [More]

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IBM Champion Susan Barker is a Lead ACE/MQ/IIB/WAS Administrator at CDW . Her focus is around Cloud Integration, and she recently joined the WAS Advisory Board, MQ Beta Program, and ACE Beta Program. She's on a roll! Her favorite part of being an IBM Champion is getting the much-deserved recognition on LinkedIn, in conferences, at the workplace, and within the community. What you might not know about Susan is she enjoys farming in her spare time. Keep up with Susan by connecting with her over on LinkedIn . IBM Champions are experts and... [More]

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IBM Champion Harald Biedermann is a Team Leader for  OEBB-BCC GmbH in Austria. As an IBM Champion, Harald enjoys networking and leading the Austrian User Group. In his spare time, you can find him dancing Salsa, Bachata, AND Kizomba! Harald was also named an IBM Lifetime Champion this year, which means that not only does he do amazing work with IBM technology and support others as they try to do the same, but he puts energy and effort back into the program and stand head and shoulders above even the other amazing IBM Champion stars. Thanks to... [More]

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  IBM Champion Alexander L. Pawlik is a managing director at CWI Softwaremigrations GmbH. With a focus on IBM Z and Watson IoT, Alexander has enjoyed interacting with other people and sharing knowledge as an IBM Champion. He's reminded us that the year is only halfway over and there's still time to complete a few more Champion-related activities! What you might not know about Alexander is when he was younger he did Judo (martial arts). Most of the principles of Judo (maximum efficiency, minimum effort) are also valid for his daily work.... [More]

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IBM Champion Boudewijn Dekkema is a system engineer at  Belastingdienst in the Netherlands. As an IBM Champion, Boudewijn has focused on IBM Z. His most recent success involved getting IBM customers from the Netherlands together to talk about improving the PARMGEN procedure of OMEGAMON with developers, service support, and z OMEGAMON offering managers. Boudewijn's favorite thing as a Champion is getting people together to improve themselves and to improve the products they work with. One of the ways he does this is by being active within... [More]

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Nick Waters is a solution architect for  Barrachd . As an IBM Champion, his focus has been on analytics, data, and AI. He enjoys networking and answering questions at the IBM Community and favorite part of being an IBM Champion is connecting with other IBM Champions the IBM Champion's community and learning what Champs across the world are up to. He recently presented at London CogX about the journey from data to AI and his comments were featured in an article in Times Higher Education . To keep up with Nick, follow him on twitter at... [More]

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One of the things I love about posting a Champions in Action blog is that it generates a lot of questions about what other IBM Champions are doing AND reminds a lot of Champions to report their recent activities! So here's a quick overview of some of the top activities from our IBM Champions over the last month. Alex Asks Anything Alex Walter launched new episodes of his Alex Asks Anything podcast : April was with Binesh Bannerjee about Artificial Intelligence, and May was with Steve Richmond and Debbie Herbers about Maximo in the cloud.... [More]

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We are so grateful for the time and energy our IBM Champions spend in various activities, from running user groups, to writing blogs and books, to running video- and podcasts (and so much more). Our ongoing Champions in Action series recognizes those who are the most engaged advocates over a particular month or those whom you might not have met, so that you'll get to know the myriad activities they support and how you can learn from them. To be considered for most engaged advocate, our Champions have not only done amazing work, but have... [More]

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Each year, we select a few IBM Champions to become Lifetime IBM Champions. If you already think of the IBM Champions as the top 1% of IBM's external advocates and community members, you can think of these Lifetime Champions as the best of the best of the best. Over multiple years, these Champions have consistently not only excelled at the advocacy that makes them Champions, but they have also been invaluable to other Champions by mentoring and supporting them and by helping the larger program to flourish. Our goal is that when we announce a... [More]

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Think 2019 is this week! As always, IBM Champions will play a significant role in the event. Champion Chat Roundtables For now, I want to introduce you to Champion Chats. These are IBM Champion-led roundtables at Think. They are each about 40 minutes long and take place in the IBM Champion lounge, in the Moscone South lobby. Roundtable topics include sessions on user groups (in English and in Japanese), on IBM Storage, security, NodeRED, data science, Db2, Collaboration, Notes & Domino, Linux, Containers & Docker, Blockchain, IBM i,... [More]

Think 2019 is set to begin in a week! As always, IBM Champions will play a significant role in the event. We'll have a blog post out this week with more details on where to find them and what to put on your schedule. Champion Chat Roundtables For now, I want to introduce you to Champion Chats. These are IBM Champion-led roundtables at Think. They are each about 40 minutes long and take place in the IBM Champion lounge, in the Moscone South lobby. Roundtable topics include sessions on user groups (in English and in Japanese), on IBM Storage,... [More]

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After reviewing almost 2000 nominations, IBM is proud and happy to announce the 2019 class of IBM Champions. The IBM Champions program recognizes and rewards external experts and thought leaders for their work with IBM products and communities. The program supports advocates and experts across IBM in areas that include Blockchain, Cloud, Collaboration, Data & Analytics, Security, Storage, Power, Watson IoT, and IBM Z. An IBM Champion is an IT professional, business leader, developer, or educator who influences and mentors others to help... [More]

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