I call myself a technologist
but what does that mean?
Well...
It's a fancier way of saying I still haven't decided what I want to do with technology yet – except for everything.
So far, I've spent my career trying to avoid getting ‘proper’ jobs, and that's led me to some interesting places, and I've made some interesting things.
Currently, I'm a Developer Advocate for IBM, and previously, I was a developer in the Labs department of the Financial Times, and a Creative Technologist at Redweb Labs.
I consider my three main skills to be JavaScript, Python, and Arduino programming.
Writing
Over the past few years, I've also dabbled in being a technical writer.
Since 2013, I've published 2 books, and 48 articles across 3 internationally published magazines.
These articles are almost always tutorials, but I've also written features. The topics vary wildly, but most will have been about JavaScript, Python or Arduino programming.
Most of my written work is available online, and some of the code components can be found on my Github profile.
Awards
Along the way, some of the bits and bobs I've made in the last few years have been nominated for awards.
Since 2012, I've won 1 BIMA award, and have been a finalist for 2 more.
One of my projects won a Wirehive 100 award for 'Best use of tech', and another won a Media Innovation Award for 'Creative Craft'
I've also been a finalist for Brand Republics 'Rising Star' award and the Information is Beautiful Interactive Visualisation award.
In 2018, I won the IBM Developer Ecosystems Group Innovation Award for my W3ID middleware which enabled developers to quickly add SSO to their Node.js Express apps.
In 2020, I was part of the team that won the IBM UK Labs Internal Call for Code Contest. Together, we designed and built an app "Choirless" which enabled people in lockdown to sing together without all the problems of doing so on a video call.